AGF President to Participate in Civil Rights Pilgrimage to Selma, Alabama
David Goodman to Honor Brother’s Legacy and Highlight Foundation’s Efforts continuing March towards Freedom through Civic Engagement
New York, NY, March 5, 2015: Today, The Andrew Goodman Foundation announced that its President, David Goodman will travel to Selma, Alabama on the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” to participate in the Bipartisan Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage sponsored by the Faith and Politics Institute. The trip will commemorate the famous civil rights march that led to the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In recognition of his brother Andrew, and his work empowering youth to participate in the Democratic process, Goodman was invited by Congressman John Lewis. Goodman and the rest of the delegation will spend March 6-8 in Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma and Marion for the 50th anniversary of the historic voting rights marches in 1965. President Barack Obama will join them on March 7 in Selma to commemorate Bloody Sunday, when state troopers attacked marchers as they tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge on their way to Montgomery to demand voting rights for African-Americans. On Sunday, March 8th, Goodman will speak at the Mishkan Israel Jewish Program alongside Dr. Susannah Heschel, Rev. William Barber and Rabbi Jonah Pesner.
At the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Goodman’s brother Andrew (Andy) joined Freedom Summer ’64 to register African-Americans to vote. On Andy’s first day in Mississippi, he and two other civil rights workers, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. The story of these three young men struck a public chord that galvanized support for the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“My brother Andy along with James and Michael demonstrated that black and white, Jew and Christian, young and older Americans can work together to form a more perfect union for all”, Goodman said. “Now, more than ever we need to continue their passionate calls for fairness and equality. The Andrew Goodman Foundation works to give young people the skills they need to effect positive social change and to build intergenerational coalitions with leaders of the civil rights movement.These are the building blocks of the peaceful, just, and sustainable world the Selma marchers fought for 50 years ago,” he continued.