On the night of June 21–22, 1964,
three civil rights workers were abducted and murdered in
Neshoba County, Mississippi, an event which has since been called the
Freedom Summer Murders. The civil rights workers were
James Earl Chaney of
Meridian, Mississippi,
Andrew Goodman, and
Michael "Mickey" Schwerner of
New York City, New York, and were associated with the
Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) and its member organization, the
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). They had been working on the "
Freedom Summer" campaign, attempting to prepare and register African Americans to vote after they had been
disenfranchised since 1890.