
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 26, 1994                   TAG: 9406260029
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MERIDIAN, MISS.                                LENGTH: Short

FREEDOM SUMMER RECALLED IN CEREMONY

To this day, the grave of James Earl Chaney is a target of vandals. On Saturday, his family relit an eternal flame and more than 100 people encircled the grave of the black civil rights worker killed in 1964.

The prayerful ceremony was part of several days of reunion and remembrance for hundreds of activists who took part 30 years ago in what they called Freedom Summer. Their purpose then was to register black voters and undo the official system of racial segregation.

In the process, Chaney and two colleagues - Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner - were slain. Their killings helped bring national publicity to the struggle, and swelled support for the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

At the 30th anniversary gathering, which began Thursday and concludes today, veterans recalled the dangerous and tumultuous summer and assessed the results.

By the end of the summer, six volunteers had lost their lives, another 35 had been shot and 80 beaten. Police recorded 68 church bombings.

That summer, fewer than 10,000 blacks had been allowed to register to vote in a system that put up great obstacles.

Today more than 500,000 blacks are registered in a state of more than 2 million people. Furthermore, 713 out of 3,600 elected local and state officials are black - the highest such ratio in the country, officials say.

by CNB