Schwerner, Michael Henry, 1939-1964

Michael Henry Schwerner (November 6, 1939 – June 21, 1964) was an American civil right activist. He was one of three Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) field workers killed in rural Neshoba County, Mississippi, by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Schwerner and two co-workers, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman, were killed in response to their civil rights work, which included promoting voting registration among African Americans, most of whom had been disenfranchised in the state since 1890
Born and raised in Pelham, New York called Mickey by his friends. Schwerner attended Michigan State University, originally intending to become a veterinarian. He transferred to Cornell University and switched his major to rural sociology.[3] While an undergraduate at Cornell, he was initiated into the school's chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity. He entered graduate school at the School of Social Work at Columbia University. In the early 1960s Schwerner became active in working for civil rights for African Americans; he led a local Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) group on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, called "Downtown CORE James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were murdered near the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi.