to preserve the status quo" (Nelson 11). Even law enforcement agencies had Klan members or, at minimum, Klan sympathizers.
During the summer of 1964, blacks and whites worked together to get Southern blacks registered to vote. Their efforts were concentrated in Mississippi, and the campaign became known as the Mississippi Freedom Summer. That summer proved extremely violent for the civil rights workers. Almost all the violence was directed at blacks; however, some white integrationists were also targeted, either intentionally or inadvertently.
National attention focused on the brutal murders of volunteers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney, two whites and one black. Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney were not the only casualties: "This set the tone for a summer in which the remaining volunteers were subjected to beatings, bombings, arrests, and other forms of harassment" (Gamson 173). A favorite form of intimidation was the bombing or torching of black churches. More than 40 such churches were destroyed during the summer of 1
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