James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael (Mickey) Schwerner were three civil rights workers who were murdered in Mississippi in June 1964, where they were volunteering for the Freedom Summer Project. At the time of their deaths, Goodman was a student at Queens College and Schwerner’s brother, Steve Schwerner, was the director of the college’s counseling program.

The three men were primarily involved in registering Black voters, but on the day of their disappearance were investigating the burning of a Black church that had been used for voter registration. They were abducted near the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi, and the case was initially treated as a missing persons investigation. After two months, their bodies were discovered; members of the KKK as well as local law enforcement were charged with the killings, but only seven of 18 defendants were convicted, on lesser charges of conspiracy. However, the case was reopened in 2004 after new evidence came to light and one defendant, Edgar Ray Killen, was convicted of three counts of manslaughter. He died in prison in 2018 at the age of 92.

The Chaney-Goodman-Schwerner Clock Tower sits atop the Benjamin S. Rosenthal Library on the campus of Queens College. It was dedicated to the three men in 1989, shortly after the library's construction. A campaign to furnish the tower with a real bell carillon, rather than electronic chimes, was spearheaded by Queens College music professor David S. Walker, and a five-bell peal was commissioned and cast at the Royal Eijsbouts Bell Foundry in the Netherlands. The carillon was dedicated in November 1990.