Norton to Speak at Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the 1964 Freedom Summer at U.S. Capitol

WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will offer brief remarks at the 25^th anniversary of The Foundation For Ethnic Understanding, Thursday, June 19, 2014, from 4-6 p.m. at the Mansfield Room (S-207) of the United States Capitol. This event commemorates the date when three student civil rights activists, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, were killed in Mississippi, one African American and two Jewish Americans. This year marks the 50^th anniversary of the 1964 Freedom Summer, when thousands of students traveled to Mississippi to help register African Americans to vote. The slain civil rights workers were participants. This event will also highlight the Black-Jewish partnership that had a leadership role in civil rights for many decades.

Norton, who helped to organize the Mississippi Freedom Summer as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, honored these three men when she managed a bill in the 111^th Congress, which was signed into law, to name the FBI field office in Jackson, Mississippi for Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner.

"The legacy of the three young heroes is rich and still resonates as the work for civil rights continues," Norton said. Part of their legacy surely is the 1964 Civil Rights Act itself, whose major feature is the first enforceable federal law banning job discrimination. It was to become my honor to enforce. That bill was passed a month after the three young men were killed."

Published: June 18, 2014