Michael Schwerner - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

• The 1973 poem 'The Book of Job and a Draft of a Poem to Praise the Paths of the Living' by George Oppen was dedicated to him.
• Meridian (1976), a novel by Alice Walker, dealt with issues of the civil rights era.
• The film Mississippi Burning (1988) was based on the murders and ensuing FBI investigation.
• The case also inspired two made-for-TV movies: The 1975 2-part TV movie, Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan, which was based on Don Whitehead's book (Attack on Terror: The F.B.I. Against the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi) detailing the events a week before the assassinations and up to the conclusion of the Federal trial of the conspirators. Actor Peter Strauss portrayed "Ben Jacobs," a fictionalized representation of Michael Schwerner. The second TV movie was Murder in Mississippi (1990), which covered the events leading up to the deaths of Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney. Tom Hulce portrayed Michael Schwerner.
• In the Season 13 episode of the series Law & Order entitled "Chosen", defense lawyer Randy Dworkin (played by Peter Jacobson) prefaces a speech against affirmative action with the phrase, "Janeane Garofalo herself can storm into my office and tear down the framed photos of Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner, that I keep on the wall over my desk..."