JACKSON, Miss. ( WJTV ) – Friday, June 19, 2024, marks the 60th anniversary of the Mississippi Burning Case .

Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman sought to help Black Mississippians register to vote during the Civil Rights Movement. They were working in Neshoba and Lauderdale counties. Edgar Ray Killen, a Philadelphia minister and Ku Klux Klan (KKK) organizer, was instrumental in their brutal deaths.

1964 murders

Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman were part of the Congress of Federated Organizations (COFO), one of the most active Civil Rights groups in Mississippi. COFO planned an effort to register African Americans to vote known as Freedom Summer.

Black disenfranchisement was rampant in Mississippi. Only 5% of Blacks who were voting age were registered to vote. Voter intimidation and voter tests which Black voters disproportionally failed were major reasons why. Additionally, the White Knights of the KKK vehemently opposed desegregation and voter registration efforts.

Schwerner was an established civil rights organizer with COFO working in and around Meridian and Philadelphia. The KKK vilified him for his work. His assassination was a routine topic discussed at local KKK meetings, but KKK orthodoxy prevented such action unless authorized by Sam Bowers, then state KKK leader. Bowers gave that authorization weeks before KKK members killed Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney.

On Sunday, June 21, 1964, the three civil rights volunteers left Meridian to visit with the victims of a church attack near Philadelphia. They drove their 1963 Ford station wagon with Mississippi tags registered to COFO. The men spent the early afternoon in Longdale, a Black community outside of Philadelphia where the church’s parishioners lived.  They spoke with various victims of the KKK attack and other members of the community.

Neshoba County Deputy Sheriff and KKK member Cecil Ray Price pulled the three men over during their return to Meridian through Philadelphia. Price recognized Schwerner and identified the station wagon as belonging to COFO. He arrested the three men and took them to the Philadelphia jail. He booked Chaney for speeding and held Schwerner and Goodman for investigation in connection with the church arson.

The men were held until Price could coordinate with Killen and other local KKK members on their ambush and abduction. After the three men were released from jail, klan members kidnapped and murdered them. A bulldozer buried the men in an earthen dam under construction outside of Philadelphia. The FBI found their bodies at the completed Dam on August 4.

Federal prosecutors indicted those involved in their deaths in 1967. They focused their evidentiary presentation on defendants who participated in the shooting deaths of the three victims and on the top klan leadership. Federal prosecutors convicted Price, Bowers and five other defendants for violating the federal criminal civil rights conspiracy statute. Killen was not convicted.

Conviction of Edgar Ray Killen

After completing his term of federal incarceration, Cecil Ray Price returned to the Philadelphia area and worked various jobs. As a third-party Commercial Drivers License Examiner, he was found guilty of selling passing test results for personal profit.

Price agreed to three years probation in exchange for providing state officials with information about the 1964 murders of Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman. He shared that Killen gave the order to release the “boys” from custody, organized the group that killed the three COFO workers and attended a wake for his uncle at a funeral home to create an alibi.

In January 2005, a Mississippi grand jury indicted Killen with three counts of murder. That June, state prosecutors tried Edgar Ray Killen for the murders of Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman. The trial lasted for eight days.

On June 21, 2005, 41 years to the date after the Mississippi Burning Case, a Neshoba County jury convicted Killen on three counts of manslaughter. Killen was sentenced to serve 60 years in prison. He died in 2018.

Thanks for signing up!

Watch for us in your inbox.

Subscribe Now

Daily News

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJTV.