STORIES FROM HORROR | The Night When Mississippi Burned

James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were driving home after investigating the burning of a Black church. Sheriff's Deputy Cecil Price (a Klansman) pulled them over under the false pretense of speeding and locked them up in the local jail.

Late that night, the deputy deliberately released them and ordered them to leave town. It was a trap. On a lonely rural road, a Klan caravan—alerted by the deputy himself—pursued them, forced them off the road, and into their vehicles.

They were taken to a secluded spot. James Chaney, being the only Black activist in the group, was brutally beaten. Then, all three were shot at point-blank range.

Using a bulldozer, the Klan hid the three bodies in an earthen dam on a nearby farm. Their car was burned and abandoned in a swamp to make it look like they had fled.

Although belated, on June 21, 2005—the exact 41st anniversary of the murders—a jury composed of both white and Black people found Edgar Ray Killen guilty of three counts of homicide.

By then, Killen was 80 years old. He heard the verdict in a wheelchair, connected to an oxygen tank. The judge sentenced him to 60 years in prison (20 years for each of the victims). This time, there was no leniency for his status as a preacher: he spent the rest of his days in a cell and died at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in 2018, at the age of 92.                                                                                                              

 

Patricia López Muñoz 

High Technician in Sociocultural Animación

Specialist in Immigration

High Technician is Social Integration