Murders of 3 Civil Rights Workers
Murder in Mississippi: The Origins of Miss
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As described by Douglas O. Linder (1), "it was an old-fashioned lynching, carried out with the help of county officials, that came to symbolize hardcore resistance to integration." Linder (1) is referring to the murder of three civil rights workers û Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney û on June 21, 1964, near Philadelphia, Mississippi. As this report will demonstrate, some 19 Mississippians were involved in the conspiracy that led to these there murders but, it was not until 2005 that justice was finally being served. The thesis to be explored herein is that "murder will out" as Shakespeare wrote and that certain criminals eventually are brought to justice. Attached to this report is a chronology depicting the events prior to and after the murders of the three civil rights workers. This chart ("Mississippi Burning Trial: A Chronology," 1) depicts Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman as civil rights volunteers participating in the Mississippi Summer Project to register blacks to vote. All three volunteers were students and both Schwerner and Chaney were members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). On June 21, the three young men drove to the site of the burned Mount Zion Church in Neshoba County, Mississippi. On their return to Meridian, Mississippi they were arrested by Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price and taken to the county jail in Philadelphia, Mississippi (McFadden, 2). In a conspiracy involving local members of the Ku Klux Klan, Price released
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grand jury was drawn contained insufficient numbers of minorities.á Rather than attempt to refute the charge, the government summoned a new grand jury and, on February 28, 1967, won reindictments.á The list of those indicted differed slightly from the original list, and included the names of eighteen Klansmen."
Klan informants advanced the government's case which was heard by a jury of seven white males and five white women (Linder, 4).
Though initially deadlocked, on October 20, 1967, the jury returned its verdict (Daniels, 2). Seven defendants were convicted, including Price, Imperial Klan Wizard Sam Bowers, and Horace Barnett. Eight men were acquitted, including the owner of the farm where the bodies were found. In three cases, including that of Edgar Ray Killen, the jury did not reach a verdict. Linder (5) stated that "the convictions in the case represented the first ever convictions in Mississippi for the killing of a civil rights worker."
Today, more than 40 years after the killings of these three civil rights workers, Edgar Ray Killen (now 79) was charged with first degree murder in this case (Roig-Franzia, A1). Killen may well be the last in a string of white supremacists that have been convicted of civil
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Neshoba County, Justice Department, Klan Price, Chaney Goodman, James Jordan, Summer Project, Ray Killen, A1 Killen, Found Dead, Philadelphia Mississippi, civil rights, schwerner chaney, schwerner chaney goodman, chaney goodman, mississippi burning, grand jury, civil rights workers, 2005 available, 1964 fbi, rights workers, burning trial, mississippi burning trial, trial chronology, burning trial chronology, edgar ray killen,
Approximate Word count = 1917
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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