Tagged Jewish Freedom Summer volunteers

OP-ED Jews once fought — and died — for voting rights. Here’s why some are still at it.

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party supporters demonstrate for voting rights outside the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, N.J. Some hold signs with portraits of slain civil rights workers Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. (Warren K. Leffler/Wikimedia Commons)
July 28, 2017 / Andrew Silow-Carroll, JTA

  NEW YORK (JTA) — Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner are about the closest American Jews have to secular saints. The two Jewish civil rights workers traveled south for the Freedom Summer campaign of 1964, joining the African-American activist James Chaney in canvassing black churches. All three were kidnapped and murdered by… Read more »

Fifty years after Freedom Summer, civil rights volunteers reflect on activist lives
August 15, 2014 / Dina Weinstein, JTA
Heather Booth protesting for voter rights in Mississippi during the 1964 Freedom Summer. (Wallace Roberts)

(JTA) — At the Freedom Summer anniversary conference in Jackson, Miss., the activists who registered black voters and taught in Freedom Schools under the threat of violence 50 years ago stood up to introduce themselves. It took three hours to hear what they did in the Magnolia State back… Read more »