Transcription
Philadelphia, Mississippi, 1964. The sleepy Southern town, steeped in tradition, finds itself targeted for invasion. Across the South, a legacy of racial hatred is about to be challenged, but not without a fight. Before it would end, three civil rights workers would vanish, drawing the eyes of the world to the quiet community with a burning s amen.
[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music]
In the summer of 1964, Mississippi stood at the crossroads of history. It didn't want to be there. It had no choice. For the black population, the sultry air held the fragrant promise of civil rights. For much of the white population, it was to be a summer of heated intolerance. Violence rumbled throughout the South, but a touchdown in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
I'm Jim C. Stom, former director of the FBI's New York office. The disappearance of three civil rights workers drew the attention of the nation to the small Southern town named for the City of Brotherly Love. Philadelphia was not living up to its namesake, for in it, brotherhood was divided by race, and the city was ruled by men hiding behind hooded sheets. To solve the mystery of the missing workers, the FBI had to infiltrate and expose the Ku Klux Klan's invisible empire.
Mississippi, circa 1960. The people here were like folks anywhere else, proud of their tales, steadfast in their beliefs, and resistant to change. But change was in the wind, and that wind was blowing relentlessly upon them from the North. In the summer of 1964, a thousand students from Northern universities prepared to go to Mississippi to teach Southern blacks about their voting rights as full citizens of this country. President Johnson was to sign the Civil Rights bill in July. In a naive sense, it was to be the beginning of the end of black oppression, but generations of hatred cannot be diminished by simple legislation.
The student action was spearheaded by COFO, the Council of Federated Organizations. It was an umbrella group that united an alphabet soup of organizations intent on winning civil rights for blacks. The mission was called the Summer Project. According to Joe Sullivan, an FBI agent at the time, that's not how the locals referred to it. It was labeled very quickly by the Mississippians as "the summer invasion of Mississippi," which was forthcoming, and they were looking forward to it rather unhappily. So that was the genesis of the problem.
As the invasion grew nearer, citizens steeled themselves against it. By day, life went on as it always had, and people whispered of the unpleasantness to come. But when the night fell, words turned to action, and the Ku Klux Klan, the invisible empire, began to stir. It wouldn't stay invisible for long.
Civil rights workers training in Ohio knew their efforts would be countered by violence and terror, but they had no idea how far it would go or how fast it would escalate. For COFO, Mississippi, with its long history of segregation and rabid racial hatred, was the hardest target for change and the biggest prize.
Bob Moses was one of the Summer Project organizers. "Mississippi is targeted in every black person's mind as the symbol of racism. And so, as we mount our campaign down there, the question is in our minds, well, you can do all you want, you can pass a Civil Rights bill if you want to, and you can do this and that. But unless you have actual change in Mississippi, uh, it's not going to, uh, really get rid of this infection, 'cause Mississippi is the place where they brew it."
Six months before the students were expected in Mississippi, 24-year-old Michael Schwerner moved from New York to Meridian, Mississippi, to establish a base of operations. Schwerner had approached Mount Zion Methodist Church in the nearby black community of Longwood for permission to use their space for COFO meetings.
"And we have got to stop it now, nip it in the bud. That's what we've got to do. But it's dangerous. It's dangerous." The residents of Longwood, who had peacefully coexisted with their white neighbors, found themselves at a crossroads. The church board had to weigh the benefits to the cause of civil rights against concern for their own personal safety. When the meeting was adjourned, they hadn't come to an agreement.
But the Klan made the decision for them. Several church members, including women, were badly beaten.
"What the hell is going on? Get away from..." Later that night, Mount Zion Church was burned to the ground.
Though the fire was never investigated by local authorities, the FBI opened a file on the incident.
"FBI, ma'am. They were keeping a record of possible federal law violations which fell under their domain."
"Question. They knew that once the students arrived, the summer promised to be long and hot."
"Just wondering if I could ask..." The FBI called the file "Mississippi Burning." They conducted their own investigation, asking church members what they saw.
"How did they know? How did you know?" Though the Klan members had obscured their faces, witnesses recalled seeing a man in a truck wearing a sheriff's hat, suggesting that local law enforcement was involved. It wasn't surprising. Many in the South presented the federal government's intrusive push for integration. Local law enforcement often worked to maintain the racial status quo.
"The mood is defiance of the federal government. So you're going to defy any attempt by the federal government to change this. They're viewed as the enemy, right? So it's not just that black people are the enemy, the federal government is also the enemy."
Jim Ingram, now the commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, was an FBI agent in Jackson in the '60s. "Back then, it was a thankless job. But we travel the state. We might be in Natchez, we might be in Philadelphia, we might be in Hattiesburg, working violent crimes, uh, committed against citizens of Mississippi. Therefore, we were away from our homes, and we would receive threats. Snakes were placed in mailboxes. There was always that threat. You better lock your car. You never knew what you might find in your automobile when you returned. And also, you had threats against your person and family."
But despite all attempts at intimidation, the FBI's presence in the state was about to increase more than 100-fold.
While setting up their COFO operations center in Meridian, Mississippi, Michael Schwerner and his wife Rita were joined by a 20-year-old plaster named James Chaney.
"Good to have you. This is my wife, Rita." "Hi, how are you?" "Good to have you. Fine." Chaney, a Meridian native, knew the culture and political climate of the area. 24-year-old Michael Schwerner, a liberal from the Bronx, had an Ivy League degree in social work. His background couldn't have been more different from Chaney's, but the men were united in their goals.
"Sure, you'd use help." Schwerner's friends called him Mickey, a name he seldom heard outside the office. Townsfolk, and I'm talking now about the Klansmen in Meridian, called him "Goatee." He wore a goatee, and they called him "the devil."
"Hi, may I speak to Bob Moses?" Schwerner and Chaney were later joined by Andrew Goodman, 20, a volunteer from Queens, New York, who had finished his training in Ohio just one week earlier.
"Yeah, Andre, just put in that box right there. We'll be just leaving in a second." While Rita Schwerner returned to New York, the three men and other volunteer staff prepared for the first group of 200 civil rights workers from up North. The first wave of the invasion, scheduled to arrive on June 21st, 1964.
That morning, Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman drove from their base in Meridian to Longwood, 35 miles away, to talk to the Mount Zion church members about the fire. Five days before. Chaney, who knew the area, would drive as the vanguard in the march to freedom. The men knew that trouble likely lay ahead. Their ground rules were unambiguous: stick to the main roads, cooperate with authorities, and never travel at night. They planned to be back that afternoon. Schwerner told his staff to call the COFO office in Jackson if he didn't phone in by 4:00 p.m.
He never made the call.
When Mickey Schwerner failed to phone his office at the scheduled time, the FBI was notified. They, in turn, contacted local authorities to see if anyone had seen Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman.
"What, what are you doing in my county like that?" "Someone had out of the car." According to Neshoba County Deputy Cecil Price, the trio was returning from Longwood that afternoon when he pulled them over outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi, 38 miles from Meridian. They were brought to the county jail in Philadelphia. Another Cheney was booked on a speeding charge.
"I need to make a phone call." The others were held in connection with the burning of Mount Zion Church.
"What do you know about that?" "Nothing, sir." Chaney was locked in a cell designated for black prisoners. Schwerner and Goodman shared a different cell.
"All you have to do is make sure that you're polite. Say, 'Yes, sir,' 'No, sir.'" They weren't allowed to make a phone call until dinnertime, hours after their 4:00 call-in time had passed. According to another person sharing the cell, when the jailer's wife told Schwerner he could make a collect call, he declined. No one knows why. Eventually, after Schwerner paid Chaney's $20 bond, Deputy Price released the men. By then, it was 10:30 p.m.
"I don't want to come back to Philadelphia again." What happened next was anyone's guess.
"As long as they were missing, you had some hope. Uh, if they had turned up in jail and they were still in jail, then you had some hope. The issue was the release at a certain time of night from the jail and then they're missing again. Again. So that circumstance means the worst."
Agent Sullivan too feared the worst. He suspected that the civil rights workers weren't simply released but more likely handed over to the Klan.
"This was a type of crime that I was familiar with. The lockup and then giveway the prisoners instead of releasing them. I was familiar with this sort of thing. I was quite sure that this was what was in progress."
The disappearance was chilling news to the student volunteers scheduled to arrive in Mississippi the next day. But people throughout the state had a different read on it.
"The Mississippi response was, you know, this is a hoax. And, uh, these people have really staged this to get national attention. And, you know, they're up hiding someplace in New York or some other place, right? And this is just all a big publicity stunt." That was the official Mississippi response.
"There were widespread rumors, and we were told, I think it appeared in the papers too, that, um, these people had, uh, set up a scam here and then vanished to Cuba, where, uh, they would leave the state of Mississippi embarrassed by what had happened to them."
"I don't know why still here." The investigation began with Deputy Price, the last person to have seen Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman. He stuck with his story of releasing them around 10:30 p.m.
"A little bit suspicious, but he couldn't account for his own whereabouts for about an hour afterward." For Joe Sullivan, dispatched from Memphis to lead the investigation, it was the only idea which dire. They were traveling, and not much of one.
"All I know is they got in their car and they headed it out of town, just like we told them to." The Sheriff's Office was a participant. "That I was sure. I didn't have any proof. All I had was a history of, uh, having seen this sort of thing before."
"Well, we pulled them over and brought them in here. At that point, I became more selective about who we were telling what we were doing." The FBI began a search for any signs of the young men. No one had seen them, or at least they weren't saying so.
Then, on June 23rd, two days after their disappearance, their station wagon was found.
Two Choctaw Indians from a nearby reservation had come across the smoldering vehicle the following evening. It had been burned to the metal in a swampy area called Bogue Chitto Creek, 50 feet from the highway near Philadelphia. When they learned of its possible significance, they called the FBI.
Special Agent J. Cochran was dispatched from Washington, an expert in firearms and explosives. He'd seen more than his share of civil rights violence. When he arrived at the scene, he wasn't optimistic about what the car would reveal.
"In examining the, uh, burned-out vehicle, we were looking for any evidence of human remains. Uh, we were also looking then for any evidence that may have been left behind of any value in in determining what happened to the civil rights workers."
The car was too far gone to provide any clues, but nearby, investigators found something more promising: a watch, later identified as belonging to Schwerner, and keys to the car. The watch had stopped at 12:45.
It took no time at all for the news of the discovery to spread.
"The vehicle hadn't been recovered very long before the news was out on the police wires and the press wires and the neighbors' wires and the radio and so on. And we started to run a, a stadium at Cheeto, and that wasn't easy for those so inclined." The discovery of the car only supported the idea of a hoax. But unofficially, investigators' hopes of finding the men alive had faded.
"It was obvious from the beginning that we weren't leaving until the bodies were located. Uh, Mr. Hoover wouldn't have countenance that, and for that matter, neither would the general public. Uh, we were going to find those bodies, uh, uh, if it took forever."
Agent Sullivan contacted Director J. Edgar Hoover to ask for reinforcements.
"I told him that, uh, I thought I would need at least 25 men in short order, but I thought I would need more pretty promptly if it developed the way I was afraid it had. Afraid it would. And, uh, he said, 'What are you talking about?' And I said, 'Well, I'm going to need 100 men.' And he said, 'There are 100 men coming.'"
"Real good guys. All right." Soon, 100 agents, aided by student volunteers, descended on Philadelphia to search for Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman.
"You guys come. Me bushes over here." It wasn't enough. The men, their bodies could have been anywhere.
Against the backdrop of this agonizing mystery, student volunteers stormed the bastions of the Old South, trying to register black voters. Dixie fought back with all it had. As the summer invasion pressed forward, the eyes of the world focused on Mississippi. In Neshoba County, Deputy Price and Sheriff Lawrence Rainey rebuffed the press. They felt the disappearance of the three civil rights workers didn't merit the attention it was receiving.
And still, the search continued. 400 sailors from Meridian Naval Air Station were pressed into duty, working in rotating shifts. Woods were scouted, rivers were dragged. Then, the FBI received word that a body of a black man had been pulled from the Mississippi River near Vicksburg. They went to investigate. Though Vicksburg was 140 miles away, it was possible that Chaney's body may have floated downriver. It was the only lead in an otherwise dismal search.
"We discovered that he was, that this body was not that of one of the missing civil rights workers. It was determined that he was the victim of a Klan lynching." It wouldn't be the only false alarm that summer, as other lynching victims surfaced.
"What does it look like?" Some had gone unreported because, in some areas, the Klan was the law. Finding the missing civil rights workers was the FBI's first priority, but busting the Klan was the ultimate goal.
As the drive for voter registration continued, the hot Mississippi air crackled with hatred. Klan activity intensified. More than 60 black homes, churches, and businesses burned that summer, and that was just the beginning.
"I saw the violence. I saw the killing. I saw the people left homeless by fires. I saw churches burned in the middle of the night. I saw lives being lost for no reason, no reason whatsoever, by a group that felt they were right to break the Klan's hold on the South."
President Johnson authorized a new FBI office opened in Jackson, Mississippi, three weeks after the men disappeared. According to Agent Ingram, the days of subtlety were done. The FBI was taking off its gloves.
"In a matter of, uh, a few months, you had, uh, almost 300 agents working up and down from this state. Runs about 400 miles from, uh, the coast up to the, uh, border of Tennessee. So we covered every facet of it. 82 counties. We had agents all over the place."
While some agents continued to beat the bushes, others knocked on doors, hoping to find some leads. People were polite but uncooperative.
"White boys and a black boy. Have you seen anybody?" The FBI's tactic was to divide and conquer.
"Okay, thank you very much." Agents would attend Klan rallies, take photographs, copy down license plates until they were asked to leave. By then, they had what they had come for.
"Then the next time we talk with them, they say, 'I'm not a member of the Klan.' Well, you were at this Klan meeting. Why were you there if you're not a member? You're a sympathizer. Do you know these people blew up a church? Do you know these people blew up a school that was trying to, uh, desegregate? Is this the way you want to operate?" And most would say no. So we found, uh, that being at some of the meetings was a deterrent for some. Some would stop coming because they didn't want us to visit them. Others required more persuasion.
Agents were assigned individual Klan members to watch over from a distance. If a bombing or other act of violence occurred, it was the agent's duty to call that Klansman to account for his whereabouts.
"Before long, you know, they did not like being summoned out of bed at 3:00 in the morning when a crime was committed, four counties away. But after a while, the wives said, 'Hey, I don't want this anymore. My kids do not want it.' And so before long, you could talk with them, and they understood where you were coming from. You got to know each other on a first-name basis."
Soon, informants started coming forward. Some were housewives with stories to tell. Others were Klan members haunted by conscience who could provide some small piece of information, away from the curious eyes of their neighbors. To provide additional incentive, civil rights and religious organizations came up with money to pay informants. The veil of silence began to lift.
Some informants hinted that the investigation should begin at the Sheriff's Office. Though Sullivan had already had his eye on Sheriff Rainey and Deputy Price.
"Deputy Sheriff Price was, uh, a key target in our thinking, as was Rainey, because Price didn't do very much without Rainey's authority. Our problem was to document what he had done, to find somebody who would tell us about it."
An informant suggested talking with a young man named Will Murray Jones. Agents located 19-year-old Jones living in Chicago. He had suddenly moved out of Philadelphia almost three weeks before the men disappeared.
"It wasn't by choice. I was, uh, told in town that this, the place..." He told agents that his troubles began on June 1st when he went to a store in Philadelphia to get his class ring resized. The woman behind the counter was reluctant but took his ring to fix. Soon after, he was arrested by Sheriff Rainey and Deputy Price. They locked him up for supposedly asking the shop girl out on a date. He wasn't allowed a phone call.
"Get out of here." When they finally released him just after midnight, a gang of men were waiting for him. They rushed him up and forced him into a truck.
"Come on, boy." The vigilantes drove him to a secluded spot. They tried to force him into confessing that he had asked the clerk out.
"Better us." He swore his innocence. The gang was prepared to kill him on the spot, but then one of the men, who they called "the preacher," spared his life.
"You listen to me," he told Jones to leave town for good or he was dead. "You want to understand me? You want to understand me? Get out of..." Jones was on the next bus out of town.
The story Jones told sounded like a plausible motive for what could have happened to Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman, only perhaps they weren't lucky enough to have escaped with their lives.
"But here now, we have some additional evidence about what happens to people who are in unlawful custody in jail houses and are going to be disposed of in one way or another. So if it had happened once in Neshoba County, we were sure it could have happened again."
Believing the Jones may hold the key to the location of the civil rights workers' bodies, agents had him take them to the spot where the gang roughed him up.
"Right here. You sure this is..." The search of the area turned up nothing.
"Sure, they beat me up. Tell me where the body." But there was one informant that Sullivan was keeping to himself, slowly cultivating, winning his confidence by degree.
"Sure, your identity will never be revealed." This informant spoke under terms of total anonymity. His identity is protected even to this day because his life may still be in danger. He's known only as Mr. X.
"Yes, I can tell you more today." If anyone still considered the disappearance of the three civil rights workers to be a hoax, their opinion would soon change.
"They'll kill me if they ever found out." The FBI's star informant was about to emerge. On July 31st, 1964, Mr. X agreed to talk to Agent Sullivan.
"After we finished our social chat, I said, 'Are you going to be any able to tell me anything significant tonight?' And he, uh, said, 'I think I can tell you where the bodies are buried.' And I then tell me where..." Mr. X told Agent Sullivan that Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner were buried in an earthen dam at a place called Old Jolly Farm, owned by the wealthiest man in the county, Olen Burd.
But agents couldn't go there at once. They knew their moves were being scrutinized by the Klan. They didn't want to make it obvious they'd been tipped off to the burial location. A search warrant was issued for Old Jolly Farm. Sullivan sent Agent Cochran and others to the dam site. When they arrived, they realized this was no job for probing rods and shovels. The earth mound, still under construction, was 550 feet long, 20 feet high, and 10 feet across at the top. If the bodies were here, they weren't merely dropped into graves; rather, the dam was built on top of them.
Agents wanted to keep the excavation a secret. That would be difficult now. They needed an outside contractor with bulldozers and other heavy earth-moving equipment to extricate the bodies. According to Special Agent J. Cochran, "There were some concerns about the safety of the crew. It was decided to utilize armed agents in a convoy of the heavy equipment from Jackson to the location where we would begin using the equipment."
On August 4th, the equipment was in place. The contractor was asked to advise them how best to clear away the earth layer by layer. Cochran talked to him and said, "Can you give me an estimate as to what the construction cycle was on this dam? How it was built? How the big was done? How the dam mound was shaped? And in what time sequence?" He said, "Well, you must know what you're looking for." And I, I just didn't comment to him. At no time during these negotiations had either the construction crew, uh, or, in this case, the foreman, been told precisely what we were looking for. But I think they would have had to have been blithering idiots, and they weren't, to have not known what we were after."
After the foreman gave agents a crash course in dam building, Cochran poked his stick in the ground where he wanted the digging to begin. Then, in a move that has become a legend in the annals of the FBI, he had a change of heart. Cochran then picked up a stick and, for reasons best known to his guardian angel, he walked 15 feet further and put the stick in the ground and said, "Dig here," and that's where they were.
This job, beginning at 8:30 in the morning, progressed slowly. By 2:45, the pit was 13 feet deep, and the pungent smell of death was unmistakable. The machines were moved aside in favor of more delicate garden trowels. As the sun beat down, the odor rose up and poisoned the air. Flies swarmed, ushering in the agents' grim success. Just after 3:00 p.m., at 14 feet, the first body was found. It was Mickey Schwerner, identified by the contents of his wallet. Goodman was uncovered next, followed by Chaney.
"It's very hard to describe, you know. It's, it's, it's perhaps the saddest experience that one can have, but a graphic illustration of man's inhumanity to man. And, you know, they simply killed these people for no earthly reason, no earthly good reason."
The bodies had been buried more than a month, so it was impossible to immediately determine the cause of death. The coroner was summoned, and with him came Deputy Cecil Price.
"I just walked up like it was Sheriff's business. Found a body. How about that?" It was pretty casual, really. Price and the coroner lifted the bodies from the pit so they could be moved to the state hospital in Jackson for autopsy.
"Cecil Price helped to load all of them." "I didn't help to load any of them. I was, uh, letting the local authorities who had jurisdiction over the murders do their thing so we couldn't be accused of confusing or messing up the evidence or anything of that sort." If the deputy's presence was an example of the criminal returning to the scene of the crime, Agent Cochran saw no sign of guilt.
"Every agent that was at the scene, eyes were fixed on on Price when he was there, and I know I noticed not the slightest emotional reaction, and I don't think anybody else did either."
The bodies were autopsied in Jackson. All three men had been shot. Schwerner and Goodman were each shot once. Chaney, three times. A hard, rock-like substance was pried from Goodman's right hand. Whatever happened, happened that night. The substance showed that Goodman's nightmare didn't end with a bullet.
"Upon subsequent examination of that substance at the FBI laboratory, it was determined to be clay, similar in makeup or consistent with the clay composition of the soil at the dam site. Uh, this would tend to suggest that at the time Mr. Goodman was was laid in his grave, he was still alive."
The bullets from the victims were analyzed at the FBI's Firearms Identification Unit. Most of the more than 5,000 weapons here were confiscated over the years from actual crimes. Though its equipment has changed since 1964, the role of the unit remains the same: to match bullets to weapons. Today, the shooting gallery is the domain of Supervisory Special Agent Paul Tangren.
"The bullet will pass over defects within the barrel, and those are defects that are specific and unique to that firearm. And that pattern of marks that picks up passing over these defects is like a fingerprint for that gun." Bullets from a crime are scrutinized side by side. If they were shot from the same gun, the comparison microscope would form a seamless image of the marks on both bullets. Bullets shot from different weapons simply wouldn't match up.
"I've got lots of marks and very little agreement, and that is typical of what you would see of two bullets fired from two different guns of the same type." Using similar techniques, the FBI determined that Chaney was shot with two different .38 caliber weapons. Residue showed that the men were shot at close range. Total cost of the bullets used to kill three men: about $25.
Suddenly, to the people of Neshoba County, the missing civil rights activists was no longer a hoax or publicity stunt. This was the turning point. Racists drew the line at murdering white people. According to Agent Jim Ingram, the FBI no longer seemed like the bad guy.
"Then they realized we're dealing with some very violent people. So the mood changed to our betterment, because we had people that wanted to assist us, particularly the, the little town of Philadelphia, Mississippi. It was amazing how many people then said, 'Look, if we have these people among us that would kill, then we need those individuals found and arrested and prosecuted.'"
"I do want to help you." Meridian Police Sergeant Wallace Miller was one respected Klan member who had seen enough. He wanted out of the Klan, but the FBI convinced him to stay. Now, the FBI had their mole, and the impenetrable walls of the invisible empire had been breached.
"And must be driven out of our hearts, and we have to look to the C. Let it be done." The next few weeks, Sergeant Miller proved that he wasn't involved in the murder of the civil rights workers. He helped the FBI by gleaning information about the crime from fellow Klansmen. Others were also coming forward.
"Nobody knew that anyone else was talking." The information started to flow. From interviews with various informants, the FBI compiled a list of names of Klansmen who may have been involved. The same names kept coming up. Agents learned that the murders were the plan of Sam Bowers, the first Imperial Wizard, or head, of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi. His right-hand man was Edgar Killen, known as "the preacher" because he was one. He was also apparently the same preacher that spared the life of Will Murray Jones.
"So we had informants that could give us direct information. We had individuals who actually were involved in the shooting that gave us signed confessions." Confession led to confession. Slowly, a picture of the events that night took shape.
"Doing down in Louisiana, sir. I need to make a phone call." A plan of horrible simplicity. While Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney were in jail, Deputy Price notified "Preacher" Killen, who rounded up fellow Klansmen. The Klansmen gassed up their cars, loaded their weapons, and waited until the men were released so they could carry out their Imperial Wizard's orders.
When the civil rights workers were released at 10:30, the plan was ready.
"Head back to..." "How they treat you?" "Okay, but I didn't like it there." "Hey, you got the keys? You just drive." "I don't want to come back to Philadelphia again. Let's get out here."
Not far out of Philadelphia, they must have noticed lights in their rearview mirror closing at a fast clip. They sped up to try to outrun them, topping 100 mph. One pursuer's car broke down, but two persisted. Deputy Price's cruiser was one. He hit the flashers.
"Cheney, pull up." "What's the matter with you, boy?" Deputy Price yanked Chaney from the station wagon. "Out of the car. You shut up, boy. You were doing over 100 mph in my county, boy. Don't make me chase you like..." Schwerner and Goodman were escorted into the back of the patrol car.
"Get out of there." As Chaney started to follow them, Price clubbed him with his blackjack and shoved him into his car. The procession continued down Highway 19, one of the Klansmen driving the station wagon. The murders occurred without fanfare. Schwerner was the first to die. The car stopped on a dirt road. Schwerner was pulled out of the car, spun around, and shot point-blank. Goodman was shot in much the same manner. They saved Chaney for last, shot by two men.
The bodies were loaded into their station wagon. They were driven to Old Jolly Farm, where the bulldozer operator waited in the darkness, ready to conceal the evidence under 14 feet of clay. Last, the station wagon was driven to the swamp. Gas was poured over it. A match was struck.
On November 25th, the FBI announced it knew who killed the civil rights workers. But murder charges fall under state jurisdiction, not federal. The best the FBI could hope to do was to convict on civil rights violations. They knew that Mississippi would be unlikely to file murder charges. More than five months after the murders, 19 men were charged with felony conspiracy to oppress and intimidate the civil rights workers from practicing their constitutional rights. Two more were charged with having knowledge of the crime. All made bail and were released.
A pre-trial hearing was set for December 10th.
"When you realize the scope of the physical evidence that we were able to capture, the pictures of the dam, the pictures of the bodies, the, uh, post-mortems, the, uh, uh, burned vehicle, the on and on. We just had enormous amounts of physical evidence, circumstantial evidence to document the confessions. So it was a powerful case that we turned over. And we were blessed because we had two outstanding prosecutors. The evidence was, uh, we thought insurmountable. But we also knew that there were troubled times in Mississippi, that not everyone thought like we did."
The federal government prosecution went wrong almost from the start. At the hearing, the judge refused to allow signed confessions or written testimony from key witnesses. The government pressed the matter, and on January 11th, a grand jury indicted 18 men, including Sheriff Rainey and Deputy Price. But the charges were knocked down from felony to misdemeanor.
The case languished until 1966, when the United States Supreme Court ruled that felony charges were applicable. Three years after the murders, on October 9th, 1967, the trial was held at the federal courthouse in Meridian. For 10 days, the nation awaited the verdict. But none came. The jury was deadlocked, and immediately, the people there within the courtroom in Meridian, Mississippi, they burst into, uh, laughter and joyful hugging each other, saying, "Hey, we've won! It's a hung jury!" Well, the judge said, "No, you're going to go back." And back they went to deliberate further.
That next morning, October 20th, 1967, they reached a verdict. Of the 18 men charged, eight were ultimately found guilty of civil rights violations, including Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers and Deputy Cecil Price. It took more than three years for justice to be served, and even then, it was delivered only in half measures. Bowers received the stiffest sentence: just 10 years. Cecil Price received six. Sheriff Rainey and "the preacher" were acquitted.
None of the men indicted was ever tried by the state for murder. Many of them still live in Mississippi. And though there's talk of reopening the murder files, all evidence in the case was destroyed years ago by court order. The hatred that split the nation was not so easily eradicated.
According to civil rights activist Bob Moses, what happened in Mississippi marked the beginning of the great changes to come.
"What has changed in Mississippi is that before the '60s, Mississippi held itself as a state apart from the rest of the country, a place which was going to defy the country at any odds to maintain what was its racial apartheid. And now it's indistinguishable from the rest of the country. So Mississippi has become like every other state in the country."
Donations helped to rebuild Mount Zion Church. It has become a shrine to the three men who came here hoping to make a difference and who succeeded in ways they could never have anticipated. Mickey Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were buried in New York. James Chaney's grave is in the hills outside of Meridian, where it bears the scars of vandals.
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One your emergency.