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1、ssissippi Burning Trialssissippi Burning Trial(U.S.vs.Price et al.)by Douglas O.LinderIt was an old-fashioned lynching,carried out with the help of county officials,that came to symbolize hardcore resistance to integration.Dead were three civil rights workers,Michael Schwerner,Andrew Goodman,and Jam
2、es Chaney.All three shot in the dark of night on a lonely road in Neshoba County,Mississippi.Many people predicted such a tragedy when the Mississippi Summer Project,an effort that would bring hundreds of college-age volunteers to the most totalitarian state in the country was announced in April,196
3、4.The FBIs all-out search for the conspirators who killed the three young men,depicted in the movie Mississippi Burning,was successful,leading three years later to a trial in the courtroom of one of Americas most determined segregationist judges.Sam Bowers,the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of
4、 the Klu Klux Klan of Mississippi,sent word in May,1964 to the Klansmen of Lauderdale and Neshoba counties that it was time to activate Plan 4.Plan 4 provided for the elimination of the despised civil rights activist Michael Schwerner,who the Klan called Goatee or Jew-Boy.Schwerner,the first white c
5、ivil rights worker based outside of the capitol of Jackson,had earned the enmity of the Klan by organizing a black boycott of a white-owned business and aggressively trying to register blacks in and around Meridian to vote.The Klans first attempt to eliminate Schwerner came on June 16,1964 in the ru
6、ral Neshoba County community of Longdale LINK TO MAP.Schwerner had visited Longdale on Memorial Day to ask permission of the black congregation at Mount Zion Church to use their church as the site of a Freedom School.The Klan knew of Schwerners Memorial Day visit to Longdale and expected him to retu
7、rn for a business meeting held at the church on the evening of June 16.About 10 p.m.,when the Mount Zion meeting broke up,seven black men and three black women left the building to discover thirty men lined up in military fashion with rifles and shotguns.More men were gathered at the rear of the chu
8、rch.Frustrated when their search for Jew-Boy was unsuccessful,some of the Klan members began beating the departing blacks.Ten gallons of gasoline were removed from one of the Klan members cars and spread around the inside of the church.Mount Zion Church was soon engulfed in flames.News of the beatin
9、gs and fire reached Michael Schwerner in Oxford,Ohio.Schwerner and his twenty-one-year-old chief aide,a native black Meridian named James Chaney,were in Ohio to attend a three-day program sponsored by the National Council of Churches to train recruits for the Mississippi Summer Project.Among those b
10、eing trained for a summer of work aimed at improving the lives of black Mississippians was a Queens College student named Andrew Goodman,who Schwerner convinced to come to Meridian.Anxious to get back to Mississippi to learn what they could about the disturbing events in Longdale,Schwerner,Chaney,an
11、d the newly-recruited Goodman loaded into a blue CORE-owned Ford station wagon in the early morning hours of June 20 for long trip back to Meridian.The next day,after a short nights sleep and a breakfast in Meridian,the three civil rights workers were again in the CORE wagon heading northwest toward
12、s Longdale.Longdale was in Neshoba County,known as a high risk area for civil rights workers.Lawrence Rainey,Neshoba County Sheriff,and his deputy,Cecil Price,were both members of the Klan.Although their Klan membership was not generally known,both had reputations as being tough on blacks.Rainey had
13、 been elected sheriff the previous November after campaigning as the man who can cope with situations that might arise.In Neshoba County,it was well understood that the situations Rainey referred to meant meddlesome interference by outsiders with Mississippis state-enforced policy of segregation.Sch
14、werner told Meridian CORE worker Sue Brown that they should be back in the CORE office in Meridian by 4:00.If they werent back by 4:30,she should start making phone calls.Schwerner,Chaney,and Goodman began their Midsummers Day visit to Neshoba County with an inspection of the burned out remains of M
15、ount Zion Church.They then visited the homes of four black members of the congregation to learn more about the incident.At one of the homes,the three civil rights workers were warned that a group of white men were looking for them.About 3 p.m.,the trio was ready to head back to the relative safety o
16、f their Meridian office.There were two possible routes to Meridian.The most direct route was the road they had come up,Highway 491,a narrow clay road intersected by numerous dirt roads.An ambush would be easy on 491.The other,less direct route,was a black topped Highway 16,which would take them west
17、 through Philadelphia,the county seat.Chaney turned onto Highway 16.Deputy Sheriff Price was at that time heading east on Highway 16.A few miles outside of Philadephia,Price spotted the well-known CORE wagon heading in his direction.Schwerner and Goodman most likely were crouched low in their seats,
18、allowing Price to see only the black driver,James Chaney.Price shouted over his radio,Ive got a good one!George Raymond!(Raymond was a black civil rights leader hated by Klan throughout Mississippi.)Price did a quick U-turn and headed back after his quarry.Chaney pulled the CORE wagon over to the si
19、de of the road just inside the Philadelphia city limits.Price arrested Schwerner,Goodman,and Chaney,allegedly for suspicion of having been involved in the church arson,and deposited the three in the Neshoba County jail.Soon thereafter he met with the Neshoba County Klan kleagle,or recruiter,Edgar Ra
20、y Killen to tell him of his exciting catch and to plan the deadly conspiracy that would unfold later that night.Some of what happened over the next seven hours in the Neshoba County jail is known.We know that Schwerner asked to make a phone call,but his request was denied.If he wasnt concerned about
21、 his physical well-being before that time,he would have been then.We also know that a call was made to the jail at 5:20 in the afternoon asking whether anyone there had information concerning the whereabouts of the three overdue civil rights workers.We know also that the jailer who answered the call
22、,Minnie Herring,lied.We know that shortly after 10:00 P.M.Cecil Price showed up at the jail,telling the jailer,Chaney wants to pay off well let him pay off and release them all.Price led them to their parked car,then tailed them as they headed east out of town on Highway 19.The three civil rights wo
23、rkers by then no doubt suspected that they were being led into a trap,and in fact they were.Since receiving word from Price that Schwerner had been captured,Edgar Ray Killen,the Klan kleagle and an ordained Baptist minister,had been busy recruiting members of the Neshoba and Lauderdale County klaver
24、ns for some butt ripping,as he put it.An afternoon meeting at the Longhorn Drive-In in Meridian with local Klan bigwigs was followed by a later meeting at Akins Mobile Homes with eager,younger members who would participate in the actual killings.Killen told the dozen or more recruits to buy rubber g
25、loves and to be in Philadelphia by 8:15 P.M.After offering the Klan men a drive-by tour of the Neshoba County jail and going over the details of the planned release,Killen headed off to see a departed uncle at the local funeral home and to thereby establish his alibi.After following the CORE station
26、 wagon out of town,Price returned to Philadelphia to drop off an accompanying Philadelphia police officer,then raced back onto Highway 19 in pursuit of the three civil rights workers.Meanwhile,two other cars filled with young Klan members were also speeding down with the same object in mind.Prices s
27、ouped-up Chevy saw the CORE wagon come into view less than ten miles from the county line.Chaney decided to run for it,and a high speed chase ensued.Chaney swerved quickly onto Highway 492,but Price made the turn as well.Seconds later,for reasons unknown,Chaney braked his car and the three surrender
28、ed.According to James Jordan,a Klan member who would later become a key FBI informant,Price said,I thought you were going back to Meridian if we let you out of jail?When Chaney said thats where they were headed,Price said,You sure were taking the long way around.Get out of the car.The three were pla
29、ced in Deputy Prices car.Soon three cars,Prices and two full of Klan members,were traveling in a procession down an unmarked dirt turnoff called Rock Cut Road.It is not known whether the three were beaten before they were killed.Klan informants deny that they were,but there is some physical evidence
30、 to the contrary.What is known is that a twenty-six-year-old dishonorably discharged ex-Marine,Wayne Roberts,was the trigger man,shooting first Schwerner,then Goodman,then Chaney,all at point blank range.(FBI informant James Jordan,according to a second informant present at the killings,Doyle Barnet
31、te,also fired two shots at Chaney.)The bodies of the three civil rights workers were taken to a dam site at the 253-acre Old Jolly Farm.The farm was owned by Philadelphia businessman Olen Burrage who reportedly had announced at a Klan meeting when the impending arrival in Mississippi of an army of c
32、ivil rights workers was discussed,Hell,Ive got a dam thatll hold a hundred of them.The bodies were placed together in a a hollow at the dam site and then covered with tons of dirt by a Caterpillar D-4.While the bodies were being buried,Price had returned to his duties in Philadelphia.Around 12:30 A.
33、M.,Price met with Sheriff Rainey.Given their Klan membership and the close relationship between the two,it is almost unimaginable that at that time Price did not relate,in full detail,the events following the release from jail of Schwerner,Goodman,and Chaney.At the CORE office in Meridian,meanwhile,
34、staffers were growing increasingly concerned about the long overdue civil rights workers.Calls inquiring about their whereabouts turned up no helpful information.At 12:30 A.M.,a call was placed to John Doar,the Justice Departments point man in Mississippi.Less than a week earlier Doar had been in Ox
35、ford,Ohio warning Summer Project volunteers that there was no federal police force that could protect them from expected trouble in Mississippi.Doar feared the worst.By 6:00 A.M.,Doar had invested the FBI with the power to investigate a possible violation of federal law.The morning after the civil r
36、ights workers disappearance,the phone rang in the office of Meridian-based FBI agent John Proctor.(In the movie Mississippi Burning,the character played by Gene Hackman is loosely based on Proctor.)Within hours,Proctor was in Neshoba County interviewing blacks,community leaders,Sheriff Rainey,and De
37、puty Price.Proctor was a Alabama native who had successfully cultivated relationships with all sorts of people,including local law enforcement officers,who might aid in his investigations.After his interview with Cecil Price,the Deputy slapped Proctor on the back and said,Hell,John,lets have a drink
38、.Price went to his car and pulled contraband liquor out of his trunk.By the next day,June 23,Proctor had been joined by ten newly arrived special agents and Harry Maynor,his New Orleans-based supervisor.The first big break in the FBI investigation,called MIBURN(for Mississippi Burning),came when Pro
39、ctor received a tip that a smoldering car had been seen in northeast Neshoba County.While Proctor was at the scene,searching the area around what turned out to be the burned blue CORE station wagon,he looked up to see Joseph Sullivan,the FBIs Major Case Inspector.It was by then abundantly clear that
40、 the Johnson Administration was placing top priority on the case.By June 25,the federal military had joined the search,with busloads of sailors arriving in Neshoba County to beat their way through snake-infested swamps and woods.Days later,FBI Director J.Edgar Hoover would fly to Jackson to announce
41、 the opening of the FBIs first office in Mississippi.It soon became apparent to Inspector Sullivan the case would ultimately be solved by conducting an investigation rather than a search.It turned out to be an extraordinarily difficult investigation.Neshoba County residents,many of whom either parti
42、cipated in the conspiracy or knew of it,were tight-lipped.Proctor found that some of his most useful information came from kids,so he would stuff candy in his pockets before setting out for a days schedule of interviews.A promise of$30,000 in reward money finally brought forward information,passed t
43、hrough an intermediary,concerning the location of the bodies.On August 4,1964,John Proctor was at the Old Jolly Farm to take photographs of the bodies as they were uncovered at the dam site.Inspector Sullivan invited Price to the dam site to help in the removal of the bodies.Sullivan was interested
44、in observing the reaction of the Deputy,who was by then under heavy suspicion.Proctor noted that Price picked up a shovel and dug right in,and gave no indication whatsoever that any of it bothered him.Finally it would be informants from within the Klan that would break the case open.The first inform
45、ation,from a Klan member at the periphery of the conspiracy,enabled the FBI to focus on the more central figures.One Klan member who received a great deal of attention from John Proctor was James Jordan,a Meridian speakeasy owner.Over the course of five increasingly rough interviews,Jordan came to s
46、ee turning states evidence as his best bet to avoid a long prison term.He was also promised$3500 and help in relocating himself and his family in return for his full story.Jordan would become the governments key witness to the crime.By December,1964,the Justice Department had enough information to a
47、uthorize arrests.On the drizzly morning of December 4,a team of federal agents swept through Neshoba and Lauderdale Counties arresting nineteen men for conspiring to deprive Schwerner,Chaney,and Goodman of their civil rights under color of state law.Six days later,a U.S.Commissioner dismissed the ch
48、arges,declaring that the confession on which the arrests were based was hearsay evidence.A month later,government attorneys secured indictments against the conspirators from a federal grand jury in Jackson.The Justice Department was again disappointed,however,when on February 24,1965,Federal Judge W
49、illiam Harold Cox,an ardent segregationist,threw out the indictments against all conspirators other than Rainey and Price on the ground that the other seventeen were not acting under color of state law.In March,1966,the United States Supreme Court overruled Cox and reinstated the indictments LINK TO
50、 SUPREME COURT DECISION.As the Justice Department prepared for trial,defense attorneys made the cynical argument that the original indictments were flawed because the pool of jurors from which the grand jury was drawn contained insufficient numbers of minorities.Rather than attempt to refute the cha