54 Years Later, Civil Rights Activists Honored

PHILADELPHIA, Miss. (WCBI) -54 Years ago this month was a dark time in Mississippi.
Three civil rights leaders were murdered, a black church where the three men were working was burned, and members of the church were beaten.

The names Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner are documented in history books.
But the story of what it was like to be alive during that time is being told verbally by those who lived it.

Remaining survivors attended a commemorative service at the historic Mount Zion United Methodist Church in Philadelphia on Sunday.
It was a commemorative service, that at times felt more like a celebration.

Jacquelin Spencer was eight back on June 21st, 1964. She said her parents were at the church business meeting, she was outside the building with her brother.

“We were outside playing with frogs, me and my brother. and John looked up and seen some cars, strange cars, and momma always told him if you see strange cars catch me by my hand, so he caught me by my hand and we went in the church and told them what we seen outside,” Spencer said.

She said the members ended the meeting and went home, she said that on the way home they were stopped by klan members asking about Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner, she said the three were not in that meeting, but klansman must not have believed that.

“We learned, you know the next morning, the church had been burned, we didn’t know it till the next morning,” Spencer said.

Other church members were beaten, the three civil rights leaders returned days later to see the charred remains but they never made it out of Mississippi. Sunday was about honoring them.

Other, living, civil rights leaders were also honored, like author and education consultant Doctor Willie J. Greer Kimmons, who said his brother was lynched in the sixties.

“I am the civil rights movement. I am. Born in 1944, I’ve seen the old and the new,” Kimmons said.

While Sunday was all about reflecting on the past, Spencer isn’t consumed by the dark parts of history.

“The Lord, he’s been good to me, and I thank him for it, the Lord has been so good to me,” Spencer said.

She’s looking for a brighter tomorrow.

“I’m not angry about that because they gotta give an account for what they do, everybody gotta give an account of what they do. When the Lord tells me, I want him to say welcome home my child, you fought a good fight,” Spencer said.

Sunday’s event marked the start of the eighth annual National Civil Rights Conference in Meridian.