Remembering The Mississippi Three


On this day in 1964, three civil rights workers were murdered by the KKK for registering black voters in Mississippi. Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney were returning from a trip to Philadelphia, MS when they were pulled over by deputy sheriff Cecil Price, who held them in custody while his fellow hate group members prepared to shoot them and bury them in graves that had been dug in advance. When news of their disappearance got out, FBI Agents converged on the state and eventually learned of their murders through an informant. Since the state of Mississippi refused to prosecute, the federal government charged 18 men with conspiracy to violate the civil rights of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney. Seven men were convicted, eight men were acquitted and the all-white jury deadlocked on the remaining three. On June 21, 2005, Edgar Ray Killen, an outspoken white supremacist and Baptist minister, was convicted on three charges of manslaughter and sentenced to sixty years in prison. He died in prison in January of this year.

Related Reading:

Murder In Mississippi

Mississippi Burning at 50: Relatives of Civil Rights Workers Look Back at Murders that Shaped an Era

How Dick Gregory Forced The FBI To Find The Bodies Of Three Civil Rights Workers Slain In Mississippi


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