After over 40 years since the tragic deaths of three civil rights activists during the Freedom Summer"" in Mississippi, a UW-Madison student is receiving national attention for her successful effort to bring justice to the victims.
UW-Madison sophomore Brittany Saltiel and two of her high school classmates, Sarah Siegel and Allison Nichols will appear on ""The Montel Williams Show"" Thursday to discuss their 10-minute documentary called ""The CORE of the Solution"" for their National History Day project.
The film centers on the murders of the three workers in 1964, including former UW-Madison student Andrew Goodman. Sigel said the film received national attention and revealed new information about the case.
""We got an exclusive interview with the man who has now been convicted of the killings,"" Saltiel said. ""We were able to talk to him as well as other people who had been involved in the civil rights movement and were willing to come forward with new information.""
The film and the interview provided compelling new evidence against the main suspect in the case, Edgar Ray Killen, Saltiel said. Killen was arrested and convicted in 2005 for the murders.
Goodman, Mickey Schwerner and James Chaney were working for the Congress of Racial Equality to register black voters in Philadelphia, Mississippi when they were killed by a mob of Ku Klux Klan members.
Peter Sherman, Schwerner's former roommate at Cornell University, said he remembers Mickey and the events of that summer well.
""People were astonished. It was a pivotal moment for the nation,"" he said, adding the country was still reeling from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. ""For me, personally, it was a really devastating time. To see someone you knew and roomed with [killed] was really devastating.""
Saltiel said her project first gained national attention at the National History Day in Washington D.C. and has continued to have importance since. Her appearance on the Montel Show, which will have a focus on hate crimes, will air at 4 p.m. on My Madison TV, Channel 14.
