@Super Muffin: Isn't it, though? I never could understand why people complain that History is boring since I've found it to be anything BUT boring!
History is fascinating, often infuriating, sometimes sad, sometimes happy and oftentimes weird as heck but always interesting and engaging. :) There's so much to learn!
Back to topic...
June 21, 1964 : Civil Rights Workers Disappear
In Neshoba County in central Mississippi, three civil rights field workers disappear after investigating the burning of an African American church by the Ku Klux Klan. Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, both white New Yorkers, had traveled to heavily segregated Mississippi in 1964 to help organize civil rights efforts on behalf of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The third man, James Chaney, was a local African American man who had joined CORE in 1963.
The disappearance of the three young men garnered national attention and led to a massive FBI investigation that was code-named MIBURN, for "Mississippi Burning."
On June 20, Schwerner returned from a civil-rights training session in Ohio with 21-year-old James Chaney and 20-year-old Andrew Goodman, a new recruit to CORE. The next day--June 21--the three went to investigate the burning of the church in Neshoba. While attempting todrive back to Meridian, they were stopped by Neshoba County Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price just inside the city limits of Philadelphia, the county seat. Price, a member of the KKK who had been looking out for Schwerner or other civil rights workers, threw them in the NeshobaCounty jail, allegedly under suspicion for church arson.
After seven hours in jail, during which the men were not allowed to make a phone call, Price released them on bail. After escorting them out of town, the deputy returned to Philadelphia to drop off an accompanying Philadelphia police officer. As soon as he was alone, he raced down the highway in pursuit of the three civil rights workers.
He caught the men just inside county limits and loaded them into his car. Two other cars pulled up filled with Klansmen who had been alerted by Price of the capture of the CORE workers, and the three cars drove down an unmarked dirt road called Rock Cut Road. Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney were shot to death and their bodies buried in an earthen dam a few miles from the Mt. Zion Church.
On the forty-first anniversary of the three murders, Edgar Ray Killen,was found guilty of three counts of manslaughter on June 21, 2005. Eighty-year-old Killen, known as an outspoken white supremacist and part-time Baptist minister, was sentenced to 60 years in prison.
http://www.history.com/tdih.do
*This was made into a movie that, while very disturbing, is very good.*
