Andrew Goodman Essay Example

Andrew Goodman was an American civil rights activist. He was born on November 23rd, 1943 in New York City. He went to college at the University of Wisconsin but later withdrew due to pneumonia. Then he attended the Queens College in New York City. In the summer of 1964, he volunteered for a special program to help African Americans in Mississippi. He was accepted into the program and traveled to Ohio for his training. 

In Ohio, he met other fellow activists, Mickey Schwerner and James Chaney. They all started working on a project called ‘Freedom Summer’ whose main objective was to register African Americans to vote in Mississippi. Mickey and James, who worked for Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) committee, were told to investigate an attack on Mount Zion Methodist Church, a black Mississippi church that had been recently burned by the Ku Klux Klan. Andrew volunteered to join them and the three of them traveled to Mississippi.

On June 21, 1964, when they were on their way to the CORE office in Meridian, the three men were arrested for speeding by the Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price (a Klan member). The trio was released later that night from the Neshoba Jail.

Price followed the trio after releasing them and re-arrested them before they were able to cross the border into Lauderdale County. He then drove them to a deserted area Road and handed them over to other Klan members. Klansmen then murdered the trio and dumped their bodies in a dam.