Riveting Nancy. Horribly compelling, as is completely appropriate, required.
The nightmare we are living now is like the tornado siren, screeching violently into our ears trying to warn us, help us stay alive. But here effective urgent action is not taking shelter. Please everyone, advice on best actions now 🙏
So sad to read. We as a nation have come so far and now we’re going backwards. Nancy, thank you for this and helping me to understand where we came from not that long ago in the civil rights movement.
Thank you, Ann. There is an Andrew Goodman Foundation. His brother, David, has dedicated his life to this. I can't imagine how it feels to watch such a horrible reversal of policy. That his brother died for.
We share a lot of the same feelings. They were killed and dumped in an earthen dam. Chaney was tortured. Their bodies were found for two months. I talked with people who saw them alive just before this happened. There's a lot I didn't iinclude. Check out Jerry Mitchell. He wrote a wonderful book about all this.
Thanks for this, Nancy. I so wanted to go to Mississippi that summer, and of course my parents forbade it. I say "of course" because they felt protective of me. They had a more clear sense of the danger involved, and I was a good girl. The idea of going anyway, of figuring out how to pay for whatever I'd have to pay for, never occurred to me. I was horrified at the news that Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman had been murdered; I imagined the terror they felt, the tortures to which I was sure they were subjected before dying. I have thought about them over the years more times I can count. I'd read biographies of Harriet Tubman while I was in 3rd grade, and marveled at her courage, trying to imagine myself doing what she did. I doubted I'd have gone back if I'd ever gotten to safety the first time, even as I would've wanted to help others. When Ruby Bridges integrated her elementary school in 1960 (by then I was in Jr. High), I tried to imagine her experience and cried for what I was sure was her fear and sense of being alone in a hostile environment. So when I read this edition of your Substack, I marveled at the literal journey you took to commemorate the Civil Rights movement and its martyrs. I've yet to do that. I regard Mississippi and other parts of the South as foreign, and I probably do a disservice to the many people in the South who are thoughtful and unafraid to acknowledge that difference doesn't have to be enmity and danger. Maybe you and your willingness to make that journey can help me find out for myself just what there is for me to learn by going to the "foreign country" that's so close to home.
Riveting Nancy. Horribly compelling, as is completely appropriate, required.
The nightmare we are living now is like the tornado siren, screeching violently into our ears trying to warn us, help us stay alive. But here effective urgent action is not taking shelter. Please everyone, advice on best actions now 🙏
The trip was quite an experience.
I remember. I bow my head.
Nancy, thank you for bringing this story to life. How sad how awful. And here we are.
Much love to you, sister for your good work
Yes, here we are!
Thank you for your journey and for sharing it.
Thank you for being present, for doing that work, for caring — now and then.
I wish caring was more effective than it is!
So sad to read. We as a nation have come so far and now we’re going backwards. Nancy, thank you for this and helping me to understand where we came from not that long ago in the civil rights movement.
Thank you, Ann. There is an Andrew Goodman Foundation. His brother, David, has dedicated his life to this. I can't imagine how it feels to watch such a horrible reversal of policy. That his brother died for.
We share a lot of the same feelings. They were killed and dumped in an earthen dam. Chaney was tortured. Their bodies were found for two months. I talked with people who saw them alive just before this happened. There's a lot I didn't iinclude. Check out Jerry Mitchell. He wrote a wonderful book about all this.
Thanks for this, Nancy. I so wanted to go to Mississippi that summer, and of course my parents forbade it. I say "of course" because they felt protective of me. They had a more clear sense of the danger involved, and I was a good girl. The idea of going anyway, of figuring out how to pay for whatever I'd have to pay for, never occurred to me. I was horrified at the news that Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman had been murdered; I imagined the terror they felt, the tortures to which I was sure they were subjected before dying. I have thought about them over the years more times I can count. I'd read biographies of Harriet Tubman while I was in 3rd grade, and marveled at her courage, trying to imagine myself doing what she did. I doubted I'd have gone back if I'd ever gotten to safety the first time, even as I would've wanted to help others. When Ruby Bridges integrated her elementary school in 1960 (by then I was in Jr. High), I tried to imagine her experience and cried for what I was sure was her fear and sense of being alone in a hostile environment. So when I read this edition of your Substack, I marveled at the literal journey you took to commemorate the Civil Rights movement and its martyrs. I've yet to do that. I regard Mississippi and other parts of the South as foreign, and I probably do a disservice to the many people in the South who are thoughtful and unafraid to acknowledge that difference doesn't have to be enmity and danger. Maybe you and your willingness to make that journey can help me find out for myself just what there is for me to learn by going to the "foreign country" that's so close to home.