Barry Bradford Profile

By: Abigail Jurden

During , in the summer of 1964, three young men, , Andrew Goodman and volunteered through the Congress of Racial Equality, better known as CORE, to help African-Americans in gain the right to vote. These three young men were arrested, kidnapped and murdered by the , who were aided by the Neshoba County Sheriff’s Office on , 1964.

Their sparked national outrage and a massive federal investigation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation referred to this specific investigation as The case. The bodies of the three young men were found 44 days later in an earthen dam. The state government refused to prosecute and the federal government initially charged 17 individuals. It secured just seven convictions, with each convicted man receiving minor sentences for their actions. However, outrage over their deaths assisted in the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Barry Bradford may be best known for twice leading teams of students to reopen two of the most infamous “Cold Cases” in the history of the Civil Rights Era. His tireless work in pursuing justice in the Mississippi Burning case helped lead to a conviction of Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen.

In 2002, as a history teacher at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Ill., Bradford’s students, Brittany Saltiel, Sarah Siegel and Allison Nichols, were participating in the National History Day competition. They chose to do history day as an extracurricular, in which they received no credit or grade, but did benefit from scholarships. Dedicating themselves to a sense of commitment to justices that they all felt strongly about. Turning a simple high school project into an important cause.

The then high school students produced a 10-minute documentary called The CORE Of The Solution. Which included a new and revealing interview with one of the main suspects in the Mississippi Burning case, Edgar Ray Killen.

Once they had their process set, Bradford would interview anyone they wanted to talk to for about an hour or two, with his students interviewing them at a later date for about 10 minutes to get a feel for information they could use in their documentary.

“On the surface, we had a pleasant and interesting conversation. But on a deeper level, it was unsettling, to say the least, to speak with a man who had organized the of three young men who we had come to care very deeply about. And his views were certainly extreme,” Bradford said.

According to the article Student film focused on 1964 murders that was published in the Chicago Tribune in 2005, Saltiel said, “we didn’t ask him [Killen] anything about the murders. We wanted a Southern perspective of the . He really did provide a viewpoint we hadn’t come across before.”

Bradford and his three students spent an entire summer reading the trial transcripts and every book and article available about the case, annotating them along the way. They not only read these documents through but also made notes as to who testified, whether they were still alive and whether they could be tracked down.

“I had always had it in my mind that I wanted to take a run to reopen the Mississippi Burning case. I just needed the right time, the right students and the right atmosphere to happen to make it work,” said Bradford.

They worked very closely with Jerry Mitchell a well-regarded investigative reporter for the Jackson Clarion Ledger, The U.S. Department of Justice, The Mississippi Attorney General’s Office and most importantly the families of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner, with the goal being to reopen the case and his students goal being to gather enough information to make their documentary.

In a 2005 segment on The Today Show, the three girls were asked what was so appealing to them to tell this story; in which they responded, “it was really appealing to think, look what young people can do and wouldn’t we like to help someone in that same way.”

And through it all, the three girls learned some very important lessons, they said.

“I’ll never be an unregistered or uninformed voter,” Nichols said in 2005. “People died for the right to vote, and it’s something so integral to being an American citizen.”

Bradford lives in Chicago with his wife and their two children. He travels throughout the U.S. speaking to universities and businesses about this case. He holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and communications from Goddard College in Plainfield, Vt., and his master’s degree in interdisciplinary studies is from DePaul University in Chicago.

Saltiel, Siegel and Nichols could not be reached for comment.

Sources: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2005-01-09/news/0501090490_1_edgar-ray-killen- andrew-goodman-ku-klux-klan-leader https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9ro-kYKYHc