- Person
- Michael Schwerner
- Lived
- 1939–1964
- Field
- Civil rights
- From
- American
The story
When Michael Schwerner and his wife Rita arrived in Meridian, Mississippi, in early 1964, they took charge of the Congress of Racial Equality field office. Bob Moses, co-director of the statewide civil rights coalition, assigned them to organise a community centre and other activities there. They were the first white workers CORE had placed permanently outside the state capital, Jackson.
The need was great. Since 1890 Mississippi's constitution and laws had shut most Black citizens out of voting. To register, a Black applicant had to fill in a long form and interpret a section of the state constitution to the satisfaction of a white registrar, who usually turned them down. Community centres and Freedom Schools offered education and encouragement, and helped prepare people for these literacy and comprehension tests.
In Meridian the Schwerners set up a centre for Black residents as a base for grassroots organising. It was a place to meet, learn and plan, and it gave people the confidence to try to register despite the risks. A local young man, James Chaney, began working with them and became Michael's closest partner in the work, travelling with him to Neshoba County and beyond.
Schwerner also tried to reach across the colour line. He went door to door to speak with white working-class residents of Meridian, hoping to build understanding with them as well. He organised a boycott that won a local variety store's first Black employee.
The Ku Klux Klan targeted him after he and Rita took over the office, and spies paid by the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission tracked the activists' movements. Schwerner continued the work despite hate mail, threatening phone calls and police harassment.
Centres like Meridian's became a model for Freedom Summer in 1964, when organisers set up dozens of Freedom Schools, Freedom Houses and community centres, including libraries, in small towns across Mississippi. More than 3,500 students attended the Freedom Schools that summer, learning Black history and their constitutional rights as well as reading and arithmetic. The idea of a neighbourhood centre that combines learning with civic action remains central to community organising today.
Why it matters
The Meridian community centre gave Black residents a place to learn, organise and prepare to vote, building the foundations of the Freedom Summer campaign.
About Michael Schwerner
New York social worker who organised Black voter registration in Mississippi for CORE and was murdered by the Klan with James Chaney and Andrew Goodman in 1964.
More about Michael Schwerner
- Michael Schwerner went to Mississippi for $9.80 a weekIn January 1964 Michael Schwerner became the first white civil rights worker based permanently outside Jackson, Mississippi, working for CORE in Meridian for $9.80 a week.
- Michael Schwerner helped integrate Gwynn Oak ParkIn 1963 Michael Schwerner took part in the campaign to desegregate Gwynn Oak Amusement Park in Maryland, which had kept a whites-only admissions policy for decades.
- Michael Schwerner opened his fraternity to a Black studentAs a student at Cornell, Michael Schwerner campaigned successfully for his fraternity to accept a Black student as a pledge, an early sign of his commitment to equality.
- Michael Schwerner's boycott won a store's first Black hireIn Meridian, Michael Schwerner organised a boycott of a variety store that sold mostly to Black customers until it hired its first African American employee.
- Michael Schwerner planned a Freedom School at Mount ZionOn Memorial Day 1964 Michael Schwerner and James Chaney asked Mount Zion church in Longdale, Mississippi, to host a Freedom School and urged its members to register to vote.
- Michael Schwerner helped win the Voting Rights ActNational outrage at the 1964 killing of Michael Schwerner and fellow activists James Chaney and Andrew Goodman helped Congress pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
- Michael Schwerner protected a bullied boy, Robert ReichAs a boy Michael Schwerner protected the young Robert Reich from bullies; Reich, later US Secretary of Labor, said it inspired him to protect the powerless.
- Michael Schwerner worked with youth on the Lower East SideMichael Schwerner left graduate school to work as a social worker in a Lower East Side housing project, where he was known for his special rapport with teenagers.
Sources
- Michael Schwerner Wikipedia
- Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner Wikipedia
- Freedom Summer Wikipedia
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