Mississippi Civil Rights Activist Murders

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Top to bottom: Murder victims Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner

The Mississippi civil rights workers' murders occurred on 21 June 1964 in Neshoba County , Mississippi , as members of the Ku Klux Klan with the help konspirierender police officer three members of a US - civil rights movement in an ambush lured and murdered.

They killed the African American James Earl Chaney, 21, as well as Andrew Goodman, 20 and Michael Schwerner, 24, both of New York's Jewish faith .

The murder victims pursued the goal of educating black Americans who suffered under the racist Jim Crow laws in the southern states about their electoral and civil rights.

background

After the Second World War , blacks increasingly fought against discrimination with sit-ins and non-violent demonstrations. They were supported by white civil rights activists. The most important organizations were the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In the summer of 1964, a summer offensive called Freedom Summer was carried out in Mississippi to raise awareness of their own rights. Blacks should be encouraged to sign up on electoral rolls and exercise their right to vote.

Since May 2, 1964, two blacks, Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore, have been missing. They were kidnapped by seven Ku Klux Klan members near Roxie - their killers believed they were civil rights activists. On August 4, their bodies were found in a river in Warren County . They were beaten and handcuffed to an engine block or a piece of railroad track. In 2007, James Ford Seale was charged with this crime.

Sequence of events

Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner were murdered shortly after midnight on June 21, 1964.

Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner had investigated the arson attack on a school attended by black children and had previously attended training at the Western College for Women (now part of Miami University ) in Oxford, Ohio . The aim of the training was to educate black people in the southern states about their right to vote. The local Klan members were well informed about the activities.

Sam Bowers , who led the faction White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan as Imperial Wizard , gave the order to assassinate the civil rights activists. Even County Sheriff Lawrence Rainey and his deputy Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price was a member of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

The civil rights activists knew they were in danger and had agreed with their office to telephone regularly. Price arrested the three on the pretext of speeding and took them to the local jail . Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner were not allowed to exercise their right to call. Members of the civil rights movement became concerned and began looking for the three. When they called the sheriff's office, they were truthfully told that they were not in jail. Price informed his Klan accomplice Edgar Ray Killen , who was summoning other Klan members to prepare for the murder .

An ambush was being prepared on the road to Meridian. Chaney was fined $ 20 and ordered to leave the county.

Burned out vehicle of the victims (police photo)

Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner left prison on June 21, 1964 and drove off in a car. Deputy Cecil Price followed the three of them. At the point of the ambush he forced her to stop by means of his police siren; then the KKK homicide squad captured her and took her to a remote location. Men of the Kommando shot Schwerner and Goodman there; Chaney was first beaten up and then shot. The three of them car was driven into a forest near Mississippi Highway 21 and set on fire. The bodies were then buried in an earth wall using a bulldozer.

A pathologist later found that Chaney had been tortured before he died. He was probably hit with a heavy iron chain.

reaction

The disappearance was followed by a national outcry. President Lyndon B. Johnson called on FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover to investigate the case. Due to Hoover's hatred of the civil rights movement, Johnson had to threaten him with massive dismissal before he started the investigation. Major Case Inspector Joseph Sullivan was sent to Neshoba County .

Navy divers and FBI agents searched for the bodies and found seven murdered blacks, but their disappearance had not attracted much attention.

The sheriff of Neshoba County, Lawrence Rainey, said of the case: "They are hiding somewhere and just want to put Mississippi in a bad light". The governor of Mississippi , Paul B. Johnson Jr. said, "They could be anywhere in Cuba."

examination

After the FBI offered a reward of 25,000 US dollars , there were first indications from the population. The bodies were finally found in August 1964. The tip came from a highway policeman who had previously been bribed by the sheriff.

Alleged help from the mafia

Linda Schiro testified in 2007 that her significant other, Gregory Scarpa Sr., who was a Capo in the Colombo family , had been hired by the FBI. Scarpa is said to have "extracted" the information about the hiding place of the corpses from a clansman. This claim has never been confirmed (as of 2007).

process

In the criminal case US v. Cecil Price et al. the case was investigated. The Mississippi state authorities had refused to bring charges of murder. Therefore, the lawsuit was brought before a federal court. John Doar represented the prosecution. A total of 18 men were charged.

On October 20, 1967, Cecil Price, Samuel Bowers, Alton Wayne Roberts, Jimmy Snowden, Billey Wayne Posey, Horace Barnett, and Jimmy Arledge were convicted. The sentences ranged from three to ten years. After their appeals failed, they began serving their sentence in 1970 . No one was held for more than six years. EG Barnett (a candidate for the sheriff's post) and Christian preacher Edgar Ray Killen were seriously incriminated by testimony; the all-white jury decided not guilty . It was not until 2005 that Killen was tried again and sentenced to three times 20 years in prison. For health reasons, he was released from custody a little later on bail of US $ 600,000, but was imprisoned again shortly afterwards for having misled the court with information about his health. In 2007, the sentence was upheld by the Mississippi State Supreme Court.

consequences

  • A stained glass window was created in the Sage Chapel of Cornell University in honor of the murdered.
  • Journalist Jerry Mitchell reported on the case. He later helped convict the killers of Medgar Evers and Vernon Dahmer and those responsible for the bombing of a school in Birmingham.
  • In 1989, on the 25th anniversary of the murder, a resolution was passed in the US Congress honoring the three murdered. Senator Trent Lott and the rest of the Mississippi delegation refused to approve.
  • The federal authorities wanted to leverage the murder to enforce the constitutional equality of blacks in the south against the state government.
  • In June 2016, the US judicial authorities announced that the investigation file had been closed.

Cultural reference

  • the film "Tod am Mississippi" (GDR, TV-EA June 27, 1974) was made in 1973/74.
  • The TV movie Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan (1975) dealt with the subject.
  • In 1988 the film Mississippi Burning, starring Willem Dafoe and Gene Hackman, was released in cinemas.
  • In 1990 the film was released Murder in Mississippi ( Murder in Mississippi ) with Tom Hulce , Blair Underwood and Josh Charles in the lead roles.
  • A documentary called Neshoba was released in 2008 , which also dealt with the 2005 trial.
  • Phil Ochs wrote the song Here's to the State of Mississippi .
  • Tom Paxton wrote the song Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney .
  • Simon & Garfunkel's song He Was My Brother was dedicated to Andrew Goodman, whom they knew personally from Queens College.
  • The murders inspired Norman Rockwell to draw Southern Justice (Murder in Mississippi) . This was published in Look magazine.
  • Richard Fariña's song Michael, Andrew and James is about the murdered.
  • Sigmar Schollak's 1973 novel, Dead Fear, is about the three murdered people and the FBI's long search for them. It contains many photos of the Freedom Summer, related to the three and their families, and the murderer. Kuno Lomas' dust jacket adorns the FBI wanted poster for the three victims, signed by J. Edgar Hoover .
  • Pete Seeger and Frances Taylor wrote the song Those Three Are On My Mind about the murdered.
  • The three murders are referred to in an episode of the Dark Skies series .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Donna Ladd: Dredging Up the Past: Why Mississippians Must Tell Our Own Stories , Jackson Free Press, May 29, 2007, accessed October 15, 2011
  2. ↑ one day June 6, 2007: Trial after 43 years: A murderous night in May 1964
  3. ↑ Freedom Summer . Miami University. Archived from the original on August 5, 2011. Retrieved October 1, 2011.
  4. ^ Fredie Carmichael: Historic moment reminder of civil rights work . In: The Meridian Star . January 18, 2009. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
  5. ^ Slain civil rights workers found . History.com. Retrieved October 1, 2011.
  6. ↑ Douglas O Linder: Michael Schwerner . Retrieved October 1, 2011.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f Douglas O Linder : The Mississippi Burning Trial . Retrieved September 19, 2011.
  8. ^ "Lynching of Chaney, Schwerner & Goodman" . Civil Rights Movement Veterans
  9. ^ Post Mortem Examination Report of the Body of James Chaney . University of Virginia. Retrieved May 28, 2012.
  10. ^ A b Neshoba Murders Case — A Chronology . Arkansas Delta Truth and Justice Center. Retrieved September 11, 2011.
  11. ^ Civil Rights: Grim Discovery in Mississippi . In: Time , June 22, 2005. Retrieved September 30, 2011. 
  12. ↑ Mitchell, Jerry (December 2, 2007). "Documents Identify Whistle-blower" , The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS).
  13. ↑ Michael Brick: At Trial of Ex-FBI Supervisor, How to Love a Mobster . In: The New York Times , October 30, 2007. Retrieved February 20, 2010. 
  14. ↑ "Witness: FBI used mob muscle to crack '64 case" , MSNBC.com , October 29th 2007, accessed 20 February 2010
  15. ↑ SPIEGEL ONLINE: Racist murders: US judiciary gives up in the "Mississippi Burning" case. In: SPIEGEL ONLINE. Retrieved June 21, 2016 .
  16. ^ Dennis Harvey: Neshoba . In: Variety , November 4, 2008. Retrieved September 30, 2011. 
  17. ↑ Shelley Esaak: Murder in Mississippi (Southern Justice), 1965 . About.com. Retrieved July 7, 2011.