While the battle for the civil rights of African-Americans waged throughout the United States in the 1960s, Southern states held the bloodiest battle grounds in the nation. Perhaps the most infamous Civil Rights case of the 1960’s was the case surrounding the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner – commonly known as the Mississippi Burning Trial. This paper will argue that the Mississippi Burning case of 1966 brought attention to the necessity for the enforcement of civil rights laws in the South, drew the efforts of the federal government, and changed the way the civil rights of African-Americans were protected in the South.
When Michael Schwerner, a white Civil Rights activist from New York, relocated to Meridian, Mississippi as a part of a summer program to advocate the voting rights of African-Americans, his efforts to register local African-American voters began to stir up trouble for the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Along with Schwerner, fellow advocate Andrew Goodman and African-American volunteer James Chaney, a Meridian native, requested a local church for permission to use their church building as a school to educate local African-Americans on their voting rights. Soon after, local KKK members brutally beat several church members and burned down the church building. Klan officers attacked the church in search of Schwerner. Just days earlier, the “Imperial Wizard” of the Neshoba County KKK, Sam Bowers, authorized a KKK kill order on Schwerner (1). After being arrested on an alleged traffic violation by local deputy sheriff Cecil Price, the deputy followed the three men and drove them into a trap of more than ten Klansmen awaiting their arrival on a deserted road in the dead of night. The Klansmen took the Civil Rights activists, not one of them older than 25 years old, murdered them, and buried their bodies beneath an earthen dam on property owned by a local Klansman (2).
Soon after Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney’s disappearance, other activists in Meridian became concerned and contacted Mississippi’s state Justice Department attorney John Doar, who assigned the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to the case. This was the first federal intervention into a Southern civil rights case. Within a week, top federal investigators as well as J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, were present and on the case in Neshoba County, Mississippi. Pictured below is the FBI missing poster from Meridian.
When Michael Schwerner, a white Civil Rights activist from New York, relocated to Meridian, Mississippi as a part of a summer program to advocate the voting rights of African-Americans, his efforts to register local African-American voters began to stir up trouble for the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Along with Schwerner, fellow advocate Andrew Goodman and African-American volunteer James Chaney, a Meridian native, requested a local church for permission to use their church building as a school to educate local African-Americans on their voting rights. Soon after, local KKK members brutally beat several church members and burned down the church building. Klan officers attacked the church in search of Schwerner. Just days earlier, the “Imperial Wizard” of the Neshoba County KKK, Sam Bowers, authorized a KKK kill order on Schwerner (1). After being arrested on an alleged traffic violation by local deputy sheriff Cecil Price, the deputy followed the three men and drove them into a trap of more than ten Klansmen awaiting their arrival on a deserted road in the dead of night. The Klansmen took the Civil Rights activists, not one of them older than 25 years old, murdered them, and buried their bodies beneath an earthen dam on property owned by a local Klansman (2).
Soon after Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney’s disappearance, other activists in Meridian became concerned and contacted Mississippi’s state Justice Department attorney John Doar, who assigned the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to the case. This was the first federal intervention into a Southern civil rights case. Within a week, top federal investigators as well as J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, were present and on the case in Neshoba County, Mississippi. Pictured below is the FBI missing poster from Meridian.
The first FBI office in Mississippi was opened in the capital, Jackson, Mississippi, in response to the tragedy. After dismissal from a state court and a notoriously racist federal judge, the case was finally decided before the Supreme Court. The Mississippi Burning case then gained the name United States v. Cecil Price et al., after the final indictment of an additional 18 Klansmen involved in the conspiracy to murder Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney. Three Klan members testified for the prosecution, exposing the murderers in sickening detail. The defense argument was based on character witnesses. While only seven of the defendants were convicted at that time by the Supreme Court, this ruling proved a success for Civil Rights activists in the South. These were the first convictions related to the murder of a civil rights worker in the state of Mississippi, and it proved that the federal government meant to become serious about enforcement of civil rights laws in the South (3).
This landmark success was a step in the direction of true voting equality for African-Americans. The violence in Mississippi faced new opposition: a stronger and re-established presence of the FBI, who immediately took on over 1,500 cases against white supremacist individuals and organizations. More than ninety FBI agents were assigned to a variety of civil rights cases throughout the state of Mississippi. And while bombings, burnings, lynchings, and murders carried on, the FBI division at Jackson, Mississippi continued to fight tirelessly to keep peace and defend the voting rights of African-Americans in Mississippi (4). In cases that were abandoned by local corrupt police departments, the FBI sought out and investigated civil rights cases across the state (5).
The Mississippi Burning case brought national attention to the state of civil rights enforcement, especially in hostile Southern states such as Mississippi. Soon after the bodies of the three civil rights workers being found dead, the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was pushed through Congress due in large part to the national uproar over the murders. In a recent interview, the younger brother of Andrew Goodman, David Goodman, stated that the case was so influential simply because it was not the murder of three men, but that two of the men murdered were white. He also discussed the personal visit of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife Coretta, who expressed their personal condolences to the Goodman family. The leader of the civil rights group for whom Chaney worked, Dave Dennis of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), gave an emotional and challenging eulogy at the funeral of James Chaney, which rallied a great number of people around the nation behind the cause of the civil rights workers:
I don’t grieve for Chaney, because [in] fact I feel that he lived a fuller life than many of us will ever live. I feel that he’s got his freedom, and we’re still fighting for it. You see, we’re all tired. You see, I know what’s going to happen. I feel it deep in my heart. When they find the people who killed those guys in Neshoba County... All of the deep emotions, things I’d been going through leading up to this particular moment, began to come out, boil up in me, you might call this. And then looking out there and seeing Ben Chaney, James Chaney’s little brother, I lost it. I totally just lost it. Don’t bow down anymore! Hold your heads up! We want our freedom now. I don’t want to have to go to another memorial. Tired of funerals. Tired of it! Got to stand up! (6).
These words rang in the ears of the United States people. The case of three young civil rights workers in Mississippi was a driving force behind the Civil Rights movement, demanding enforcement of civil rights laws in the South (7).
The tragic case of three young civil rights workers in the heart of the violence of Mississippi changed the way the United States people viewed civil rights laws. The injustice of the murders, the corrupt trials leading up to United States v. Cecil Price, and the FBI investigation of the case drew attention to the state of civil rights matters in Southern states such as Mississippi. The impact of this case was the new-found and strong enforcement of civil rights laws in the South.
This landmark success was a step in the direction of true voting equality for African-Americans. The violence in Mississippi faced new opposition: a stronger and re-established presence of the FBI, who immediately took on over 1,500 cases against white supremacist individuals and organizations. More than ninety FBI agents were assigned to a variety of civil rights cases throughout the state of Mississippi. And while bombings, burnings, lynchings, and murders carried on, the FBI division at Jackson, Mississippi continued to fight tirelessly to keep peace and defend the voting rights of African-Americans in Mississippi (4). In cases that were abandoned by local corrupt police departments, the FBI sought out and investigated civil rights cases across the state (5).
The Mississippi Burning case brought national attention to the state of civil rights enforcement, especially in hostile Southern states such as Mississippi. Soon after the bodies of the three civil rights workers being found dead, the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was pushed through Congress due in large part to the national uproar over the murders. In a recent interview, the younger brother of Andrew Goodman, David Goodman, stated that the case was so influential simply because it was not the murder of three men, but that two of the men murdered were white. He also discussed the personal visit of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife Coretta, who expressed their personal condolences to the Goodman family. The leader of the civil rights group for whom Chaney worked, Dave Dennis of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), gave an emotional and challenging eulogy at the funeral of James Chaney, which rallied a great number of people around the nation behind the cause of the civil rights workers:
I don’t grieve for Chaney, because [in] fact I feel that he lived a fuller life than many of us will ever live. I feel that he’s got his freedom, and we’re still fighting for it. You see, we’re all tired. You see, I know what’s going to happen. I feel it deep in my heart. When they find the people who killed those guys in Neshoba County... All of the deep emotions, things I’d been going through leading up to this particular moment, began to come out, boil up in me, you might call this. And then looking out there and seeing Ben Chaney, James Chaney’s little brother, I lost it. I totally just lost it. Don’t bow down anymore! Hold your heads up! We want our freedom now. I don’t want to have to go to another memorial. Tired of funerals. Tired of it! Got to stand up! (6).
These words rang in the ears of the United States people. The case of three young civil rights workers in Mississippi was a driving force behind the Civil Rights movement, demanding enforcement of civil rights laws in the South (7).
The tragic case of three young civil rights workers in the heart of the violence of Mississippi changed the way the United States people viewed civil rights laws. The injustice of the murders, the corrupt trials leading up to United States v. Cecil Price, and the FBI investigation of the case drew attention to the state of civil rights matters in Southern states such as Mississippi. The impact of this case was the new-found and strong enforcement of civil rights laws in the South.
End Notes:
1.Douglas O. Linder, "The Mississippi Burning Trial (U.S. vs. Price et al.)," University of Missouri Kansas City, Accessed May 12, 2016, http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/Account.html.
2. Christopher Schmidt, "Mississippi Burning at the Supreme Court," Chicago - Kent College of Law, November 25, 2014, http://blogs.kentlaw.iit.edu/iscotus/mississippi-burning-supreme-court/.
3. "Jackson Division: A Brief History," Federal Bureau of Investigation, Accessed May 12, 2016, https://www.fbi.gov/jackson/about-us/history-1.
4. Ibid.
5. "Mississippi Burning at 50: Relatives of Civil Rights Workers Look Back at Murders that Shaped an Era," Democracy Now: Independent Global News, June 26, 2014, http://www.democracynow.org/2014/6/26/50_years_later_relatives_of_slain.
6. Ibid.
Bibliography
1. Democracy Now: Independent Global News. "Mississippi Burning at 50: Relatives of Civil Rights Workers Look Back at Murders that Shaped an Era." June 26, 2014. http://www.democracynow.org/2014/6/26/50_years_later_relatives_of_slain.
2. Federal Bureau of Investigation. "A Byte Out of History: 50 Years Since Mississippi Burning." June 20, 2014. https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2014/june/50-years-since-mississippi-burning/50-years-since-mississippi-burning.
3. Federal Bureau of Investigation. "Jackson Division: A Brief History." Accessed May 12, 2016. https://www.fbi.gov/jackson/about-us/history-1.
4. Linder, Douglas O. "The Mississippi Burning Trial (U.S. vs. Price et al.)." University of Missouri Kansas City. Accessed May 12, 2016. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/Account.html.
5. Schmidt, Christopher. "Mississippi Burning at the Supreme Court." Chicago - Kent College of Law. November 25, 2014. http://blogs.kentlaw.iit.edu/iscotus/mississippi-burning-supreme-court/.
6. University of Missouri Kansas City. "383 U.S. 787 United States v. Price et al.: Supreme Court of the United States." Accessed May 12, 2016. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/sctdecision.html.
7. University of Missouri Kansas City. "Biography of Andrew Goodman." Accessed May 12, 2016. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/Goodman.html.
8. University of Missouri Kansas City. "Biography of James Chaney." Accessed May 12, 2016. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/Chaney.htm.
9. University of Missouri Kansas City. "Biography of Michael Schwerner." Accessed May 12, 2016. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/Schwerner.htm.
10. University of Missouri Kansas City. "Biography of Sam Bowers." Accessed May 12, 2016. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/Bowers.htm.
11. University of Missouri Kansas City. "Biography of Wayne Roberts." Accessed May 12, 2016. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/Roberts.htm.
Both above pictures can be found here: https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2014/june/50-years-since-mississippi-burning/50-years-since-mississippi-burning
1.Douglas O. Linder, "The Mississippi Burning Trial (U.S. vs. Price et al.)," University of Missouri Kansas City, Accessed May 12, 2016, http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/Account.html.
2. Christopher Schmidt, "Mississippi Burning at the Supreme Court," Chicago - Kent College of Law, November 25, 2014, http://blogs.kentlaw.iit.edu/iscotus/mississippi-burning-supreme-court/.
3. "Jackson Division: A Brief History," Federal Bureau of Investigation, Accessed May 12, 2016, https://www.fbi.gov/jackson/about-us/history-1.
4. Ibid.
5. "Mississippi Burning at 50: Relatives of Civil Rights Workers Look Back at Murders that Shaped an Era," Democracy Now: Independent Global News, June 26, 2014, http://www.democracynow.org/2014/6/26/50_years_later_relatives_of_slain.
6. Ibid.
Bibliography
1. Democracy Now: Independent Global News. "Mississippi Burning at 50: Relatives of Civil Rights Workers Look Back at Murders that Shaped an Era." June 26, 2014. http://www.democracynow.org/2014/6/26/50_years_later_relatives_of_slain.
2. Federal Bureau of Investigation. "A Byte Out of History: 50 Years Since Mississippi Burning." June 20, 2014. https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2014/june/50-years-since-mississippi-burning/50-years-since-mississippi-burning.
3. Federal Bureau of Investigation. "Jackson Division: A Brief History." Accessed May 12, 2016. https://www.fbi.gov/jackson/about-us/history-1.
4. Linder, Douglas O. "The Mississippi Burning Trial (U.S. vs. Price et al.)." University of Missouri Kansas City. Accessed May 12, 2016. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/Account.html.
5. Schmidt, Christopher. "Mississippi Burning at the Supreme Court." Chicago - Kent College of Law. November 25, 2014. http://blogs.kentlaw.iit.edu/iscotus/mississippi-burning-supreme-court/.
6. University of Missouri Kansas City. "383 U.S. 787 United States v. Price et al.: Supreme Court of the United States." Accessed May 12, 2016. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/sctdecision.html.
7. University of Missouri Kansas City. "Biography of Andrew Goodman." Accessed May 12, 2016. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/Goodman.html.
8. University of Missouri Kansas City. "Biography of James Chaney." Accessed May 12, 2016. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/Chaney.htm.
9. University of Missouri Kansas City. "Biography of Michael Schwerner." Accessed May 12, 2016. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/Schwerner.htm.
10. University of Missouri Kansas City. "Biography of Sam Bowers." Accessed May 12, 2016. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/Bowers.htm.
11. University of Missouri Kansas City. "Biography of Wayne Roberts." Accessed May 12, 2016. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/Roberts.htm.
Both above pictures can be found here: https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2014/june/50-years-since-mississippi-burning/50-years-since-mississippi-burning