EOTO: Mississppi Burning

 Good afternoon, I am here today to teach you all about the events of Mississippi Burning which involved the murders of three activists during the Civil Rights movement in the summer of 1964. The three victims include James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman. During this time White supremacists had been bombing and murdering African-Americans and robbing them. In this EOTO I will be going over some of the details of Mississippi Burning and the murders of the three activists that were killed in the fire set by members of the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux Klan was going after one of the activists named Michael Schwerner since he had been organizing some of the local boycotts of businesses that had been biased and also was working on voter registration. 

The event took place on June 21, 1964 where three members of the Congress of Radical Equality which is an African American Civil Rights organization had been involved. The three men had been heading to investigate a church fire and beating which the KKK had done. The events started to take place around 5 PM on June 21st 1964 where James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman in Philadelphia, Mississippi where these three civil rights workers were arrested for supposedly speeding by a Neshoba County Deputy Sheriff by the name of Cecil Price. 

Later that night the three men were released and started heading towards Meridian, Mississippi late sometime between 10:30 and 11:00 PM and drove off in a blue station wagon. It was reported that some Ku Klux Klan members followed the activists and they were never heard of again. The burnt station wagon was later found two days later on June 23, 24 hours after the Department of Justice and FBI had gotten involved. 

Soon after the FBI launched an extensive search for the three bodies of Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman which also involved the National Guard, and the FBI continued it’s investigation into the disappearance of the three men per request of President Lyndon Johnson and they ran this out of the field office in Jackson, Mississippi. This search lasted from June 23 until August 3 as on August 4 the bodies of Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman were found. They were found in an earthen dam on a local farm. It was reported that Schwerner and Goodman had both taken a gunshot to the chest by a Ku Klux Klan member named Alton Wayne Roberts and Chaney was reportedly beaten to death. 

Edgar Ray Killen, the man who planned the murders was convicted along with seven other men including the Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price however, none of them were convicted or charged with murder. However, in 2005 the case was reopened and Edgar Ray Killen was charged by the state of Mississippi 41 years later for three counts of manslaughter and had been given a 60 year sentence. He would later die in prison on January 11, 2018. This event was one thing that negatively impacted African-Americans as these killings were another example of the brutality that people had experienced by speaking out. However, this event would later inspire further protection and rights for African Americans and this event was one event that inspired the Civil Rights Act that was signed in 1964.