Ten O'Clock News; Black / Jewish Seder

[Mississippi Burning Narrator] On a June night in 1964, on a country road in Mississippi, three young men suddenly vanished. [Reporter] The movie Mississippi Burning loosely recreates the murder of civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner, three young men, two of them Jewish, one Black, who died for their belief in freedom and equality. Last night in Roxbury, Blacks and Jews came together to honor the three men and their family members, who are still spreading the message of racial harmony. [Charles Stith] James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner gave their lives, sacrificed their lives, to end an old order. And we gather tonight to dedicate our lives to initiating a new order. [Reporter] This June marks the 25th anniversary of the triple murders in Mississippi. To commemorate their deaths, relatives of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner are traveling about the country enlisting people to participate in a major demonstration this

summer. [Ben Chaney] In the '60s students went out, they went to register people to vote, they went in groups of buses and cars and we want to reverse that. Racism, anti-Semitism, is not a regional problem, it's a national problem, and we're going to go from Mississippi on June 21st in buses, cars, trucks, vans, anything, to New York, and we want to make a national statement that something has to change. We have to reawaken ourselves, we got to take care of business like we used to. Thank you. [Reporter] Ben Chaney was 11 years old in 1964 when he, his older brother James, and a guy named Michael Schwerner, began organizing Black Mississippians to vote. It was dangerous business, more dangerous than Ben realized, until his brother was killed. [Chaney] I used to follow my brother around to all the demonstrations. I got arrested, if he didn't come to get me out there Ricky Swann would have to come get me out because they can't go home and tell my mother I was in jail. I used to tag along with him when-- I understood

that there was the possibility of going to jail, suffering pain. But death for me wasn't real, wasn't finite until at my brother's gravesite. That's when I understood what death really was. [Mr. Goodman] We wish to express our pride in our son's commitment and that of his companions, now dead, and that of his companions, now alive. [Reporter] For Dr. Carolyn Goodman, the mother of 20 year old Andrew, the release of Mississippi Burning and the upcoming anniversary of her son's death bring back disturbing memories. But she says Mississippi in 1964 is a period in our history that we cannot afford to forget. [Goodman] For this is the time for all of us to move because the issues are great and if we do not address them our country will be torn. Part of our mission in commemorating and celebrating this 25th year is to perpetuate

the work of the three boys and to do so by informing young people about particular times. [Cassie Schwerner] The deaths of these three young men were planned and accomplished by Southern racists intending to discourage Northern volunteers from participating in the Mississippi Freedom Summer. [Reporter] Twenty three year old Cassie Schwerner is the niece of Michael Schwerner. She never knew her uncle, but in the years following his death she has come to know what he stood for and in many ways his sense of commitment is renewed in her social activism today. [Schwerner] I think young people are not committed like they were back in the '60s. I would like to see that renewed. I think, as Carolyn mentioned, there has been sparks and I hope that that will continue on into the '90s. [Fannie Chaney] But they come here to help us. Did you know they all come here to help us? They died for us. [Carolyn Goodman] There will never be a time that we will say it's all done, our freedoms are all achieved, we don't have

to worry anymore. There are always threats, there are always people, there are always circumstances that are going to threaten those freedoms and we're going to continue to fight for them forever. For the 10 O'Clock News.