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| The
Mississippi Burning Trial |
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(click image to enlarge)
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The
killings of three civil rights activists, Andrew
Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner during
the summer of 1964 drew national attention to Neshoba
County, Mississippi. Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner
had traveled to Mississippi to investigate the burning
of Mount Zion Church and the beatings of several
members of its congregation. The three men quickly
learned that the attacks were carried out by the
Ku Klux Klan and that they themselves had been targeted
by the group in retaliation for their investigation
and past civil rights activities. Many of the local
police were also KKK members, and the activists
were arrested for “speeding” after leaving
Mount Zion. While they were held in prison, Edgar
Ray Killen, the Kleagle (leader) of the local Klan
organization and a Baptist preacher, organized a
group of men, whom he drove past the Neshoba County
Prison and to whom he provided details of the men’s
planned release. Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner were
kidnapped and killed shortly after they left the
prison. |
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FBI established their first office in Mississippi
and launched an investigation that was not immediately
successful. White residents of the surrounding
area were notoriously unwilling to help the investigation.
Several months passed before the bodies of the
three men were found buried in a dam, a discovery
that was only made possible after $30,000 was
offered as a reward for useful information. The
FBI ultimately required the aid of Klan members
acting as informants willing to testify against
their former brethren. In October 1967, the United
States brought charges against Cecil Price and
seventeen other Klansmen. This
trial, later dramatized in the film Mississippi
Burning (1988), marked a significant milestone
in civil rights prosecutions. Previous indictments
against the Klansmen had been thrown out, and
the case of the United States v. Cecil Price
et al only proceeded after a Supreme Court intervention
that reinstated the original indictments. After
a day and a half of deliberations, an all-white
jury convicted seven of the defendants of conspiring
to violate Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney’s
civil rights. The jury also acquitted eight defendants
but failed to reach a verdict on the remaining
three men, one of whom was Edgar Ray Killen. The
convicted men received varying jail terms, which
ranged from four to ten years.
For the next forty years,
Edgar Ray Killen lived in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
For decades, civil rights advocates called for
renewed investigation of the murders of Schwerner,
Goodman and Chaney. Although the state sought
to prosecute all the surviving members of the
original group of eighteen Klansmen, only Killen
was indicted. In January 2005, he was formally
charged with the activists’ murder. On June
23rd, a jury found him guilty on three counts
of manslaughter, arguing that there was insufficient
evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that
Killen had intended that the group of men that
he coordinated kill the activists. Killen, now
79 years old, was sentenced to three consecutive
twenty-year terms in jail. His conviction, along
with the recent reopening of the investigation
into the murder of Emmett Till, demonstrates that
considerable interest remains in investigating
and resolving the deaths of many from the Civil
Rights era.
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| Additional
Resources |
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Film:
"Mississippi Burning" (1988)
Drama. 2 hrs. 5 min. Directed by Alan Parker
A fictionalized account of one of the landmarks
in the civil-rights movement, Mississippi Burning
is a swift and powerful film. Director Alan Parker,
continuing his investigation of human cruelty, crafts
a historically poignant film that fingers the monstrosities
of a virulent strain of racial intolerance in America.
Dafoe and Hackman are convincing as they investigate
the disappearance of the civil-rights workers and
unravel the grisly web of obfuscation around a scandalous,
cancerous truth very near the heart of a nation.
Winner of numerous awards (3 British Academy Awards,
4 National Board of Review) and nominations (Directors
Guild of America, 7 Oscars, 4 Golden Globe, 2 New
York Film Critics Circle), Peter Biziou won the
Oscar in the category of Best Cinematography and
Hackman won the Silver Bear for Best Actor in the
Berlin International Film Festival 1989. |
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Website:The Mississippi
Burning Trial
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/price&bowers.htm
Provides a thorough background to the killings and
subsequent trials and also includes excerpts from
the transcript of the 1967 trial. Other information,
including excerpts from print coverage of the investigation
and trial is also provided. |
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Editorial: Cunningham,
David. “All the Klan’s Men.” Boston
Globe 26 June 2005 D2+**
An editorial that clearly states the significance
of Killen’s conviction but also argues the
need to better understand the socio-economic circumstances
that fostered the growth of the Klan in the 1960s
American South.
**Available online via LexisNexis |
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Article: Hananel,
Sam. “New Justice Unit Sought.”
The Washington Post 29 June 2005.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/29/AR2005062902480.html
Briefly discusses the attempts of two senators
to form a new Justice Department Unit to focus
on unsolved murders motivated by racial hatred
before 1970.
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Article: Ricchiardi,
Sherry. “Out of the Past.” American
Journalism Review. 27.2 (April 1, 2005): 47-53*
Details efforts of Jerry Mitchell, a Jackson, Mississippi-based
journalist, to investigate and report on civil rights
abuses. Documents his role in bringing attention
to evidence used to indict Killen and others.
*Available online via Research Port |
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Headlines:
Former Klansman found guilty of manslaughter.Conviction
coincides with 41st anniversary of civil rights
killings
CNN, June 21 2005
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/21/mississippi.killings/ |
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BBCNews
- On this day August 4, 1964: "Three civil
rights activists found dead"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/4/newsid_2962000/2962638.stm
Another page from the BBC newsroom |
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[Last
updated on
August 22, 2005
]
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