Begin forwarded message:

>
> Today Marks the Anniversary of the 1964 Murders in Mississippi
> of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner
>
> After Over Four Decades, Justice Still Eludes Family of 3
> Civil Rights Workers Slain in Mississippi Burning Killings
>
> Democracy Now!
> August 13, 2010
>
> http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/13/after_over_four_decades_justice_still
>
> As the Justice Department announces it has closed nearly half
> of its investigations into unresolved killings from the civil
> rights era, we look back at the 1964 murders of civil rights
> workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner,
> the subject of the new documentary Neshoba: The Price of
> Freedom. Although dozens of white men are believed to have
> been involved in the murders and cover-up, only one man, a
> Baptist preacher named Edgar Ray Killen, is behind bars today.
> Four suspects are still alive in the case. We play excerpts of
> Neshoba and speak with its co-director, Micki Dickoff. We're
> also joined by the brothers of two of the victims, Ben Chaney
> and David Goodman. And we speak with award-winning
> Mississippi-based journalist Jerry Mitchell of the Clarion-
> Ledger, who's spent the past twenty years investigating
> unresolved civil rights murder cases, as well as Bruce Watson,
> author of the new book Freedom Summer: The Savage Season that
> Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy.
>
>        Guests:
>
>        Ben Chaney, brother of James Chaney, who was murdered
>        in Mississippi in 1964.
>
>        David Goodman, brother of Andrew Goodman, who was
>        murdered in Mississippi in 1964.
>
>        Micki Dickoff, co-director of Neshoba: The Price of
>        Freedom. The film opens tonight in New York at Cinema
>        Village.
>
>        Jerry Mitchell, award-winning investigative reporter
>        for the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi.
>
>        Bruce Watson, author of the new book Freedom Summer:
>        The Savage Season that Made Mississippi Burn and Made
>        America a Democracy.
>
> ===
>
> JUAN GONZALEZ: The Department of Justice recently announced
> FBI agents have closed nearly half of the department's 122
> investigations into unresolved killings from the civil rights
> era. For the first time, the Justice Department has made
> public a list of victims and the status of the investigations.
>
> Among the sixty-two cases still open is the notorious murder
> of three civil rights activists in Mississippi in June 1964.
> The Mississippi Burning case is the subject of a new
> documentary titled Neshoba: The Price of Freedom. It opens
> tonight in New York at Cinema Village.
>
>    REPORTER: About 200 civil rights workers have arrived in
>    Mississippi to begin a summer-long campaign. They were
>    trained for it on a college campus in Ohio. This week,
>    another group of volunteers is being taught what to expect
>    in Mississippi and how to cope with it.
>
>    REPORTER: They are taught how nonviolently to protect
>    themselves when attacked.
>
>    JAMES FOREMAN, SNCC: We're going down there. We're trying
>    to face a real situation that will occur. Namely, there
>    will be a mob at the courthouse. We also want the white
>    students who are playing the mob to get used to saying
>    things, calling out epithets, calling people "niggers" and
>    "nigger lovers."
>
>    REPORTER: There is some mystery and some fear concerning
>    three of the civil rights workers, two whites from New
>    York City and a Negro from Mississippi. Police say they
>    arrested the three men for speeding yesterday, but
>    released them after they posted bond. They have not been
>    heard from since.
>
>    NEWS ANCHOR: First, the known facts. James Chaney, Andrew
>    Goodman and Michael Schwerner went to Mississippi to help
>    register Negroes as voters. Chaney, a twenty-year-old
>    Mississippian, was a veteran of the civil rights movement
>    in his home state. He assisted in the training classes.
>    Goodman, twenty, a New York college student, had never
>    participated in the civil rights movement, but a friend
>    says Goodman could never understand how some people could
>    be so lacking in compassion. Schwerner, twenty-four, a
>    seasoned New York social worker, left Mississippi where he
>    had worked since January, to assist in the training school
>    at Oxford, Ohio.
>
> JUAN GONZALEZ: The film Neshoba goes on to document the role
> local Mississippi law enforcement agents and the Ku Klux Klan
> played in the murder of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and
> Michael Schwerner.
>
>    JOHN DOAR, Assistant Attorney General: Three civil rights
>    workers were missing, and they had last been seen going up
>    to investigate a church burning in Neshoba County.
>
>    NEWS ANCHOR: It's thirty-five miles from Meridian to
>    Philadelphia, then twelve miles to Longdale, where the
>    church had been burned. That afternoon, the three were
>    seen at the church site and at the home of its lay leader.
>    About 2:30 they headed west toward Philadelphia.
>
>    JIM INGRAM, retired FBI agent: Chaney was outside changing
>    the tire. They had a flat. And there was Price. And when
>    they pulled up, he said, "I'm arresting Chaney for
>    speeding; Schwerner and Goodman, for investigation."
>
>    JOHN DOAR: Cecil Price, deputy sheriff, saw them and
>    stopped them, and he takes them into the jail. So,
>    somehow, some way, the message gets out to the Klan, and
>    then they have to organize.
>
>    JERRY MITCHELL, Clarion-Ledger: Edgar Ray Killen began to
>    kind of coordinate things that night, kind of gathered a
>    group of guys, had one of them go get gloves so they
>    wouldn't have fingerprints, told them the guys they wanted
>    were there in the jail.
>
>    NEWS ANCHOR: By 10:00, Price says he had located a justice
>    of the peace who fined the trio $20. Price tells what
>    happened then.
>
>    DEPUTY CECIL PRICE: They paid the fine, and I released
>    them. That's the last time we saw any of them.
>
>    JOHN DOAR: The boys were driving back from the county
>    jail, and they started down the road toward Meridian, and
>    they were stopped by a police car. And there would be this
>    group of Klan people.
>
>    JERRY MITCHELL: They arrested them and put them in Price's
>    car.
>
>    JOHN DOAR: Then turned right into a gravel, rural road.
>
>    JERRY MITCHELL: And Alton Wayne Roberts grabbed Schwerner,
>    and he said to him, "Are you that 'n-word' lover?" And
>    Schwerner said, "Sir, I understand how you feel." And,
>    bam, shot him, grabbed Goodman. Goodman didn't even get a
>    word out. Shot Goodman. Chaney, by this point, obviously
>    realizing what's going down, took off. We know he was shot
>    by several people. They also apparently beat him.
>
> JUAN GONZALEZ: An excerpt from the new documentary Neshoba:
> The Price of Freedom. The film chronicles the forty-year
> struggle to hold someone accountable for the killings.
> Although dozens of white men are believed to have been
> involved in the murders and cover-up, only one man, a Baptist
> preacher named Edgar Ray Killen, is behind bars today. Killen
> began serving his sentence in 2005, forty-one years after the
> killings. Four suspects are still alive in the case.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: Today we spend the hour looking back at the
> Mississippi Burning killings and Freedom Summer. We're joined
> by five guests from around the country, including brothers of
> two of the civil rights activists murdered. Here in New York,
> Ben Chaney is with us. He was twelve years old when the body
> of his brother James was found. David Goodman is also with us.
> He's the younger brother of Andrew Goodman. And we're joined
> by filmmaker Micki Dickoff, who co-directed Neshoba: The Price
> of Freedom. With us in Jackson, Mississippi, the award-winning
> journalist Jerry Mitchell of the Clarion-Ledger. He's spent
> the past twenty years investigating unresolved civil rights
> murder cases. And in Chicopee, Massachusetts, is Bruce Watson,
> author of the new book Freedom Summer: The Savage Season that
> Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy.
>
> We'll break and then begin the conversation. Stay with us.
>
> [break]
>
> AMY GOODMAN: As we go back to a clip of the new documentary
> Neshoba, that is opening tonight at Cinema Village here in New
> York City, this features the footage of the funeral for James
> Chaney. It was August of 1964. It shows a young Ben Chaney
> crying as he sings "We Shall Overcome" and CORE field
> secretary Dave Dennis is speaking.
>
>    CROWD: [singing] We shall overcome! We shall overcome! We
>    shall overcome some day!
>
>    DAVE DENNIS, Congress of Racial Equality: 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, you've got to come back to the state of
>    Mississippi and have a jury of their cousins, their aunts
>    and their uncles. And I know what they're going to say:
>    "Not guilty." I'm tired of that!
>
>    I had been asked by some people to do this eulogy, but
>    keep it quiet. When I looked out there and saw little Ben,
>    it didn't make sense to me.
>
>    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!
>
> AMY GOODMAN: That was Dave Dennis at the funeral of James
> Chaney. It was the beginning of August, just after their
> bodies had been dredged up - James Chaney, Andrew Goodman,
> Michael Schwerner. And we're joined by two of their brothers:
> Ben Chaney and [David] Goodman.
>
> Ben, well, that was many years ago. There you were, a little
> boy. Talk about that day and what has happened since.
>
> BEN CHANEY: That was a very sad time. I guess it was a very
> painful time also. It was my first experience with death,
> knowing that death was final. And I guess, since forty-six
> years ago that occurred - like four years from the fiftieth
> anniversary of that event - so a lot has happened in forty-six
> years. There's been a lot of changes made. There's been a lot
> of growing in this country that has taken place in forty-six
> years. But at the same time, there's been some things that
> remain the same. America, I feel, still needs to have a
> serious discussion about race. And for some particular reason,
> we're unable to do that. And we had to, fifty years from now.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: You know, we got a call from Bill Moyers' office
> last night, because he heard we were doing this interview. And
> he says he remembers this time. Right? It was, I think, August
> 5th --
>
> BEN CHANEY: Mm-hmm.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: -- 1964. He was working for Lyndon Johnson. And
> he was the one who received the call in the White House that
> your brother, James Chaney, that Andrew Goodman, David, your
> brother, that Michael Schwerner, that the bodies had been
> found. Andrew, how old were you - David, how old were you?
>
> DAVID GOODMAN: I was seventeen years old at the time. And it
> was an experience that I wouldn't wish on anyone. A personal
> loss, but it was also an astonishing realization of what goes
> on in the world and the country is not necessarily what
> appears to go on. And I learned a lot in a unusual kind of way
> about all the things that I learned, all the things that I was
> told was right, didn't happen in this case. And when I look
> back at it, I realize how naive I was about what goes on in
> the world and that there are people in places that call
> themselves Americans and Christians and then kill people and
> do un-American things. It was a shock to me. And how I was
> brought up was something that I just never realized.
>
> JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, the amazing thing was that your brother
> had gone down as part of Freedom Summer, along with hundreds
> of other folks, and this was the first - actually the first
> day of Freedom Summer when they were abducted. What do you
> recall what he told you before he left and what he was doing
> in Mississippi?
>
> DAVID GOODMAN: Well, actually, there was a training session in
> Ohio that, what, about 700 young people went to, mainly
> college students. And something happened before they were
> intending to go to Mississippi, Arkansas, the various places,
> that a church was burned down. So they went to investigate it.
> James Chaney and Michael Schwerner had been in Mississippi,
> had set up offices there for CORE and Student Nonviolent
> Coordinating Committee. And my brother was a volunteer, and
> they were looking for volunteers, and he volunteered to go
> with them and investigate it. So this was actually a couple
> days before the intention of the start of the Mississippi
> Summer, Freedom Summer.
>
> BEN CHANEY: I think it was interesting, because Andy was going
> to be in charge of the Neshoba County Freedom School. He was
> going to be working out of that church. And that's one reason
> why he was there, you know? Very interesting.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: So, your brother, James --
>
> BEN CHANEY: Mm-hmm.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: -- he was the African American civil rights
> worker. Andrew and Michael were white civil rights workers.
> How scared was James? And where did you grow up? Where did
> James grow up?
>
> BEN CHANEY: We grew up in Meridian, which is like forty-some
> miles from Philadelphia. How scared was Jay? I don't know how
> scared Jay was. He used to travel into Neshoba County at night
> at high speeds. He used to go into those areas. His job was to
> find a places for Freedom Schools. So he would go to the
> outlying areas where - heavy Klan-concentrated areas. Cecil
> Price chased him a few times during that period. So, how
> scared was he? I believe that when you're twenty, twenty-one
> years old, you don't - there's very little fear you have. I
> think that - I think he understood the danger. I think Mickey
> understood the danger. Probably they both understood the
> danger much more than Andy did. But how scared were they? I
> don't believe that they had any fear.
>
> JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, if you can, talk a little bit about what
> life was like at the time, because I think most Americans are
> not aware, when we talk about sixty still unsolved cases of
> murders during the civil rights era in the South, what the
> level of terror was as more and more African Americans began
> to demand their right to vote and the response that they got
> from the white society.
>
> BEN CHANEY: Well, in some parts of the country, it was at -
> people were at war. That was very oppressive. The atmosphere
> of fear, you know, was strong in the air. It was very strong.
> And you had the Klan, that would carry out this fear. And you
> had the state government's, like, agencies, like the Sovereign
> Commission, that would reinforce it. They legislated fear.
> They legislated discrimination. They enforced it through the
> laws of the state. So, people, civil rights workers, and those
> who supported civil rights workers, had very little recourse.
> There was no one to protect them, but yet and still, they
> still did the work.
>
> You know, I remember growing up in Mississippi at one point.
> My brother used to take me to get haircuts. And we used to
> have to get off the sidewalk when white people was coming down
> the sidewalk. You know, that's how - it was terrorizing there,
> Mississippi was, in that period. So fear was really deep. But
> I think when you're young and you're strong and you're
> healthy, I don't think that you - I don't think those young
> people who was involved in the civil rights movement, the
> volunteers who went to Mississippi, those that were in
> Mississippi that was working, they understood the danger, but
> I believe that, deep down inside, they believed that they were
> so smart, so courageous, so strong, they could avoid the real
> danger.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: Micki Dickoff, why did you decide to do this
> film, Neshoba: The Price of Freedom?
>
> MICKI DICKOFF: In 1964, I was seventeen years old, and I had
> wanted to go to Mississippi to register voters. And my father,
> who grew up in Mississippi in a small town in the Mississippi
> Delta, and the only Jewish family in town, said, "You're not
> going." Six weeks later, when those kids' bodies were found,
> it devastated me and haunted me my whole life and really
> helped shaped my politics and my art. I didn't know that
> thirty-five years later I was going to get a phone call from
> Ben Chaney, who said, "Are you interested in making a film
> about these murders?" And I flew to New York and met Ben. And
> took us a little bit longer than - from 1999. We didn't really
> start shooting the film 'til 2004. But getting close to Ben
> and getting close to Carolyn Goodman changed my life. And I
> thought it was extremely important that this story get told -
> the truth of this story get told.
>
> JUAN GONZALEZ: And, of course, most Americans are familiar
> with the story, in a way, from Mississippi Burning, but you
> centered a lot of the film on the actual trial of the only
> person so far found guilty of being involved in these
> killings. And you were also able to capture this - to talk to
> the jurors, as well. Talk about that experience and how open
> people were to talking with you about such a deep wound in the
> history of Mississippi.
>
> MICKI DICKOFF: Well, let me just say, when we started shooting
> this film in 2004, the fortieth anniversary, we had no idea
> that ten months later Edgar Ray Killen would get indicted. We
> actually thought we were going to make a film to try to
> embarrass the state of Mississippi to finally do the right
> thing. We actually started out following a group of thirty
> people from the Philadelphia Coalition, fifteen whites and
> fifteen blacks, who, for the first time in forty years,
> decided to talk about this case and ask for some kind of
> justice. So we started to follow them.
>
> Also, I was very close to the families of the victims. And
> Carolyn Goodman was in her upper-eighties. Fannie Lee Chaney
> was in ill health and in her eighties. And if something was
> going to get done, in terms of some sense of justice, because
> obviously justice could never bring back those kids, that we
> wanted to do something about that.
>
> The people in town were fairly open to us, actually. And we
> went into very different parts of Neshoba County to really get
> a cross-section of the feelings. And we really wanted to get
> at the truth, because we really felt that the truth had been
> shoved under the rug. And how could these three murders
> happen, everybody know who did it, and nobody be held
> accountable?
>
> AMY GOODMAN: Well, let's go to Jerry Mitchell now, a reporter
> for the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi. You really
> helped Edgar Ray Killen get indicted. Talk about who he was,
> who he is.
>
> JERRY MITCHELL: Well, Edgar Ray Killen was, as mentioned
> before, a Baptist preacher, and he was kind of the organizer,
> Klan organizer. And so, that day, what happened is, after the
> three civil rights workers were arrested, he was basically
> contacted. Cecil Price put out word to Billy Wayne Posey, who
> in turn got word to Edgar Ray Killen, that they were in jail,
> the civil rights workers were in jail, and they only had a
> little bit of time, so they needed to act now. And so, Killen
> then drove down to Meridian, Mississippi, gathered up a bunch
> of Klansmen, and they drove back to Neshoba County, to
> Philadelphia, Mississippi. And there, they waited basically
> for the civil rights workers to leave jail. It was all part of
> the plan, basically. And once they were released, you know,
> chased them down and, of course, caught them and killed them,
> and buried their bodies in a dam. So, Killen was very much
> kind of the organizer of that and made it happen.
>
> JUAN GONZALEZ: And Jerry Mitchell, in terms of the - why it
> took so long for anyone to be brought to justice in this case,
> how long were you writing about it before there was an
> indictment at least of Killen?
>
> JERRY MITCHELL: Actually, I started writing about this case
> back in 1989. That's when I first began. It was the first case
> I wrote about, began writing about what evidence still
> existed, wrote about the transcripts still existing, and began
> talking to and interviewing witnesses, such as Delmar Dennis
> and others, who unfortunately died, by the way, and of course
> did not testify in Killen's trial. So I began writing about it
> back then. And, of course, what helped is the fact that I also
> began writing about the Medgar Evers case. That case got
> reopened, got reprosecuted. Byron De La Beckwith was convicted
> in 1994. Came back, after a series of other convictions, came
> back to the case, because I found out that Sam Bowers had
> bragged that, while he was convicted, he was happy about it,
> because the main instigator of the entire affair walked out of
> the courtroom a free man. And he was referring to Edgar Ray
> Killen. And that was in - my story on that appeared in 1998.
> And then you see how much later it was even after that. So it
> just -- it took --
>
> AMY GOODMAN: It still took more than six years.
>
> JERRY MITCHELL: - quite a bit of prodding and - yeah, exactly.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: Let's go to another clip --
>
> JERRY MITCHELL: Took quite a bit of prodding.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: -- from the film Neshoba. During the trial, Edgar
> Ray Killen's attorney questioned former Klansman Mike Hatcher.
>
>    MITCH MORAN: Who swore you in that night, that day, night,
>    whatever it was?
>
>    MIKE HATCHER: Edgar Ray Killen, preacher, did.
>
>    MITCH MORAN: Did you ever hear any talk of there being an
>    elimination of the civil rights workers?
>
>    MIKE HATCHER: Yes, I heard it discussed, and I didn't know
>    the Klan would ever do anything like that, me being a
>    police officer.
>
>    MITCH MORAN: You stated that Edgar called you out and
>    said, "We got rid of the civil rights workers." Is that
>    correct?
>
>    MIKE HATCHER: That's correct.
>
>    MITCH MORAN: What else did he say?
>
>    MIKE HATCHER: He said we wouldn't have no more trouble...
>
>    EDGAR RAY KILLEN: He never did say that I told him I did,
>    but said I told him, "We got rid of them," of which he is
>    a bald-faced liar there.
>
>    MIKE HATCHER: And he told me that he was at the funeral
>    home, signed the book, made sure he talked to people in
>    front and rear of it, and that was his alibi.
>
>    EDGAR RAY KILLEN: And my estimate was at that time that 99
>    percent of the people wish they had been the ones that got
>    them. But there again, since I didn't do it, I never did
>    get to play the hero and say, "Hey, I did it." No, no way.
>    If those three had stayed at home where they belonged,
>    they'd have never found any harm here.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: And that last voice was Edgar Ray Killen's. These
> are some excerpts from the closing arguments in the Edgar Ray
> Killen case.
>
>    ATTORNEY GENERAL JIM HOOD: These acts were not sanctioned
>    by God. They were sanctioned by that man right there. By
>    that defendant.
>
>    You know, there's an old saying in the South, you know
>    you've done a day's work when you make a preacher cuss.
>    Well, I figure I did a pretty good day's work on that day
>    to make him cuss, so...
>
>    EDGAR RAY KILLEN: I had mentioned to you here that I had
>    lost my emotions, but he brought a little bit back. When
>    he got a little further than I could reach him, I almost
>    got out of the wheelchair, and my attorneys caught me. I'm
>    trying to stay away from the word "hatred," but the man
>    doesn't have any morals.
>
>    ATTORNEY GENERAL JIM HOOD: It's a cowardly act. That was a
>    mob that murdered those young men down there that night.
>    And that coward is still sitting right here in this
>    courtroom. He wants one of you to be weak and not do your
>    duty to find him guilty of this crime.
>
>    MITCH MORAN: If we don't know who killed him, how do we
>    know Edgar's the one that planned it and orchestrated it?
>    The real crime was the fact that he was not prosecuted in
>    1964.
>
>    JAMES McINTYRE: This is nothing but stirring a simmering
>    pot of hate for profit and cultural sluggishness. That's
>    all this case is for. Look at all these folks sitting out
>    here. This is nothing but a show to try to put the state
>    of Mississippi on trial, again.
>
>    MARK DUNCAN: Edgar Ray Killen directed others to commit
>    this crime, and that's what makes him equally guilty as
>    them. Is a Neshoba County jury going to tell the rest of
>    the world that we are not going to let Edgar Ray Killen
>    get away with murder anymore?
>
> JUAN GONZALEZ: Those are excerpts from the closing arguments
> in the murder trial of Edgar Ray Killen. And I'd like to ask
> Jerry Mitchell, you have been crusading around these murders
> now for several years, for decades now - what has been the
> response in Mississippi of your - the readers of the Clarion-
> Ledger and of your neighbors and friends to your efforts to
> uncover the truth?
>
> JERRY MITCHELL: Well, it's been mixed. I mean, the reactions
> have been mixed. I've had some people who are obviously happy
> about it, glad to see justice come, even after all these
> years. And then, of course, I've had others who, you know,
> have cursed me or told me to leave it alone or even threatened
> me. I've had people threaten me. So it's been kind of a mixed
> bag.
>
> JUAN GONZALEZ: And how about within the newspaper itself?
> Because, obviously, before you were reporting there, back in
> the '60s, the Clarion-Ledger was part --
>
> JERRY MITCHELL: Right.
>
> JUAN GONZALEZ: -- of the infrastructure that allowed -
> promoted segregation and backed some of these efforts. What's
> been the response in the newspaper?
>
> JERRY MITCHELL: Well, actually, within the newspaper itself
> has been very positive. You're correct, the newspaper back in
> the '60s was one of the most racist newspapers in America. But
> fortunately, that's changed today. We actually have an African
> American executive editor, so it's a totally different
> newspaper than it was back then. But I've had complete
> support, allowing me to kind of pursue these cases, which is
> amazing when I think about it, that they've let me do this for
> now more than twenty years.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: We're going to break and then come back, and
> we'll be bringing in the author of a new book called Freedom
> Summer - Bruce Watson is joining us from Massachusetts - as
> well as continue our conversation with our guests Jerry
> Mitchell of the Clarion-Ledger; Ben Chaney, brother of James
> Chaney; David Goodman, younger brother of Andrew Goodman; and
> Micki Dickoff, who co-directed Neshoba: The Price of Freedom,
> that's opening tonight here in New York.
>
> This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.
>
> [break]
>
> AMY GOODMAN: Kim and Reggie Harris singing "Too Many Martyrs,"
> the song of Phil Ochs. This is Democracy Now!,
> democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman,
> with Juan Gonzalez. And as we played that music, we did what
> Neshoba: The Price of Freedom did in their film: played the
> list of the unsolved murders. And it's a remarkably long list.
> You can go to our website at democracynow.org to see that.
>
> Our guests are two of the brothers of two of the three civil
> rights workers whose case became very well known: Ben Chaney
> and [David] Goodman are our guests, brothers of [Andrew]
> Goodman and James Chaney. Micki Dickoff is our guest, co-
> director of Neshoba: The Price of Freedom. And Jerry Mitchell
> with us, reporter with the Clarion-Ledger.
>
> Before we go to Bruce Watson, I wanted to go back to Jerry
> Mitchell on that list of the unsolved murders. On that day, as
> they were dredging up - in the days that they were looking for
> the three civil rights workers, they were dredging up black
> body after black body. These are the unsolved murders. Talk
> about who we don't know died and who killed them.
>
> JERRY MITCHELL: And that's part of the problem, is that
> there's really never been an attempt to go out and account for
> these. I mean, it seems every day there seems to be another
> case that resurfaces around the country - I mean, not just in
> Mississippi, but around the entire country. And so, that's why
> it's important. There needs to be an accounting. There needs
> to be, you know, some attempt to come back and document each
> one of these cases - who was killed and what the circumstances
> were - even if justice can't be bought in these cases, because
> it's very important. It's like in Kansas City, there was a
> case, a civil rights case there that's now been reopened, a
> killing that took place in 1970. So it's - like I said, it's
> happening all over the country, because people just haven't
> really thought about it, haven't been aware of it. But there
> were killings that took place, and people just - you know,
> people disappeared in places like Mississippi and weren't
> heard from anymore.
>
> JUAN GONZALEZ: And Jerry Mitchell, Ben Chaney referred a few
> minutes earlier to the Sovereignty Commission. Could you
> explain what the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission was and
> its role in this reign of terror that existed back in the
> '60s?
>
> JERRY MITCHELL: Well, it was - basically, the Sovereignty
> Commission was kind of part of the reason Mississippi was kind
> of a police state in those days. It was created - it was kind
> of the state's answer to the White Citizens' Council, kind of
> a state-authorized White Citizens' Council. It was headed by
> the governor, no less, and some of those powerful lawmakers.
> And basically, they had one arm that was kind of like a
> propaganda arm that would reach out up north in places, and
> they would promulgate segregation and say - send black
> speakers up north, pay them and say, "Tell them how great
> segregation is and how you want segregation, too." And then
> they had this other arm that was kind of a spy arm, where they
> basically infiltrated civil rights groups and were able to get
> that information. And they kind of shared all this information
> with law enforcement across the state. And, of course,
> unfortunately, a number of these law enforcement in places
> like we're talking about - Neshoba County and Meridian - a lot
> of those guys were Klansmen. So they were literally sharing
> information with some of these same Klansmen, who of course
> wound up being involved in the killing of these kids.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: Let's go back to Neshoba. Speaking here is Rita
> Bender, the widow of Michael Schwerner, and Fannie Lee Chaney,
> the mother of James and Ben Chaney.
>
>    RITA BENDER: This case has gotten the attention it has
>    gotten because two of the three men were white.
>
>    FANNIE LEE CHANEY: It is no secret. The world is supposed
>    to know it. If it hadn't been for Mickey Schwerner and
>    Andrew Goodman, my son wouldn't have been known and
>    wouldn't have been found today.
>
>    RITA BENDER: I think that says a lot about attitudes about
>    race and who's important and whose mother's son matters
>    more.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of Neshoba: The Price of Freedom, the
> film opening tonight. And we are going to Bruce Watson, who
> has written the book, just out, Freedom Summer: The Savage
> Season that Made Mississippi Burn and that Made America a
> Democracy. The significance of this summer, what these three
> men and so many others died for, Bruce Watson?
>
> BRUCE WATSON: I think it's important that we put this in the
> context of the entire summer, as you said. We mentioned
> briefly that this was part of Freedom Summer, but often the
> story of Freedom Summer is overshadowed by the murders, and it
> makes it seem as though the men died in vain. In fact, they
> were part of an enormous and incredibly inspiring effort in
> which 700 college students went to Mississippi, went to the
> dangerous hellhole of Mississippi that summer, to live with
> black people, to register - to live in their shacks, sit on
> their porches, talk to them, register them to the vote, when
> that was possible, and teach in Freedom Schools, hundreds of
> Freedom - dozens of Freedom Schools, with 2,000 students,
> teaching them black history, black literature, things that had
> never been taught in Mississippi. It was a revolutionary
> effort. Very important not to forget that part of the story.
>
> JUAN GONZALEZ: And, of course, Mississippi was the birthplace
> of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and it had, in
> essence, an impact on the national debate within the
> Democratic Party, didn't it?
>
> BRUCE WATSON: Oh, yes, that was another part of Freedom
> Summer, was the Freedom Democratic Party, set up as a parallel
> party, because, of course, only seven percent of African
> Americans could vote in Mississippi at that time, a shockingly
> low number, much lower than the rest of the South. So, Bob
> Moses and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had
> set up this parallel party to get people who couldn't go to
> the courthouse or who were afraid to go to the courthouse to
> just sign a form and become members.
>
> And then they sent sixty-seven delegates that they chose in
> their own parallel conventions, they sent them to Atlantic
> City to the Democratic National Convention, where they
> challenged the all-white delegation and said, "We are the
> rightful Democrats from Mississippi." And they waged a high-
> profile, nationally televised hearing in which Fannie Lou
> Hamer gave a stirring speech, saying, "Is this America? Is
> this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave,
> where we have to sleep with our phones off the hook because we
> just want to be decent citizens?" And they made that challenge
> trying to get seated. And, of course, LBJ was terrified there
> would be a walk-out, and they quashed the challenge. But they
> did get the guarantee - the Freedom Democratic Party got the
> guarantee that there would never again be a segregated
> delegation seated at a Democratic National Convention, and
> there never was. So another victory for Freedom Summer.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: Ben, how has this inspired you to do the work you
> do? In a minute, we want to go back to Edgar Ray Killen, who
> is alive and has served a couple of years in jail so far.
>
> BEN CHANEY: Well, the inspiration, I think, came knowing that
> it doesn't take a lot of people to make a whole lot of change.
> And that's a good thing. So what we do is we form coalitions,
> like with David, and we make change. I think what's important
> - I think one thing, one part of the discussion we're missing
> here is that what took place in the '60s was not just some
> group of evil people committing murders. It was sustained, it
> was sanctioned, by the state government. Otherwise, these
> murders would not have occurred. And I think we can draw a
> parallel to the Sovereign Commission in Mississippi to the
> COINTELPRO that was in the late '60s and early '70s, you know?
> People died as a result of J. Edgar Hoover. And I think that -
> I think we need to think about America, so that this thing
> doesn't happen. It could happen again. So it does happen again
> on no level, we need to have, again, a serious discussion
> about race.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: Micki, how did you get Edgar Ray Killen to talk
> so much?
>
> MICKI DICKOFF: When he got indicted, there was a window of
> opportunity where we were offered one interview in his
> lawyer's office. We, of course, took that interview. And the
> parameters were, you can't talk about the Klan, you can't talk
> about the murders, you can't talk about anything. And
> basically, it was about a two-hour interview with him saying
> how innocent he was. Now, filmmakers, journalists, reporters
> have tried to get to him for forty years. And, of course, he
> never let that happen, because he's got an ego that's so
> tremendous. When that interview ended, I knew we had an
> interview, we had him on tape, but we did not have the
> interview. And I went up to him, and I said, "Edgar, you know,
> you've never told the truth of your story. I'm a filmmaker. We
> want to get to your truth." He said, "What are you doing
> tomorrow morning?" We were invited over to this house, and
> that turned into five months of interviews.
>
> JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, in the documentary, Edgar Ray Killen
> openly defends his segregationist views, but denies he killed
> the three civil rights workers.
>
>    EDGAR RAY KILLEN: A mulatto, in reality, the family don't
>    want him. The country don't want him. So I am - I don't
>    deny, under any conditions, that I have been a
>    segregationist. The whites that wanted to integrate so bad
>    was because they wanted to live like the blacks generally
>    did. Most of `em was as immoral as you could imagine. The
>    blacks will very openly tell you here, "If you hadn't been
>    a nigger one Saturday night, you had never really lived."
>    Just because I don't believe that the black and the white
>    need to marry and mix and mingle in all their life, social
>    and whatnot, that don't mean I said, "Let's go out and
>    shoot somebody."
>
> JUAN GONZALEZ: I want to ask you, it's been said that he's a
> very charming individual, that he's very likable. Talk about
> that contradiction between someone who seems so charming, and
> yet, on the other hand, can be guilty of such an inconceivable
> act.
>
> MICKI DICKOFF: That's what makes him so insidious. But you
> have to understand, he believes everything he says. And his
> ego was so big that we allowed him, because I'm sure he
> thought that this was an opportunity for him for the first
> time to tell his story - maybe he thought was manipulating us
> when we were doing this, but he wanted to tell that truth. And
> as we spent the months with him and it went on and on and on,
> he opened up more, and he opened up more, and he opened up
> more.
>
> I think the hardest part for me, personally, as a filmmaker -
> I don't think I could have done it twenty years ago, because
> as I was sitting across from him and things would come out of
> his mouth that just chilled me to the bone, and not debate
> him. The hardest night for me was right after Carolyn Goodman
> testified, and we went back, and I was trying to find some
> humanity in this man, because, remember, he didn't act alone,
> and to say that we have justice because we put in eighty-year-
> old man in prison doesn't really come close to justice. But
> maybe by telling the truth it gives us some justice. Anyway,
> Carolyn had testified. This was something she had been waiting
> for her whole life, and it was a very emotional testimony.
> So that night, I thought, he's got to feel something. OK? And
> I thought, what could I ask him to see that he had some
> feelings for a mother losing a child? And I finally I said,
> "Edgar, I know you think that they shouldn't have been here
> and they were outsiders and they did all these things, but
> can't you feel sorry for a mother losing a child?" And his
> response was, "Well, maybe if she were a good Christian." That
> was the hardest moment for me not to get out of the chair.
>
> But, you know, we did exactly what we told him that we were
> doing, and that was telling the truth, and to make sure that
> he wasn't the ultimate villain of the story, because if it
> wasn't for the governor and it wasn't for the Sovereignty
> Commission and it wasn't for all the rich white folks who
> patted him on the back, this could never have happened.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: This is another clip of Neshoba, beginning with
> Barbara Chaney Dailey, the sister of James and Ben Chaney,
> talking about Edgar Ray Killen.
>
>    BARBARA CHANEY DAILEY: They should hang him. Whatever -
>    however they kill them in Mississippi, that's the way he
>    should die. Actually, I'd like him buried alive in a dam,
>    if you want me to tell you. Who the hell he think he is to
>    take somebody's life? Who died and made him God? And I
>    would like him to tell me what made him think he can kill
>    somebody and get away with it.
>
>    EDGAR RAY KILLEN: I'm not a murderer. Right now I'm the
>    illegal Mississippi official sacrificial lamb.
>
>    UNIDENTIFIED: I say sacrificial goat. Now, if you're
>    talking about sacrificial lambs, those three young men -
>    Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman - were the sacrificial
>    lambs.
>
>    EDGAR RAY KILLEN: Sometimes I saw the national news media
>    gets here when they're being driven away. They snap the
>    Ten Commandments, and they try to be sarcastic about it,
>    but we feel proud that they got it. We really believe in
>    the Ten Commandments.
>
>    ANGELA LEWIS: There is no bigger picture of hypocrisy than
>    the Ten Commandments sitting in front of his house. The
>    Ten Commandments are what God is going to judge us by.
>    There is no misunderstanding in "Thou shalt not kill,"
>    whether it's black, white, Jew, Communist. He played God.
>    I think he bought into his own image. And so, the men in
>    this area looked up to him. That was him in '64.
>
>    J.D. KILLEN: I've known him all my life. He was a friend
>    of my father. In this part of the country, there is no
>    misconception about Edgar Ray, except that he talks too
>    much. But as for the world, he's been made out to be the
>    baddest of the bad.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: And that was a J.D. Killen, a good friend of
> Edgar Ray Killen. And before that, Angela, the daughter of
> James Chaney, who doesn't talk about this case very much. She
> lives in Meridian. We wanted to go back to Jerry Mitchell very
> quickly to find out about the other people involved in the
> killing of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner.
> Edgar Killen just went to jail for - in the last few years.
> What about them? They're free.
>
> JERRY MITCHELL: Right, right. There are four suspects that are
> still left in the case: Olen Burrage, who owned the property
> where they were buried; Richard Willis who was a police
> officer in those days - and I just did a story the other day
> about the fact that FBI documents document that he assaulted
> at least a dozen African American men back in those days; Pete
> Harris, who is another Klansman from Meridian, Mississippi;
> and then Jimmie Snowden, who was a part of the killing party
> that went out that night and killed these kids. So those are
> the four men, the four suspects that are still alive today,
> and I've - as for me, I'm continuing to write about.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: Ben, why does this matter that these men be
> pursued?
>
> BEN CHANEY: Well, they committed murder. And if we don't
> prosecute those people who committed murder, regardless
> there's no statute of limitations on murder, then we leave it
> open for other people to commit these type of crimes and get
> away with it. The justice system has to work. We all live in
> America, so it has to work. And in order to make it work, we
> cannot let a group of people get away, regardless who they
> are, who commit such crimes. They have to be prosecuted.
>
> JUAN GONZALEZ: And David, even in the case of Killen, he was
> only convicted for manslaughter, not murder, although he got a
> significant sentence. But what is your sense about the
> necessity for everyone being - who was involved, who's still
> alive, being prosecuted?
>
> DAVID GOODMAN: Well, you have to sort of go back to the time
> of what was going on. And the majority of people in America
> are white. And I thought I was well educated at the time, even
> though I was seventeen. Of course, when you're seventeen, you
> think you know everything. But I didn't have a clue of what
> went on in this country in many areas. I didn't understand
> racism. And the majority of white people in this country
> didn't understand it, until they were confronted, as Rita
> said, with two white kids getting killed, and they said, "Gee,
> this could happen to my kid." So how is that, which happened
> almost fifty years ago, relevant to today? We have a media
> that doesn't educate us and/or we don't - aren't conscious
> about what's going on. We're concerned, naturally, about our
> own families, paying the rent.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: We have five seconds.
>
> DAVID GOODMAN: And this is a way to learn from the past about
> how we need to pay attention to what's going on today.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: [David] Goodman, Ben Chaney, Micki Dickoff, Jerry
> Mitchell and Bruce Watson, thanks so much for joining us.
>
> ==========
>
> ___________________________________________
>


For more of my work please check me out at -
http://redroom.com/member/rodney-d-coates





The song that lies silent in the heart of a mother sings upon the lips of her child..
Kahlil Gibran




Rodney D. Coates
Professor and Interim Director of Black World Studies