Freedom Summer - Bruce W. Watson [49]
When his father asked why, Goodman’s idealism poured out: “Because this is the most important thing going on in the country! If someone says he cares about people, how can he not be concerned about this?” Carolyn Goodman, a psychologist, felt her son might as well have said, “I want to go off to war,” but she managed to respond that Mississippi seemed like “a great idea.” His father realized, “We couldn’t turn our backs on the values we had instilled in him at home.” Robert Goodman, a civil engineer, offered to provide the $150 in expenses, but Andy took a job loading trucks. Two months later, he was packing his duffel bag. As hopeful as his photo suggested, Goodman packed a sweater for a summer in Mississippi. “I’m scared,” he told a friend. “I’m scared but I’m going.” When he left for Ohio, Carolyn Goodman slipped iodine and bandages in her son’s bag. In Ohio, Goodman was originally slated to work in Vicksburg but was recruited by the Schwerners. Once reassigned, he called his parents. “Don’t worry,” he told them, “I’m going to a CORE area. It’s safer.” And on June 21, when he awoke in Mississippi, he wrote home:
Dear Mom and Dad,
I have arrived safely in Meridian, Miss. This is a wonderful town, and the weather is fine. I wish you were here. The people in this city are wonderful, and our reception was very good.
All my love,
Andy
At noon that Sunday, the three men set out for Neshoba County in the same blue Ford wagon Chaney drove on his night runs. Before they left, twelve-year-old Ben Chaney, whom Schwerner called “Cub,” was crying and asking to go with his big brother. Chaney told Ben to be patient. When he came back that afternoon, they’d go driving. Ben began waiting.
By late Monday morning, the men had been missing for eighteen hours. In Jackson, word had just come from Philadelphia. Spotted in jail at 9:00 p.m. Sunday, the three men appeared bruised and battered. COFO again called the FBI. Hearing of the alleged brutality, the agent in Jackson finally acted—he called his New Orleans office. SNCC was growing desperate. What about an air search? Roadblocks? An all-points bulletin? Mississippi was heating up in ways that had little to do with the humidity. All that morning, project offices were besieged with angry calls—“Nigger Lover!”; “Communist!”; “Go to hell!” After their warm welcomes in black communities, volunteers were finding first encounters with whites strange and sinister. Several were approached by nattily dressed college students. Calling themselves the Association of Tenth Amendment Conservatives (ATAC), the students talked on and on about states’ rights and the danger of minorities “issuing dictatorial orders.” But other whites did more than talk. Volunteers crossing the tracks to the white side of town were drilled by hate stares and startled by the loathing they would endure all summer.
In Clarksdale, at the north end of the Delta, a volunteer from Los Angeles was talking to blacks when a cop pulled up.
“What’re you doing here? ”
“I’m helping to register voters.”
“Don’t you know that the niggers don’t want any help? Don’t you know you’re not wanted here? What are you son-of-a-bitch bastards doing here anyway? ” When the volunteer tried to answer, he was ordered into the police car, where two snarling men cursed him: “Your mother’s not fit to work in a nigger whorehouse.” Jailed, denied phone calls, the man was finally released and told to get the hell out of Mississippi. Clarksdale, the sheriff