‘Mississippi Burning’ Anniversary Marked With Candles — and Attacks on Donald Trump

Image by FBI
WASHINGTON — A liberal Jewish political action committee is marking the anniversary of the murders of three civil rights workers with a call to action against Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Vigils will be held in four cities on June 21, the 52nd anniversary of the 1964 murders in Mississippi of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney, Bend the Arc-Jewish Action announced on Monday. The cities are New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Austin, Texas.
Additionally, people wishing to participate will later this week be able to order yahrzeit, or Jewish memorial candles and signs saying “We’ve seen this before” from the PAC’s website, and will be encouraged to post selfies online and to organize vigils in their hometowns.
“We are doing this both as commemoration and in memory of the values that they held and the legacy that they had fighting for democracy and fighting for a country that was free of political danger,” Stosh Cotler, the CEO of the PAC’s affiliated advocacy non-profit, Bend the Arc, told JTA.
Ku Klux Klan members murdered Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman, who were campaigning for black voting rights in the south. Schwerner and Goodman were Jewish and Chaney was African American. The three have become a symbol of black-Jewish cooperation, invoked by President Barack Obama among others.
“It is an opportunity for us as the Jewish community to come out and demonstrate our horror at a possible Trump candidacy and to say we’re going to fight for the democracy that we so deeply believe in,” Cotler said.
A number of Jewish groups have, with varying degrees of outspokenness, condemned aspects of Trump’s policies rhetoric, particularly his broadsides against Muslims, Hispanics and women.
Cotler said that Goodman’s brother, David, who runs a foundation in his brother’s name that funds liberal causes, had been informed of the initiative.
The vigils will take place on the Gregorian calendar anniversary of the murders, June 21. The Hebrew calendar yahrzeit for Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney is the 12th of Av, falling this year on Aug. 16.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion My Jewish moms group ousted me because I work for J Street. Is this what communal life has come to?
- 2
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
Politics Meet America’s potential first Jewish second family: Josh Shapiro, Lori, and their 4 kids
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture Actor Ben Platt says his Jewish identity is ‘not defined’ by Israel, showing a gap between him and his influential family
-
Fast Forward Shapiro house fire suspect targeted Jewish governor over pro-Israel stances, search warrant says
-
Fast Forward Jewish family killed in New York plane crash
-
Fast Forward Israelis can no longer enter the Maldives after Palestinian-solidarity ban goes into effect
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.