We Are Not Afraid: The Story of Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney and the Civil Rights Campaign for Mississippi

The infamous murder of three civil rights workers by a Ku Klux Klan mob and Mississippi law-enforcement officers in 1964 takes on the dimensions of a personal, political and national tragedy in this riveting account. The drama of the triocollege students Michael Schwerner and Andy Goodman, both white Northerners, and James Chaney, a young black activist from Mississippipits their faith in nonviolence against a murderous rage fueled by racism. Cagin and Dray, who coauthored Hollywood Films of the Seventies, have done their homework: interviews, news reports, FBI documents and trial transcripts undergird their brilliant re-creation of the incident, interwoven with a full-scale history of the civil rights movement. The search for the bodies turned up many black corpses, purported victims of police/Klan violence; the Klan conspirators were paroled before serving their full sentences; in the aftermath, Lyndon Johnson questionably maneuvered to defuse the situation. This is surely one of the best books on the civil rights movement. (April)