this granite block, crudely labeled, 1964, james chaney, is all that now remains. >> they did bury jamesy with a proper headstone, but vandals broke it off and threw it in the ditch. it almost defies believing. james chaney's brother got him a new headstone the following year. today, because it is 50 years this week since james chaney was killed, we sent a producer for this show to the cemetery where he is buried. a member of the church where james chaney is buried in the cemetery, a woman named ruby mcfarland, she showed us the site today. she was in college the year they were killed in mississippi. she also worked on voter registration. she walked us across the churchyard today and passed the many graves today to the one you cannot miss. that one belongs to james chaney, who had to be buried there alone. >> his picture was there. >> what happened to it? >> well, it was all cracked up, like somebody had damaged it. it was knocked over. when they put this one, they installed this so it couldn't be damaged easily. >> what did it mean to you over the years to see people knock down the tomb

reverend julia chaney-moss, sister of james chaney, and angela lewis, james chaney's daughter, born just few days before james chaney was murdered. david goodman is here in new york. he stays with us for this last segment. joined from be jackson by jerry mitchell, the investigative reporter who helped bring one of the klansmen to justice for the murder of the three civil rights activists. we will talk about voting rights in states today. thank you so much for being with us. we will be back in a moment all . ♪ [music break] >> this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. statestay mississippi, and the news this week when african-american voters crossed party lines to help republican senator thad cochran nearly defeat a tea party challenger to win his party's nomination. it was just a year ago that cochran praised a supreme court decision that that at the heart of the voting rights act. editorial in today's "new york times" calls on him that to become the first republican to cross party lines to support a new measure that would res

was this horrible murder where two of the volunteers from the north and one mississippi native, james chaney, andrew goodman and sworn warner basically were killed. they were taken by a sheriff, and they were held until the klan could gather together. they were released, and the klan killed them. they knew that this could happen, and so it was a really painful moments, and what it does is it inspires those who were in mississippi to keep registering, but also again puts national attention on the sofa and mississippi. the fbi, which often was not very supportive of the civil had to findent out what happens to these civil rights workers, and ultimately when was not, that sense of anger again stimulated more people to come from the north, white and black, and be part of this, so in some ways, what freedom summer does, what the murder of these civil rights workers does is that it gives this country another visible moment where they have got to affect change because this is seen as something that should not happen in a free and fair america. >> you say that mississippi had the greatest risk. a re

andrew goodman, michael sh westerner and james chaney went there to help register african-american voters, but the opposition was widespread and brutal. the three men were killed by the klu klux klan. all these years later, those three men are considered heroes of the civil rights movement. >>> when "nightly news" continues on this saturday, rising gas prices and what you can do to minimize the pain. >>> and later, one school's recipe for student success and like any good meal, it's getting recipe for student success and like any good meal, it's getting rave reviews. just take a closer look. it works how you want to work. with a fidelity investment professional... or managing your investments on your own. helping you find new ways to plan for retirement. and save on taxes where you can. so you can invest in the life that you want today. tap into the full power of your fidelity greenline. call or come in today for a free one-on-one review. i'm j-e-f-f and i have copd. i'm l-i-s-a and i have copd, but i don't want my breathing problems to get in the way of hosting my book club. that's why i

for james chaney's mother it was a shock, frustration, disappointment. as far away as ever. >>> i have the great honor to hand over to you the insignia of the nobel peace prize and a gold medal. >> some critics have charged that the nobel peace prize was not appropriately given this year. what is your reaction to that one? >> well, first i want to say that i don't think the peace prize was given to me personally, and i don't accept it as a personal honor. i think it is rather a tribute to the wise restraint of discipline, and dignity with which negroes and white persons of good will have carried out the whole struggle for civil rights. >> by the end of 1964, dr. king is aware that the one major southern civil rights challenge that had not been dealt with in the 1964 civil rights act was voter registration. >> a bewildering hodgepodge of election laws from state to state prevents many from voting. boss-controlled political machines disenfranchise others by downright fraud. the negro citizen may go to register only to be told that the day is wrong or the h

for james chaney's mother it was a shock, a disappointment.rl ] my mom, she makes underwater fans that are powered by the moon. ♪ she can print amazing things, right from her computer. [ whirring ] [ train whistle blows ] she makes trains that are friends with trees. ♪ my mom works at ge. ♪ my mom works at ge. what can i do with my $7 a month anemail the school. acfone? call the doctor. text the groomer. find gear for soccer. send invites to a party. post karate pics. help sean with history. battle of hastings... 1066. all that with my android from tracfone... now with three times the talk, text and data for as low as $7 a month. unbeatable nationwide coverage without a contract. the new samsung galaxy centura. tracfone. do everything for less. >>> i have the great honor to hand over to you the insignia of the nobel peace prize and a gold medal. >> some critics have charged that the nobel peace prize was not appropriately given this year. what is your reaction to that one? >> well, first i want to say that i don't think the peace prize was giv

for james chaney's mother it was a shock, frustration, disappointment.d to her as far away as ever. in the nation in new private sector job creation... with 10 regional development strategies to fit your business needs. and now it's even better because they've introduced startup new york... with the state creating dozens of tax-free zones where businesses pay no taxes for ten years. become the next business to discover the new new york. [ male announcer ] see if your business qualifies. ...you have to leave the couch to believe. seize the summer with up to 40% off hotels from travelocity. >>> i have the great honor to hand over to you the insignia of the nobel peace prize and a gold medal. >> some critics have charged that the nobel peace prize was not appropriately given this year. what's your reaction to that one? >> well, first i'd like to say that i don't think the peace prize was given to me personally and i don't accept it as a personal honor. i think it is rather a tribute to the wise restraint of discipline and dignity with which negroes and whit

in 1964, james chaney, andrew goodman, and andrew schwerner beaten and shot by a group of klansmen. they had come to mississippi to register african-american voters as part of the free room -- freedom summer campaign. a number of klansmen numbers were charged with minor sentences. it took 40 meters before a murder conviction was handed down with a former ku klux klan's mend it was found guilty of murder in 2005. those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. >> i'm juan gonzalez. welcome to our listeners and viewers around country and world. the city of new york has reportedly reached a $40 million settlement with the five men who were wrongfully convicted of raping a female jogger in central park 25 years ago. anton mccray, kevin richardson, raymond santana, korey wise, and yusef salaam were arrested for beating and raping a white woman in central park. she came to be known as the central park jogger. the five were all black and latino between the ages of 14 and 16. their arrest made national headlines and initi

the murders of civil rights workers james chaney, michael schermer, nay had to send in national guardfederal law, a notion that was less than popular here. to be honest, that was about all i had for an image of the state of mississippi. that was all i knew. and it hadn't occurred to me to look further. i traveled the world since then, and i visited and learned to love many places not my own, cultures very different from the upper east side of manhattan. why can't i love mississippi? ♪ >> high infamous is a proud son and resident of mississippi, a youth mentor in jackson's church and public school systems. owner of a marketing agency and hip-hop artist. >> this town, it feels empty. where is everybody? >> i think one thing is a lot of people think that you have to leave mississippi to be able to do something great. but i think a lot of it is there is so much bubbling in the undercurrent that sometimes isn't seen. and i think it takes an artist, usually takes something that is blank and creates something that is awesome to be able to see the potential on the place on a rahn canvas so to

james chaney, michael sworner and andrew goodman. on june 21, 1964, these three activists, one african-american and two jewish, were kidnapped and murdered for working to register black voters. their lives, the lives of james chaney, michael sworner and michael goodman, were claimed by hate, yet their faith and quality and justice and right to vote lives on today through the black jewish alliance borne out of the civil rights movement. i proudly honor these men and i'd like to thank the organization for ethnic understanding for championing this cause. for 25 years, the foundation has advanced the values shared by the jewish and african-american communities, including tolerance, equal rights and justice. as a jewish american, it's an honor to fight for these values here in congress today and every day. thank you, mr. chairman, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania eek recognition? the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized. >>

at the end of last week, we sent producers to meridian, mississippi, to the grave site of james chaney of chaney, goodman and schwerner. that exact same weekend, the 50 year anniversary of the murder of those three civil rights workers in mississippi, that exact same weekend, conservatives deploy poll watchers to black precincts in mississippi. you know, this is a race that has featured a break-in to a nursing home to take pictures of an elderly woman with dementia. it has featured campaign staffers being locked inside a county courthouse on election night at 2:00 in the morning with all the ballots. it's featured the incumbent candidate reminiscing into a microphone about the rocking good times he had with livestock back in the day. there are all sorts of different levels at which this mississippi race has been absolutely viscerally disgusting. but re-enacting the wrong side of mississippi freedom summer, that one has got to be pretty close to the top. >>> mississippi senior senator thad cochran said just last week that growing up, it was fun to do. >> all kinds of indecent things wit

james chaney and mickey were working with members of the church in the months leading up to what became. on voter registration issues in nashoba county where virtually no blacks could vote, and the church had committed to being a site for a freedom school for that summer. the klan which consisted of a number of law enforcement people, both from that county and meridian, mississippi, laud laud lauderdale county beat up some church members and burned the church to the ground. and a couple of days later, three or four days later, mickey and jay went to the lauderdale community where the church was to offer whatever support they could for the people. andrew goodman who was a summer volunteer and had been in the state for about 24 hours went with them. they were arrested, held in jail while the klan assembled and then they were killed. >> what inspires me about you is that after the murders you could have left the movement. instead you fought to integrate the all white delegation for mississippi at the democratic convention and you are still continuing to fight. why was all of that so import

james chaney, andrew goodman, and schwerner went to mississipms mississippi to register negroes as votersad been stressed that the federal government could offer them little protection. >> the bodies of schwerner, chaney and goodman were found later that summer, three young men murdered by the kkk trying to register black voters in mississippi. the man at the center of the battle, freedom summer, 50 years later he's back in mississippi organizing with the new generation. he will be my guest, coming up. ♪ ♪ [ girl ] my mom, she makes underwater fans that are powered by the moon. ♪ [ birds squawking ] my mom makes airplane engines that can talk. [ birds squawking ] ♪ my mom makes hospitals you can hold in your hand. ♪ my mom can print amazing things right from her computer. [ whirring ] [ train whistle blows ] my mom makes trains that are friends with trees. [ train whistle blows ] ♪ my mom works at ge. ♪ and cialis for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment is right. cialis is also the only daily ed tablet approved to treat symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently. tell your

. >> michael schwerner, james chaney and goodman were shot to death by the ku klux klan.ng me is david kendall, a former bill clinton attorney who was also a freedom summer volunteer back in the day, and he was andrew goodman's roommate during their training for this. david, the late maya angelou wrote in the forward to goodman's mother's memoir that those three young men represent 300,000 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. so you were one of those 300,000. did you feel going in that you were risking your lives? >> well, i think at the beginning of the summer, people were worried. i think we knew we were going to go into harm's way, but i think everybody thought they were going to come -- we were going to come through it okay. >> what would you want people to know about andrew goodman and his legacy? >> well, i think he was a very brave young man. i only knew him for a week. i met him exactly a week before he was murdered. that week was a very high pressure week. we were learning a lot about missis

looking out there and seeing ben chaney, james's little brother, i lost it. it. >> don't bow down anymore. hold your are heads up. we want our freedom now. i don't want to have are to go to another memorial. i'm tired of funerals. tired of it. >> joining me now is stanley nelson, the emmy award winning director and producer of the pbs freedom summer documentary. he also produced the acclaimed films, the murder of emmett till and the freedom write arerrs am countless others. it's an honor to have you. >> thank you so much. that clip is haunting. what goes through your mind when you watch it? . >> two things. one, i am a emotionally moved like everybodies else. also as a film maker i'm thinking, wow, that is great piece of film i have to get out to the public, that people have got to see. there is no way that you can be cold about it. there is no way that you can't understand the emotions that dave dennis was feeling when you see that footage. >> you're dealing with the emotions of seeing the little brother of one of those slain. it's as real as you could get.

we mourn james chaney, andrew goodman. they and so many others made this possible.the time, the civil rights act was incomplete without the voting rights act. president johnson and dr. king would get the passage in the next congress. today those stand among the greatest legislative of our country. as we bestowed the congressional gold medal on dr. martin luther king and coretta scott king, we must insist on the truth. to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the civil rights act, we must pass the bipartisan voting rights act in this congress. thank you all. >> ladies and gentlemen, the republican leader of the united states senate, mitch mcconnell. >> america is a land of promise and opportunity. it is conviction that unites all of us americans, and one we'd repeat quite often. for too long in this country, that wasn't the case for a large segment of our population. for nearly a century after the civil war, african americans were denied the most basic of american freedoms. a cancer of intolerance and injustice was allowed to metastasize while many with the power to stop

james chaney, the black youth had been beaten with chains until every bone in his body was broken, then the finding of the bodies of the three mississippi civil rights workers is a saddening and shocking reminder of the brutality of race hatred. we naturally expect that those responsible for these terrible murders will be brought to justice. ♪ we shall overcome ♪ some day ♪ deep in my heart, i do believe -- >> we know they're going to say not guilty because no one saw them pull the trigger. i'm tired of that. don't bow down anymore. hold your heads up. we want our freedom now. i don't want to have to go to another memorial. i'm tired of it. >> the arrests had started before dawn. in all, fbi men picked up 21 men. included in the group were the chief law officers sheriff lawrence rainy and cecil price, they were murdered by ku klux klansmen with conspiratorial help of the local sheriff. >> bond was set. but less than a week later the accused were set free, their bond lifted. for james cheney's mother who attended that hearing, it was a shock, a disappointment. the reason for her son's mu