50th Anniversary of Freedom Summer

On Wednesday June 18th at 7:30 pm, Brad Herzog, co-author of My Mantelpiece: A Memoir of Survival and Social Justice will share the story of Carolyn Goodman, mother of slain activist Andrew Goodman who died in 1964.

Andrew Goodman left home for Mississippi in 1964, one of hundreds of young men and women who traveled to the South to register African-American voters. On June 21, he, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner disappeared, abducted and murdered by local law enforcement and the Ku Klux Klan. Goodman's mother's memoir, My Mantelpiece: A Memoir of Survival and Social Justice, tells of tragedy and survival, of the transformation of anguish to activism.

Goodman and Schwerner exemplify the role that Jews played in the Civil Rights Movement. Standing alongside African Americans like Chaney, parents and grandparents, rabbis and leaders helped transform the position of minorities in the United States. Carolyn Goodman's life demonstrates not only how we can live our values but how we can learn from our children and loss to make our world a better place.

The book, which includes a foreword by Maya Angelou, is the first time that a victim's family member has expounded about the experience and the emotions—from guilt to resolve—that it spawned. Ultimately, the late Carolyn Goodman's message (and Brad is prepared to speak on her behalf), is one of hope. Carolyn turned her son's martyrdom into a mission. She formed The Andrew Goodman Foundation, organized an anniversary Freedom Summer, and produced documentary films celebrating young activists. In 1999, she was arrested at a protest in New York City—at the age of 83 and passed away in 2007

The event will be held on Wednesday, June 18 at Westchester Reform Temple, 255 Mamaroneck Road, Scarsdale, New York 10583 at 7:30 p.m. It is free and open to the public.