The BBC's international radio station (B2B)

No Master Brand

BBC World Service Core

Witness History

History as told by the people who were there

History as told by the people who were there.

Witness

Witness History: The Mississippi Burning Case

04/08/2010 GMT

The Mississippi Burning Case

BBC World Service - Witness History, The Mississippi Burning Case

Three civil rights workers are killed in Mississippi while taking part in Freedom Summer

In 1964 three civil rights workers were murdered by the Klu Klux Klan. David, the brother of Andrew Goodman remembers how nationwide shock helped change America for good.

Andrew Goodman was one of the three civil rights workers killed by the Klu Klux Klan in Mississippi in 1964. He and the other two victims, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, had been working on a project to register African-Americans to vote. 

For Witness, Andrew's brother David recalls his brother's strong sense of justice and what his family lived through in the 44 days he was missing. He remembers how nationwide shock helped change America for good - and that it took the deaths of two white people to awake the conscience of middle America.

Picture: Andrew Goodman, Credit: Associated Press

BBC World Service

The Documentary

Investigating global developments, issues and affairs.

The Wednesday Documentary: Useful Idiots

The Documentary: Useful Idiots: Episode 1

Episode 1

Useful Idiots

BBC World Service - The Documentary, Useful Idiots, Episode 1

Lenin's description of intellectuals who gave their blessing  to tyrannies and  tyrants.

John Sweeney looks at Useful Idiots, Lenin's description of Western intellectuals who gave their blessing  to tyrannies and  tyrants.

The phrase 'useful idiots', supposedly Lenin’s, refers to Westerners duped into saying good things about bad regimes.

In political jargon it was used to describe Soviet sympathisers in Western countries and the attitude of the Soviet government towards them.

Useful idiots, in a broader sense, refers to Western journalists, travellers and intellectuals who gave their blessing – often with evangelistic fervour – to tyrannies and tyrants, thereby convincing politicians and public that utopias rather than Belsens thrived.

In part one John Sweeney looks at Stalin's Western apologists.

In part two he explores how present day stories of human rights abuses across the world are still rewritten.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Witness History

The Mississippi Burning Case

Genres

Formats

Brand