Carolyn Goodman

Who was Carolyn Goodman?

Carolyn Elizabeth Drucker Goodman was a clinical psychologist who became a prominent civil rights advocate after her son, Andrew Goodman and two other civil rights workers, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Neshoba County, Mississippi, in 1964.

As a psychologist, Goodman specialized in creating early intervention programs for families at risk of psychiatric problems. She developed and ran the PACE Family Treatment Center, a program for emotionally disturbed mothers of young children, at The Bronx Psychiatric Center. Her articles were published widely in prominent professional journals.

Politically active until age 90, Goodman came to wide public attention again in 2005. Traveling to Philadelphia, Mississippi, she testified at the murder trial of Edgar Ray Killen, a former Klan leader recently indicted in the case. On June 21, 2005, the 41st anniversary of the killings, a jury acquitted Killen of murder but found him guilty of manslaughter in the deaths of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner.