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Accused: Edgar Ray Killen
Edgar Ray Killen, a thirty-eight-year-old, ordained Baptist minister, was the point man in the conspiracy to murder three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Mississippi on June 21, 1964.
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Victim: James Chaney
James Chaney was twenty-one when he died on Rock Cut Road. He was a native of Meridian and the eldest son in a family of five children.
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Victim: Andy Goodman
Andy Goodman was only 20 when he died on Rock Cut Road on June 21, 1964, near the end of his first full day in Mississippi.
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Victim: Michael Schwerner
Michael Schwerner, "Goatee" to the klan of Neshoba and Lauderdale counties, was the most despised civil rights worker in Mississippi.
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Original Co-Defendant: Cecil Ray Price
Cecil Ray Price was the deputy sheriff of Neshoba County and the man in the center of the conspiracy to murder Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney.
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Original Co-Defendant: Lawrence Rainey
Sheriff Lawrence Rainey was the forty-one-year-old, gruff, barrel-chested, tobacco-chewing sheriff of Neshoba County in 1964.
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Original Co-Defendant: Wayne Roberts
Wayne Roberts was the triggerman who killed Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney on Rock Cut Road on the night of June 21, 1964.
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Original Co-Defendant: Sam Bowers
Sam Bowers was the imperial wizard of The White Knights of the Klu Klux Klan of Mississippi, a white supremacy organization that in 1964 included as many as 10,000 members.
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Summary of Events - Freedom Summer, 1964
In 1964, James Cheney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were three civil-rights workers who had come to Mississippi to register black voters for a project that came to be known as Freedom Summer.
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Quotes: 1964, Tom Ethridge, Jackson Clarion-Ledger:
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Quotes: 1964, Dallas Morning News
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Quotes: June 30, 1964, Jackson Clarion-Ledger
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Quotes: June 26, 1964, Meridian Star
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Timeline: June 1963 - Present
| January
7, 2005 |
| Edgar
Ray Killen pleads not guilty to the murders. |
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| January
6, 2005 |
| Edgar
Ray Killen arrested and charged with murder for the deaths of James Earl
Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. |
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| 1974 |
| Cecil
Price is released from prison. |
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| September
8, 1970 |
| Two
of the conspirators are badly beaten by black inmates in a federal prison
in Texarkana. |
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| March
19, 1970 |
| After
exhausting their appeals, the seven convicted men enter federal prisons. |
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| December
29, 1967 |
| The
case goes to the jury. |
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| October
18, 1967 |
| The
trial of the Neshoba County conspirators begins. |
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| October
7, 1967 |
| Schwerner,
Chaney and Goodman drive from Ohio to the CORE office in Meridian, Mississippi. |
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| February
28, 1967 |
| A
new grand jury indicts the nineteen conspirators. |
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| March,
1966 |
| Judge
William Cox dismisses the indictments (except as against Price and Sheriff
Rainey) on grounds that the conspirators were not "acting under color
of state law." |
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| February
24, 1965 |
| The
FBI interviews about 1000 Mississippians, including an estimated 500
members of the KKK. |
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| January,
1965 |
| A
federal grand jury in Jackson reindicts the nineteen. |
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| December
10, 1964 |
| A
U. S. Commissioner dismisses charges against the nineteen. |
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| December
4, 1964 |
| Nineteen
members of the conspiracy are arrested and charged with violating the
civil rights of Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman. |
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| November
19, 1964 |
| Klan
member Horace Barnette confesses and describes actual shootings. |
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| October
13, 1964 |
| Klan
member James Jordan confesses his involvement in the conspiracy to the
FBI and agrees to cooperate in its investigation. |
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| August
4, 1964 |
| Bodies
of Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman are discovered. |
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| August
3, 1964 |
| A
search warrant is obtained to look for bodies in an earthen dam at the
Old Jolly Farm. |
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| July
31, 1964 |
| The
FBI learns the probable location of the bodies. |
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| July
10, 1964 |
| J.
Edgar Hoover arrives in Jackson to open a Mississippi office of the FBI. |
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| July
2, 1964 |
| LBJ
signs the Civil rights Act of 1964 into law. |
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| June
24, 1964 |
| Prominent
black leaders including James Farmer, John Lewis, and Dick Gregory meet
with Neshoba County official in Philadelphia. |
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| June
23, 1964 |
| President
Johnson meets with Attorney General Robert Kennedy and others to discuss
an Administration response to the crisis in Mississippi. |
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| June
- July, 1964 |
| The
FBI interviews about 1000 Mississippians, including an estimated 500
members of the KKK. |
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| June
22, 1964 |
| The
FBI begins its investigation into the disappearance of the three civil
rights workers. Joseph Sullivan is appointed to head the investigation. |
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| June
21, 1964 |
| Schwerner,
Chaney, and Goodman drive to site of burned church in Neshoba County.
On their way back to Meridian, they are arrested by Deputy Sheriff Cecil
Price and taken to the county jail in Philadelphia, Miss. In a conspiracy
with at local members of the Klan, Price releases the three from jail
at 10 pm. The civil rights workers' station wagon is overtaken on a rural
road, the three are beaten and shot and their bodies buried in an earthen
dam. |
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| June
20, 1964 |
| Schwerner,
Chaney and Goodman drive from Ohio to the CORE office in Meridian, Mississippi. |
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| June
17, 1964 |
| Klan
burns Mt. Zion Church to the ground. It is one of twenty black churches
in Mississippi to be firebombed in the summer of 1964. FBI begins investigation
into church bombing codenamed "MIBURN", for "Mississippi burning." |
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| June
16, 1964 |
| Armed
KKK members assault leaders of Mt. Zion Church. |
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| June
14, 1964 |
| Andy
Goodman and other student volunteers attend training session for Summer
Project volunteers in Oxford, Ohio. Also in attendence are CORE members
Schwerner and Chaney. |
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| Memorial
Day,1964 |
| Michael
Schwerner and James Chaney speak at Mt. Zion Methodist Church in Neshoba
County and urge its all-black congregation to register. |
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| April
24, 1964 |
| KKK
burns crosses at 61 separate locations across Mississippi. |
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| February,
15, 1964 |
| Founding
meeting of the White Knights of the Klu Klux Klan of Mississippi. |
| January,
1964 |
| Bob
Moses and COFO (Council of Federated Organizations) announce the Mississippi
Summer Project to register blacks to vote. |
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| June 13, 1963 |
| Medgar
Evers, Mississippi's most prominent black leader, is assassinated. |
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