Mar 10, 2005 -- On the evening of March 9, 2005, the echoes of history could be heard inside the Jerome and Geraldine Schottenstein Residence Hall on the Beren Campus. History, however, was not the only lesson to be learned from Dr. Carolyn Goodman, invited by Dr. Cynthia Wachtell, director of the S. Daniel Abraham Honors Program at Stern College for Women. Dr. Goodman’s son, Andrew, was murdered in Mississippi in 1964 by alleged members of the Klu Klux Klan. More than 40 years later, in January of this year, Edgar Ray Killen, 79, was arrested and charged with the murders of Dr. Goodman’s son and two other voting rights volunteers, James Chaney, 21, and Michael Schwerner, 24. Andrew Goodman was 20 at the time of his death. The abduction and murder of the three young men is considered by many a seminal event of America’s Civil Rights Movement. Though this historic occurrence formed the basis for much of what Dr. Goodman, 89, spoke about, it is the present and future that she prefers to emphasize. “The South is a very different place than it was 40 years ago,” Dr. Goodman said when asked about present-day prejudice and racism in Mississippi. “Today, anybody – black, Jewish, Catholic, Muslim – can walk into just about any place and won’t feel the same tension they would have felt 40 years ago.” Nearly 90 students (from Beren and Wilf), faculty, and administration members attended Dr. Goodman’s talk in the Ivry Lounge of the Schottenstein Residence Hall. Dr. Goodman spoke for about 20 minutes and then welcomed the questions of audience members. When asked what made her son such a hero, such a courageous person who would give his life for the cause of Civil Rights, Dr. Goodman replied with gracious honesty. “I don’t think he knew he was going to give his life,” she said. “He went down there because he thought there was a job to do. My son did not go to Mississippi to die. He went there to try to make it possible for people to go into a booth and turn a handle. A hero? No. He was a beautiful, strong, determined person…and a great loss to his mother and father.” Dr. Goodman said Andrew had “a wonderful grandfather” who was fond of saying, “Don’t just talk about it, do something.” “He used to say ‘Be a doer.’ And I think Andrew was influenced by this,” she said. Grandfather Goodman’s philosophy of being a ‘doer’ is one Dr. Goodman imparted to students. She said there are things in life worth doing. And she acknowledged that some are risky. But she said life, in general, is a risk. “If it is an important goal,” she said, “if it is something that can affect your family, your community, or maybe the world, then you take the risk.” Dr. Goodman is now working on a filmed docu-drama called “Freedom Now” that will feature interviews with those involved with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and will detail the murders of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner. She said the film should be completed before the end of the year and will be released to selected movie theaters.