Maya Angelou... Norman Rockwell... 50 Years Tomorrow... [View all]

[WillyT]

The murders of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Mickey Schwerner rocked me to the core of my very being. I had grown up in a little village in Arkansas. Lynchings were not unusual. And they were legal, as far as we could see. Nobody ever went to jail for them. So I was used to white men killing black men. But I was not used to white men killing white men because of black men…

Those three young men represent three hundred thousand young men and women who dared, who had the courage to go to the lion’s den and try to scrub the lion’s teeth. People live in direct relation to the heroes and she-roes that they have, always and always. Young people can look at the famous football player, the well-known baseball player, the golfer and say, “I want to be like that.” Well, we have to have that in the civil rights movement.

Some became famous because of what they said. We have to have the people who became famous for what they did. And I think those three are unmitigated heroes, so we have to lift them up and show them to the world, so that some young man in Philadelphia or Tucson, Arizona, says, “I wonder, could I stand up for Right even though it doesn’t actually concern me?” Not knowing that by standing up for Right, he’s actually doing the right thing for himself.

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