ň/KUUKUUKRRK$WTPKPIʼn Name: ______/WTFGTU Date: ______TheofCivilRightsWorkersJames Section: ______Chaney,MichaelSchwerner,andAndrewGoodman

On June 21, 1964, three young men Despite the fact that the schedule of fines for investigators to an earthen dam on the Old Jolly disappeared near the town of Philadelphia, speeding was posted on the wall, Price said the Farm outside Philadelphia. . Michael (Mickey) Schwerner and three men would have to remain in jail until the It was there that the FBI uncovered the bodies of worked for the Congress of Justice of the Peace arrived to process the fine. Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman on August 4. Racial Equality (CORE) in nearby Meridian; Schwerner asked to make a phone call, but Price Because was a crime covered by state Andrew Goodman was one of the hundreds of denied the request and left the jail. law, the FBI could not bring charges, but college students from across the country who In Meridian, CORE staff began calling nearby instead, on December 4, the Justice volunteered to work on voter registration, jails and police stations, inquiring about the Department charged 21 men with conspiring to education, and Civil Rights as part of the 1964 three men -- their standard procedure when violate Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman’s civil Mississippi Summer Project. The three men organizers failed to return on time. They were rights. believed their work was necessary, but also never seen alive again. dangerous: membership in In February 1967 another federal grand jury In 1964, Mississippi was the only state without Mississippi was soaring in 1964 -- with indicted the men once again, and in October a central FBI office, but on June 22, agents from membership reaching more than 10,000. the trial began in Judge Cox’s courtroom. Cox the office arrived to begin a was known as a segregationist -- he had been kidnapping investigation. More agents would the subject of an unsuccessful impeachment come to Mississippi over the next several days, attempt after describing African American ultimately totaling more than 200. witnesses in an earlier case as “chimpanzees.” On June 23 investigators found the CORE But on the first day of the trial, when the station wagon, still smoldering from an attempt defense attorney asked a witness whether to destroy evidence; now the focus shifted from Schwerner was part of a plot to rape white rescue to recovery of the men’s bodies. The Klan was prepared to use violence to fight women during the summer of 1964, Cox called the ; on April 24 the The case was drawing national attention, in part the question improper, stating, “I’m not going group offered a demonstration of its power, because Schwerner and Goodman were both to allow a farce to be made of this trial." That staging 61 simultaneous cross burnings white Northerners. Mickey Schwerner's wife made the jurors stop and think: ‘If Judge Cox is throughout the state. Over the course of the Rita, who was also a CORE worker, tried to taking this stand, we’d better meet our summer of 1964, members of the Klan burned convert that attention to the overlooked victims responsibility as well.'" 20 black Mississippi churches. On June 16, Klan of racial violence. “The slaying of a Negro in As the trial proceeded, the prosecution read the members burned Neshoba County's Mt. Zion Mississippi is not news. It is only because my 1964 confessions of Horace Doyle Barnette and Baptist Church and severely beat several people husband and Andrew Goodman were white that James Jordan, which described what happened who had been attending a meeting there. the national alarm has been sounded,” she told on the night of June 21: After leaving Schwerner, however, was not there that day; he reporters during the search. Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman in the had gone to Oxford, Ohio, to train a group of Throughout July, investigators combed the Philadelphia jail, contacted Edgar volunteers. Upon returning woods, fields, swamps, and rivers of Mississippi, Ray Killen, one of the leaders of the local Ku to Mississippi, Schwerner, Goodman and ultimately finding the remains of eight African Klux Klan, who was also a Baptist minister. Chaney visited the charred remains of Mt. Zion. American men. Two were identified as Henry Killen directed Klan members to gather in On the drive back to Meridian, their station Dee and Charles Moore, college students who Philadelphia that evening. When two cars filled wagon, known to law enforcement as a CORE had been kidnapped, beaten, and murdered in with Klansmen headed for the outskirts of vehicle, was stopped, and police arrested all May 1964. Another corpse was wearing a CORE Philadelphia, Price released the Civil Rights three. Chaney, who had been driving, was t-shirt. Even less information was recorded workers from jail and ordered them to head charged with speeding, while Schwerner and about the five other bodies discovered. back to Meridian. He then joined the pursuit of Goodman were held for investigation. Neshoba Finally, after six weeks of searching, a tip from the CORE station wagon. County sheriff’s deputy Cecil Price escorted an informant -- later identified as Mississippi Catching up with the three Civil Rights workers them to the Philadelphia jail around 4pm. Highway Patrol officer Maynard King -- sent on Highway 19, the Klansmen forced the men into their cars and drove all the vehicles to Rock none would serve more than six years Mitchell’s reporting established that Bowers was Cut Road, a nearby side street. There, James behind bars. referring to Killen. (The interview, which is now Jordan shot Chaney, and Wayne Roberts shot In 1998, Jerry Mitchell, an investigative available to the public, was part of an oral Schwerner and Goodman. The killers loaded the reporter for the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, history project to be held by the Mississippi bodies into the CORE station wagon and drove published excerpts from a 1984 interview with Department of Archives and History and sealed them to the Old Jolly Farm, where they used a in which he spoke openly about until Bowers’ death. Mitchell, whose work on bulldozer to bury the bodies in the unsolved cases of the Civil Rights era earthen dam. earned him a 2009 MacArthur fellowship, The jury found seven of the defendants never revealed how he got access to the guilty: Price, Barnette, Roberts, James interview.) Arledge, Billy Wayne Posey, James In 1999, Mississippi Attorney General Snowden, and Samuel Bowers, the Michael Moore announced that the state Imperial Wizard of Mississippi’s White would reopen the case. At his request, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Bowers had a FBI turned over more than 40,000 pages particular dislike of Schwerner, and had related to the initial investigation. In begun planning his murder in the spring of the killings. “I was quite delighted to be January 2005, a grand jury charged Edgar 1964. In three cases, the jury failed to reach a convicted and have the main instigator of the Ray Killen with murder. The trial drew national verdict; one juror refused to convict a minister, entire affair walk out of the courtroom a free news coverage. Ultimately, the jury found and Killen walked free. After unsuccessful man, which everybody -- including the trial insufficient evidence for a murder conviction, appeals, the convicted men entered prison early judge and the prosecutors and everybody else but did find Killen guilty of the lesser charge of in 1970. Each had received a sentence of knows that that happened,” Bowers said. manslaughter. He was sentenced to 60 years between three and 10 years, but ultimately in prison.

Respond to this prompt in four or five sentences... 1. Why did racist terrorists murder James Chaney , , and Andrew Goodman? ______2. Why did Mickey Schwerner's wife Rita, mean when she said, “The slaying of a Negro in Mississippi is not news. It is only because my husband and Andrew Goodman were white that the national alarm has been sounded!” ______3. How many years did it take for justice to be served for the racist terrorists who murdered James Chaney , Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman ______