Murders Around Mississippi

MARY SANCHEZ COMMENTARY


Civil-rights era injustices still haunt us
By MARY SANCHEZ


Anyone who has ever uttered an apology knows the power of these three words: “I am sorry.”

Apologies are the precursors to forgiveness, to healing. They’re necessary to put bitterness behind us and let us move on with our lives. This came to mind when I heard the news that more evidence had been uncovered in three of the most infamous unsolved civil rights murders.

In 1964, civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were working to register black voters in Mississippi when they were abducted by Klan members near the town of Philadelphia. All three were shot to death, then buried to hide the crimes. Chaney, the only black man in the group, was also severely beaten.

Now, a December series of newspaper articles in The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Miss., has uncovered witnesses and evidence that could lead to new charges. Previously sealed FBI documents show that one vote kept a man from facing charges two years ago when a grand jury re-examined the case. One vote of innocence came from the man’s relative — clearly a violation of justice.

The last time new evidence in this case was uncovered, a then 80-year-old former Klansman was convicted. Stooped, on oxygen and confined to a wheelchair during much of the 2005 proceedings, Edgar Ray Killen was sentenced to 60 years for manslaughter.

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Labels: Chaney, cold cases, Goodman, James Chaney, Meridian, Mississippi murders, Schwerner, voting rights

Memories of three civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi are kept alive as an Alabama sociologist joins a small group demonstrating this past summer in Philadelphia, Miss.

Landmark civil rights trial was Hattiesburg American's top story 40 years ago
By PATRICK MAGEE

Editor's note: The Hattiesburg American, which is celebrating its 110th anniversary as a newspaper, this week is looking at past editions on this date. Today: Oct. 18, 1967.

A prosecutor stood before an all-white federal court jury in Meridian and asked the group to convict 17 of 18 men on conspiracy charges in the 1964 deaths of three young civil rights workers, an Associated Press story reported on the front page of the Oct. 18, 1967, edition of the Hattiesburg American.

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Labels: civil rights movement, cold cases, FBI, Goodman, James Chaney, Meridian, Mississippi Delta, Schwerner