{"id":1650,"date":"2007-08-23T10:24:06","date_gmt":"2007-08-23T10:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/23\/carolyn-goodman\/"},"modified":"2014-08-04T05:15:58","modified_gmt":"2014-08-04T05:15:58","slug":"carolyn-goodman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/23\/carolyn-goodman\/","title":{"rendered":"CAROLYN GOODMAN, WITH GRATITUDE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Goodman_chayney_schwerner_2\"<\/a>
\nWhen Andrew Goodman died at 20 in 1964, a Civil Rights worker murdered with two others, Michael Schwerner and Ben Chaney, one white and one black, in rural Mississippi, I was 18.\u00a0 Two years in age and an unimaginable capacity for courage separated us.
\nAlways drawn to causes, especially civil rights, I was entering college, in no way brave enough to take even a summer to go to Mississippi no matter how committed I was to the cause.\u00a0 I’ve always, always admired the values and sense of justice that led these three and so many others south that summer into the kind of hatred and unpredictable peril that, for blacks and civil rights workers, must have felt the way Iraq does now.\u00a0 \u00a0I also wondered at the values they’d assimilated and at just how they’d become so remarkably brave.\"Carolyn_goodman_2\"<\/a>
\nEight years later we moved to Manhattan from California and I learned about Carolyn Goodman, Andrew’s mother.\u00a0 \u00a0She had been and remained a stellar figure in left wing New York political circles and a luminous symbol of forgiveness and genuine commitment to justice.\u00a0 Through all the racial turmoil of the 70s and 80s in New York, Ed Koch’s divisive mayorality<\/a>, the Reagan years <\/a>and what seemed to be the death of much of the city, she stood fast in ways that many who have lost far less, or nothing at all, are not able to demonstrate.<\/p>\n

I never met her yet felt somehow close to her; we raised our sons in the same neighborhood that the Goodman boys grew up in and tried, without nearly the example that she set, to impart personal and political ethics and the education to find their own as they grew.\u00a0 I was always aware that she was in the same city – understanding as my sons emerged into themselves just what she’d lost on a level someone who’s never raised kids probably doesn’t experience.\u00a0 To see your child take his place in the world – first the small world of family and school and gradually the larger world of autonomy and work, is an unparalleled privilege and a joy.\u00a0 Her goodness and courage in the face of the loss of these moments was always symbolic to me of what it is possible for human being to be — and of how rarely we reach that point.<\/p>\n

She died on Friday,<\/a> and this Tuesday the story of her funeral appeared in the New York Times<\/a>.\u00a0 It’s a “select” piece so I hope they’ll forgive me for offering it to you in its complete form.\u00a0 It says this all far better than I have.<\/p>\n

August 21, 2007\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>A L<\/span>ife of Protest and Forgivenes<\/em>By CLYDE HABERMAN<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Ben Chaney stood to the side
\nwatching mourners fill a grave with the New York soil that gave Carolyn
\nGoodman her eternal blanket.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is Jewish custom for family and friends to bury the dead
\nthemselves, instead of leaving the task to hired hands. In life, Dr.
\nGoodman was hardly an observant Jew. But on Sunday at Mount Judah
\nCemetery in Ridgewood, Queens, she exited this world in traditional
\nstyle.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ben Chaney was there to say farewell. \u201cGod put his angels here at
\nthe right moment,\u201d he said as clumps of earth thudded across the plain
\npine coffin.<\/em><\/p>\n

The \u201cangels\u201d were his mother, Fannie Lee Chaney, and Carolyn
\nGoodman, women whose lives might never have converged had it not been
\nfor a brutal June night in 1964 in Neshoba County in Mississippi<\/a>.
\nEach lost a son that night. James Chaney, 21, and Andrew Goodman, 20,
\ndisappeared, along with Michael Schwerner, 24. Six weeks later, their
\nbullet-scarred bodies were found in an earthen dam.<\/em><\/p>\n

The three civil rights workers.<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s how they came to be linked for eternity \u2014 two white boys from
\nNew York, Mr. Goodman and Mr. Schwerner, and a black kid from
\nMississippi, killed for daring to affirm the right of black
\nMississippians to vote freely. That right was not universally accepted
\nin the \u201cfreedom summer\u201d of 1964. The deaths of the young men at the
\nhands of Ku Klux Klan<\/a> members proved a pivotal moment for the civil rights movement.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now, life has run its unrelenting course for their parents. Mr.
\nSchwerner\u2019s mother and father died years ago. Fannie Lee Chaney died in
\nMay at 84. On Friday, time ran out for Carolyn Goodman. She was 91.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a rough summer,\u201d said Ben Chaney, who was 12 when his big brother, James, was murdered.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, he repeated: \u201cGod put his angels here. They carried a hell of a
\nburden for a long time. A hell of a burden \u2014 knowing that your sons
\nwere murdered and the murderers were out on the streets going free.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Seven Klan members, convicted of federal civil rights violations,
\nserved but a few years in prison. Decades later, in 2005, an eighth
\nman, Edgar Ray Killen, was found guilty of manslaughter by a state jury
\nin Mississippi, and is serving a 60-year term.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cStrong women,\u201d Mr. Chaney said. \u201cThey were able to endure, and
\ncontinued to have faith. They never lost faith. My mother didn\u2019t, and
\nneither did Carolyn.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Dr. Goodman, a clinical psychologist who lived on the Upper West
\nSide, did many things in her long life. With politics that fell
\ndecidedly leftward, she had taken on liberal causes well before Andrew,
\nthe second of her three sons, was killed. But perhaps inevitably, it is
\nas Andrew\u2019s mother, a civil rights symbol, that many know her.<\/em><\/p>\n

There she lay on Sunday, beside her first husband, Robert Goodman,
\nand in front of a long, swooping headstone marking Andrew\u2019s grave.
\nRobert Goodman, a civil engineer, died five years after his son\u2019s
\nmurder. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody says Bobby died of a broken heart,\u201d said Judith Johnson, a family friend.<\/em><\/p>\n

On Andrew\u2019s headstone, three sets of arms reach toward one another,
\nabove words borrowed from a Stephen Spender poem: \u201cHe traveled a short
\nwhile towards the sun, and left the vivid air signed with his honor.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

MANY of the 65 people who stood over Dr. Goodman\u2019s grave took turns
\nremembering her. She was caring but tough, they said. She would hear
\nout opponents, they said, but not hesitate to speak her mind.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jane Mark, a relative, told of getting a phone call from Dr. Goodman
\nin 1999, during the protests and mass arrests over the police killing
\nof the unarmed Amadou Diallo<\/a>. \u201cJane, we\u2019re going to get arrested tomorrow,\u201d Ms. Mark recalled Dr. Goodman as saying.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOn the spur of the moment, she could decide to get arrested,\u201d Ms. Mark said. \u201cBut she wanted to have friends with her.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Stanley Dearman, a former editor and publisher of The Neshoba
\nDemocrat, a Mississippi newspaper that called for justice in the
\nmurders, said Dr. Goodman felt no hatred for the killers. \u201cShe was too
\nfine a person for that,\u201d he said. That point was reinforced by Kalman
\nGoodman, a grandson of Dr. Goodman.<\/em><\/p>\n

One day, a man who spoke in a Southern accent went to her apartment
\nand said he had played a role in Andrew Goodman\u2019s death. He was now
\nasking for forgiveness.<\/em><\/p>\n

His grandmother, Mr. Goodman said, told the man: \u201cIf you want my
\nforgiveness, work in your community and help other people. That way
\nlies forgiveness.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

As far as he knows, the grandson said, the man went home and did just that.<\/em><\/p>\n

<nyt_author_id><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 When Andrew Goodman died at 20 in 1964, a Civil Rights worker murdered with two others, Michael Schwerner and Ben Chaney, one white and one black, in rural Mississippi, I was 18.\u00a0 Two years in age and an unimaginable capacity for courage separated us. Always drawn to causes, especially civil rights, I was entering … Continue reading CAROLYN GOODMAN, WITH GRATITUDE<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,27,42,2764,7],"tags":[2128,2129,2124,2126,2131,2123,2132,1290,2133,2125,1288,1196,2130,2127,1025,1080],"class_list":["post-1650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baby-boom","category-current-affairs","category-family","category-i-seem-to-write-a-lot-of-obits","category-life","tag-civil-rights-history","tag-american-history","tag-andrew-goodman","tag-ben-chaney","tag-black","tag-carolyn-goodman","tag-freedom-summer","tag-goodman","tag-integration","tag-michael-schwerner","tag-mississippi","tag-race","tag-race-relations","tag-schwerner-and-chaney","tag-segregation","tag-voting-rights"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-qC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1650"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2475,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650\/revisions\/2475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}