HungryBlues

Selma, Alabama - June 21, 2005

Scott B. Smith looks out at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, site of Bloody Sunday and early point on the Selma to
Montgomery March (photo by Benjamin T. Greenberg).

For more about Scott B., see:

• Cleophus Hobbs Day
• Sitting across from a black panther, watching him eat octopus

The Words In The "Five Point Action Plan" Are Just One Pebble Dropped In The Pond

But Susan Klopfer sees all the ripples in the water. From the comments (also cross posted in slightly different form on her Emmett Till blog):

Yes. The words in the the Five Point Action Program are unbelievable ... but it has not been that many years ago that Mississippi was under seige and these were the words of its leaders - people like John Satterfield of Yazoo City (twice head of the American Bar Association).

Satterfield used his powerful position in Mississippi's fight against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, using his title when signing off on racist literature (how embarrassing for the ABA) and helping to match up Mississippi with an old Nazi to fund the fight (Wycliffe Draper, The Pioneer Fund).

Frightening? Today Mississippi's U. S. senators, governor, numerous state legislators continue to meet with "the folks who brought us" the White Citizens Councils, the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission and the CCC - Council of Conservative Citizens - a clone of the earlier councils, now including open lines to Neo-Nazi's, Indentity Movement, New Confederacy Movement and every other hate group that Morris Dees tries to warn us about:

Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Reports, From Fall 2004, Issue 114... "five years later, Southern lawmakers are still meeting with the CCC ... no fewer than 38 federal, state and local elected officials who are still in office today have attended CCC events since 2000, most of them giving speeches to local chapters ..."

So think about this ... the CC Plan comes from the Citizens Councils days. If they sound scary, take a look at what the morphed CC (the CCC) is about these days ...and then realize that the man who started the CC, and then the CCC is still alive (Robert "Tut" Patterson) and still writing for his newest group.(He lives about 30 miles from my house!)

These folks are still around and they are making sure their organizations will live on. Afterall, they are the sons of their fathers. sk

(Not many Mississippians have looked at - or even know about - Sovereignty Commission files since Mississippi's media has dismissed the files, calling them "the works of keystone cops." Simply not true. These records are a critical piece of U. S. history and need to be read and written about)...

"Understand Mississippi, and you understand all of Democracy." Anonymous.

I've Been Blogged (Once and then again...)

I forgot to mention that Susan Klopfer caught me in action at the Longdale Community Center site in Mississippi.

More recently, Jeff blogged about taking me and Scott B Smith out to lunch last Wednesday, when I was in Montgomery, AL. Jeff has his own blog and is also one of the cool people over at Preemptive Karma. Jeff turned up an old list-serve post by ScottB, which is a good introduction to his involvement in the Lowndes County Freedom Organization and the story behind the black cat (later the Black Panther) symbol in African American political organizations.

Definitely check out Jeff's post to read the passage by ScottB. But I also want to make sure you catch the last part, where Jeff announces his project on Tallassee:

I'd been thinking for a long time that the history of Tallassee needed updating. A History of Tallassee was published by the about-to-close Mt. Vernon Mills in 1949, but I'm not aware of any similar historical attempts at archiving since.

I'd been thinking for a long time that the Writers' Bloc site needed doing, for longer things than blog entries.

There's so much to cover since the 1940s, and so many stories that aren't what the Chamber of Commerce would appreciate, but they need to be told; like this one Ben and I have talked about a lot. So it's on. In a serious way. I'm expecting it'll be a forum or portal-style website, collecting and telling the oral history, and that I'll be organizing it in anticipation of a printed version.

Yet another reason being a blogger has been so worthwhile: I keep meeting people and learning things I'd never have had access to otherwise.

Thanks for lunch, Jeff.

"Nations were made by men, not by paper Constitutions and paper ballots"

This voice from the past is a reminder of why voting technology activists need to keep on the front burner the racial politics they embraced widely up through January 6, 2005.

Nations were made by men, not by paper Constitutions and paper ballots. We're not free because we have a Constitution. We have a Constitution because our pioneer fathers who cleared the wilderness and dared the might of kings were free men . . . if you can make men out of paper, then it is possible with a scratch of a pen in the hands of a tyrannical judge or a vicious attorney general, to transform by its magic 18 million blacks into 18 million kings....

This is a white man's government, conceived by white man and maintained by white men through every year of its history. And by God of our fathers, it shall be ruled by the white man until the archangels shall call at the end of time!

(A FIVE POINT ACTION PROGRAM: AN ADDRESS BY LOUIS W. HOLLIS, Executive Director, CitIzens' Councils of America to THE REORGANIZATION RALLY SAVANNAH CITIZENS' COUNCIL SAVANNAH, GEORGIA, July 22, 1963, p. 17)

'

Mississippi Burning = Mississippi Cover Up?

It's one thing to not have the evidence they would have had if they'd asked for assistance from the Department of Justice. But what about the evidence that is available to anyone with an internet connection?

Let's go back to that post conviction question and answer period held by Attorney General Jim Hood and District Attorney Mark Duncan.

The two said that they knew much more about the case, including who actually killed the three, than they were allowed to tell jurors in court.

They faced several problems, they said. For one, some witnesses, including several of those who were convicted in a 1967 federal civil rights violation trial, refused to testify or sign written statements. Others, Hood said, were dead. Three of the most significant witnesses in the case against Killen died, he said.

Duncan said Wayne Roberts and James Jordan, both of Meridian, were actually responsible for shooting the young men, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. Roberts shot Goodman and Schwerner, he said, and Jordan shot Chaney, they said (emphasis added).

Now let's go back a little further to an article by Jerry Mitchell in the year 2000 (via Susan Klopfer).

Like the photograph of Emmett Till two generations ago, the picture of James Chaney horrifies and outrages.

It is that autopsy picture, along with a signed autopsy report obtained by The Clarion-Ledger, that experts say proves Klansmen on June 21, 1964, didn't just kill the black civil rights activist, they tortured him before he died.

That report says Chaney had a left arm broken in one place, a right arm broken in two places and "a marked disruption" of the left elbow joint. That picture suggests he may have suffered other trauma to the groin area that white activists, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, did not....

For 36 years, countless books and movies have portrayed the killings of all three as quick executions, but experts now agree with what a second opinion then suggested — the damage Chaney suffered suggests he was treated differently than the other two.

"If he had broken one arm, you might could rationalize it," said Dr. Joe Burton, chief medical examiner for metropolitan Atlanta, who examined the trio's autopsy photos under intense magnification. "To break both of them would be more like torture. He was not only shot, he was tortured for some reason."

(Emphasis added.)

The question again: why only Killen?

What happened the night Chaney and the others were killed is detailed in confessions from two participants — James Jordan and Horace Doyle Barnette.

Those confessions identify Edgar Ray Killen of Union, otherwise known as "Preacher" Killen, as directing Klansmen where to go and what to do that night. (Killen insists he is innocent.)

After Neshoba County Deputy Cecil Price released Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney from jail at about 10 p.m., Klansmen chased down the trio in their station wagon. Price struck Chaney with a blackjack before Klansmen loaded the trio into Price's car to take them where they would be killed.

When Price stopped his deputy's car on a nearby gravel road, Klansman Alton Wayne Roberts pulled Schwerner out, put his hand on Schwerner's shoulder and shot him dead.

Roberts then removed Goodman from the car and shot him.

According to Barnette's confession, Jordan jerked Chaney out of the car. As he and others shot Chaney, Jordan said, "You didn't leave me anything but a n-----, but at least I killed me a n-----."

Killen received a mistrial. Barnette, Jordan, Roberts and Price were each convicted of federal charges of conspiring to deprive the trio of their civil rights. Of the five, Killen and Price are still alive.

Philip Dray, co-author of the 1988 book about the killings, We Are Not Afraid, said what dumbfounds him about the suggestion Chaney was beaten is Klansmen were angrier with Schwerner: "He was the one they really, really hated."

The secret of why Chaney may have been treated differently can be found in the long-sealed records of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a segregationist spy agency headed by the governor from 1956 to 1973.

"James Chaney, the colored member of this group, is alleged to have broke (sic) away from the group of men that were holding them captive," commission investigator Andy Hopkins wrote in his Jan. 26, 1965, report for the Sovereignty Commission's files. "Shortly after he made the break, he was shot at several times by several different people but was struck by only three bullets, each of which was alleged to have been fired from a different firearm."

That coincides with Jordan's statement Chaney died perhaps 40 feet away from where Schwerner and Goodman were killed.

The autopsy report offers other possible evidence Chaney broke free. He was shot in the back, an indication he may have been hit while trying to evade his killers.

John Dittmer, author of the 1994 book on the Mississippi civil rights movement, Local People, said Klansmen may have beaten Chaney before finishing him off.

"There are books on lynching and mob psychology," Dittmer said. "To kill a person isn't enough. People go berserk. If this happened, it was because Chaney decided to run away."

Jordan's statement appears to support a gap of time between the first round of shots fired and the last ones fired: "A volley of shots, approximately six or seven in number, were heard, followed by two separate shots."

The two last shots that Jordan described could have been the shots that killed Chaney, one that struck him in the abdomen and the final bullet that fractured his skull.

Former FBI agent Jim Ingram, who headed the civil rights desk for the FBI in Mississippi in the 1960s, said he believes the Klansmen's motive was clear: "It seems to me they would have gotten their licks on Chaney since he was a Mississippi black associating with these whites from up North."

(Emphasis added.)

James Chaney was tortured and there is evidence that he was shot by more than one person.

Mississippi in 2005 is protecting white, racist murderers.

Further reading:
Mississippi Autposy, by Dr. David Spain

Cleophus Hobbs Day

Cleophus Hobbs Day
Saturday, June 10, 2006
David Hall Campsite 1 on the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail
Sponsored by the White Hall Village Educational Association

Here's the story:

After my trip to Mississippi for the 41st Annual Chaney Goodman Schwerner Memorial, I spent some time in Montgomery, Alabama with Scott B. Smith and Linda Dehnad, both from SNCC. ScottB was a SNCC worker in Alabama, with Stokely Carmichael, Bob Mants and Jimmy Rogers. They helped organize the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, which was the local political organization. The symbol of the organization was the black panther, which was its origin as a symbol for Black militant groups. Lowndes County is the county situated between Montgomery County and Dallas County (which includes Selma).

ScottB was known as the Bone Man because he wore a bone around his neck to urge everyone to get together like Ezekiel's dry bones, to register to vote at the Lowndes County jail house. Whites placed voter registration at the jail house as a means to intimidate African American voters out of registering. The jail house was a place where African American men went in, frequently "disappearing," never to be heard from again. When family members came to inquire after their incarcerated loved one, they were told that the prisoner had been released and law enforcement officials did not know where the prisoner had gone.

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, ScottB took me around Lowndes, Montgomery, and Dallas Counties to familiarize me with the work that he did with local communities and with some of the current conditions of African American life in those same communities today.

On Tuesday one of our stops was at the home of Johnny and Betty Hall, members of the family of Mr. David Hall, who owned the property that was the first campsite on the Selma to Montgomery March. David Hall was an African American landowner on Highway 67, off Route 80, which runs east-west through Alabama, making the major route between Montgomery and Selma (and further west to Perry County, which was where Jimmie Lee Jackson was murdered by police, leading to the Selma to Montgomery March). David Hall had not been particularly involved in the Civil Rights Movement, but when he observed the beatings of marchers on Bloody Sunday, he drove his truck the eight miles into Selma, to the Brown Chapel AME Church to offer his land as a campsite for the civil rights marchers. Johnny and Betty Hall presently live on the land David Hall offered for the marchers' use.

When we arrived at the Halls' home, we were met by some of Mr. and Mrs. Hall's grandchildren, who explained that their grandfather was on his way home from the hospital, where he had recently had heart surgery. They called him on his cell phone, and when he heard it was ScottB, Mr. Hall asked that we wait for them to get home. There were chairs set up in front of the garage, so we sat down and watched two of the grandchildren, an adorably pudgy twenty-two month old boy with cornrows and a pretty, slender girl of seven or eight, play out in the driveway, he on his big wheel and she on her bicycle with training wheels.

While we sat there, ScottB started to tell me about Cleophus Hobbs, who lives just down the road in Sunshine Village. Mr. Hobbs was a SNCC worker who was well respected in Lowndes and Dallas Counties. He wore a cowboy hat and carried a gun. He was shot at a number of times by whites and shot back in self-defense. The non-violent philosophy was not dominant in rural areas of Alabama, like Lowndes County, where Klan violence was such that fighting back was often a necessity. Cleophus Hobbs was an organizer in Selma before the famous march: he worked on demonstrations around education and voter registration. Children's education continued to be a concern of Mr. Hobbs throughout the years.

Before long, the Halls' car rolled in with Mr. and Mrs. Hall and a few more of their grandchildren. Though Mr. Hall was just out of the hospital, he sat down, out in front of the garage with us to talk for a few minutes before going inside to rest. One thing led to another in our conversation, and ScottB mentioned something about visiting Mr. Hobbs since he was just down the road. Mr. Hall then told us the news: Cleophus Hobbs had died the Friday before last, on June 10. He died peacefully, in his sleep. The funeral had already come and gone.

ScottB had known Cleophus Hobbs well and worked closely with him and was devastated not to have heard about his death in time to attend the funeral. In trying figure out something constructive he could do with his grief, ScottB came up with an idea:

Next year, June 10, 2006 will be the first celebration of Cleophus Hobbs Day.

Johnny and Betty Hall have offered Campsite 1, which is still on their family land, for the event. Campsite 1 is one of the stops on the National Park Service Historic Trail, following the route of the Selma to Montgomery March, and it is on the same road Mr. Hobbs lived on. The event will be sponsored by the White Hall Village Educational Association, which was founded by ScottB and Linda.

The event on June 10, 2006 will be a celebration of Cleophus Hobbs and it will be an opportunity for people in the area to talk about the things they are currently dealing with and to strategize and organize around their concerns. The first Cleophus Hobbs Day will also be a fundraiser for a commemorative plaque to be placed in Campsite 1, in memory of Mr. Hobbs. ScottB is encouraging other SNCC members to have celebrations for others who have passed and to use these occasions similarly for recognizing deceased civil rights workers' contributions and for addressing the problems people are facing now.

Let there be a James Forman Day, an Ella Baker Day, a Fannie Lou Hamer Day, an Emmett Till Day, and so on.

ScottB points out that these events could also be used as fundraisers to do things like giving money to families who could not afford the funeral costs for their loved ones.

For more information, contact ScottB, scottbsmithjr[at]yahoo[dot]com or Linda Dehnad, lindadehnad[at]hotmail[dot]com.

The Informant: The FBI, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Murder of Viola Liuzzo, by Gary May

It was an apropos end to an exciting week when I received Gary May's email yesterday, announcing the publication of his new book, The Informant: The FBI, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Murder of Viola Liuzzo. I haven't mentioned this yet, but in addition to traveling to Mississippi for the 41st annual Chaney Goodman Schwerner Memorial on the land of civil rights pioneers Cornelius and Mable Steele, I traveled to Montgomery, Alabama and spent time with former SNCC workers Scott B. Smith and Linda Dehnat. ScottB took me all around Montgomery, Lowndes County and Selma, to teach me about his work with the Lowndes County Freedom Organization in the 1960s. I will get into more of the details very soon, but it was just Tuesday that I stopped with ScottB at the memorial to Viola Liuzzo on Rt. 80, outside Selma, where she was murdered by Klansmen after she'd traveled from Detroit to march with all the others in the Selma to Montgomery March. (A good account of the story is here.)

Here's an excerpt from a recent review by Murray Polner:

The Informants is a model of painstaking historical research coupled with an exemplary writing style, vivid, dramatic, and suspenseful. Serious historical writing May proves need not be dull.

What is new and different about the book are May’s portraits of Klan members and primarily the FBI informant, Gary Thomas Rowe, a violent, angry liar, who loved nothing better than hanging around cops, was planted inside the Klan, in Bessemer, Alabama, where many members and sympathizers worked in the steel mills, their activities often approved, subtly and otherwise, by Birmingham’s ruling elite. (Readers might also turn to Diane McWhorter’s fascinating Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution)....

The problem, as May points out, is that Rowe, a member of Eastview Klavern No. 13 in Bessemer, rose rapidly within Klan ranks. He joined in meting out savage beatings of blacks and white sympathizers. When the Klan beat Freedom Riders badly in the Birmingham bus terminal in 1961, none of the attackers, including Rowe, were deemed culpable, because local police were in on the plot. The FBI, which had advance knowledge about the assault, refused to intervene because they wanted Klan members to trust Rowe. May speculates that Rowe may well have been involved in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham where four small black girls died. “Hoover,” May goes on, “blocked persecution…in part to protect Rowe” and another FBI snitch, who was even more dangerous than Rowe.

He also suggests, but cannot prove, that while Rowe was present in the automobile shadowing Liuzzo’s car, he urged another Klan member to kill Liuzzo. Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center once accurately portrayed Rowe as “a loud, bragging, know-it-all thug who had been made a hero for what would have sent most men to prison.”

But thanks to Gary May, we do know that the murder of Viola Liuzzo took a devastating toll on her family. Some misguided Americans wrote her family obscene and bigoted letters and castigating their husband and mother for going South to help other Americans.

For May, this business of using criminals as spies raises “the use of questionable, even illegal means to achieve a beneficial end,” a question he later suggests raises a new set of questions in today’s “war against terrorism.”

During the sixties, the FBI claimed to have 2,000 Rowe-like informers inside various Klan groups. Much about them is still secret. The FBI will not allow researchers access to their files, information how well or badly they did, and what crimes, if any, they committed while serving as informers. “It is unlikely that such records will become available to historians in the near future,” May explains, “because the Bureau fiercely guards informant identities and activities.”

And here is Gary May, himself, expanding on the issue of using informants, noted by Polner:

My research in FBI, Justice Department and the Liuzzo family attorney’s records convinced me that the Liuzzo Case was unique and offered important lessons for our current war against terrorism. Unlike the other well known Civil Rights murders, the crime was quickly solved because one of the four Klansmen who shot Liuzzo on an Alabama highway following the conclusion of the 1965 Voting Rights March, was an FBI informant. As soon as Gary Thomas Rowe could get away from his associates, he quickly reported the murder to his FBI handler and, within hours, the Klansmen were apprehended. President Lyndon Johnson announced their arrest over nation-wide television. In none of the other civil rights murders was an FBI informant so deeply involved and an examination of Rowe’s career led to disturbing conclusions about the role of informants then and now-- their activities can actually produce the very tragedies they are supposed to prevent....

Although the Klansmen would later charge that Rowe himself murdered Liuzzo, which led her family to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the FBI in the 1980s, a judge ruled against them and evidence I uncovered indicated that another Klansmen fired the fatal shots. The Klansmen responsible for Liuzzo’s murder are dead as is Rowe and the case is officially closed, but—in fact, it deserves to be examined and discussed for what it tells us about the dangers of recruiting informants and putting them into terrorist groups. To reassure their associates that they are truly committed to their cause, they too must commit brutal acts. And to hide their association with despicable characters, intelligence agencies become silent partners in the crimes their informants commit. I hope that as the U.S. seeks better “human intelligence” in the war on terrorism, The Informant will provide a cautionary tale about the role played by informants in that struggle. Along with the newly reopened case of Emmett Till and the start on June 13 of the trial of Edgar Ray Killen, accused of killing James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in 1964, I recommend opening, intellectually if not legally, the case of Viola Liuzzo. It has too much to teach us to be closed forever.

Text of memorial reads:

IN MEMORY OF OUR SISTER
VIOLA LIUZZO
WHO GAVE HER LIFE IN THE
STRUGGLE FOR THE RIGHT TO
VOTE..... MARCH 25, 1965

PRESENTED BY SCLC/WOMEN
EVELYN G. LOWERY, NATIONAL CONVENER
—1991—

THE SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP
CONFERENCE
JOSEPH LOWERY, PRESIDENT

---
Photos:
Viola Liuzzo with her children, UPI Photo, hosted by Civil Rights Movement Veterans
Viola Liuzzo Memorial, Rt. 80, outside Selma, Alabama, by Benjamin T. Greenberg

Census treatment of incarcerated felons unfairly dilutes voting strength of non-prison communities

Posted on June 22, 2005

NEWS RELEASE JUNE 22, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Brenda Wright, National Voting Rights Institute (617) 624-3900, ext. 13
Peter Wagner, Prison Policy Initiative (413) 586-4985
http://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/news/fact-22-6-2005.shtml

Today, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is hearing arguments in two cases alleging that New York's felon disenfranchisement laws violate the Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution (Muntaqim v. Coombe and Hayden v. Pataki). The National Voting Rights Institute and the Prison Policy Initiative have filed an amicus brief with the Court arguing that the Court should consider the redistricting implications of disenfranchisement as part of the "totality of circumstances" which must be examined under the Voting Rights Act. The brief highlights the New York State legislature's racially discriminatory redistricting practice of crediting rural white counties with additional population based on the presence of disenfranchised prisoners in upstate prisons.

New York State is majority White (62%), but its prison population is majority Black and Latino (82%), so disenfranchising prisoners and parolees results in a disproportionate bar to Black and Latino political participation. In their brief, the National Voting Rights Institute and the Prison Policy Initiative provide new information to the court showing how New York State's disenfranchisement practices combine with its redistricting practices to diminish the voting strength of non-incarcerated persons of color in the prisoners' home communities.

In drawing state legislative districts, New York uses Census Bureau data that counts the state's mostly urban and minority prisoners as residents of the mostly white and rural prison counties rather than as residents of the home communities where they resided prior to incarceration, where they are deemed legal residents for most other legal purposes. Several upstate legislative districts lack sufficient population to meet accepted one-person, one-vote standards without counting disenfranchised prisoners as part of their population base. At the same time, heavily minority districts in New York City would in all likelihood be entitled to additional representation if prisoners were counted as residents of their home communities for purposes of redistricting.

The brief argues that New York's practice has an historical parallel that the Court should be disinclined to follow. "The practice bears a striking resemblance to the original 'Three-Fifths' clause of the United States Constitution, which allowed the South to obtain enhanced representation in Congress by counting disenfranchised slaves as three-fifths of a person for purposes of congressional apportionment," says Prison Policy Initiative Assistant Director Peter Wagner.

Brenda Wright, managing attorney of the National Voting Rights Institute and the author of the brief, says: "New York's decision to credit disenfranchised prisoners to largely white counties, rather than their home communities, is a critical example of racial discrimination the court should consider."

In the two cases, the Second Circuit has taken the unusual step of granting in banc review by all active judges on the Court. The lower courts initially ruled against the plaintiffs and held that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act does not permit a challenge to prisoner disenfranchisement. The amicus brief of NVRI and the Prison Policy Institute, filed on January 28, 2005, is available on NVRI's website at: http://www.nvri.org/about/new_york_state_policies.shtml and in hypertext on the PPI site at http://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/muntaqim.shtml.

The National Voting Rights Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan legal center. Through litigation and public education, NVRI seeks to make real the promise of American democracy that meaningful political participation and power should be accessible to all regardless of economic or social status. The Prison Policy Initiative conducts research and advocacy on incarceration policy. Among its publications are a report, Importing Constituents: Prisoners and Political Clout in New York , which documents how the transfer of a large, non-voting population to upstate prisons, where it is counted as part of the population base for redistricting, artificially enhances the representation afforded to predominantly white, upstate legislative districts.

-30-

Murders Around Mississippi

Now that Killen has been convicted and sentenced, Susan Klopfer has revamped her blog that focused on the trial to cover, instead, the history of racial murders in Mississippi. Spend fifteen minutes on Murders Around Mississippi and it should be abundantly clear what Rita Bender Schwerner meant when she said:

"If this verdict is a beginning, if the sentence is a beginning, helping to open up what happened in this state — that is important."

Susan has already posted a lot (including some excerpts from Susan's book, Where Rebels Roost), so I'll mention a few things to check out:

• (For Senators Trent Lott and Thad Cochran) List of lynched black people in the Delta collected by Joyce Russer of Bolivar County
• (For Jim Hood and Mark Duncan) Civil rights slayings in Mississippi
• Cleve McDowell (1997), first Black to enter Ole Miss Law School
• Birdia Keglar (1966), first Black to vote in Tallahatchie County after Reconstruction ended

Will Miss. prosecute others? Appears not, unless...

By The Arkansas Delta Peace And Justice Center

Will Mississippi prosecute others? It does not look encouraging, especially given the statement that they intend to release all evidence they have. Please see statements in bold type in article. But we can continue to push as we have in the past to obtain as much as possible of a full measure of truth and justice.

Also note Duncan's quote at the end of the article: “Neshoba Countians will no longer be “painted and described around the world by a hollywood movie.” Is that what this was all about for some?

Also please note Jared Storey's insightful comments in response to the article at the end of this message.

---

 

http://www.neshobademocrat.com/main.asp?FromHome=1&TypeID=1&ArticleID=10597&SectionID=2&SubSectionID=297

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Duncan: Trigger men dead

By JOSH FOREMAN
The Neshoba Democrat
Staff Reporter


Still-living remnants of the gang that murdered three civil rights workers here fall into two categories, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said – the still-proud “nod and wink” kind, and those who have convinced themselves that they didn’t have anything to do with the murders.

Edgar Ray Killen, Hood said, belongs to the former group. “They want to brag about it but they’re cowards and they don’t want to take the medicine,” he said.

Killen was convicted of manslaughter in the deaths of three young men who were helping blacks register to vote four decades ago.

Hood and Neshoba County District Attorney Mark Duncan discussed the challenge of trying the 41-year-old case in a question and answer session about an hour after Killen was convicted on three counts of felony manslaughter Tuesday.

The two said that they knew much more about the case, including who actually killed the three, than they were allowed to tell jurors in court.

They faced several problems, they said. For one, some witnesses, including several of those who were convicted in a 1967 federal civil rights violation trial, refused to testify or sign written statements. Others, Hood said, were dead. Three of the most significant witnesses in the case against Killen died, he said.

Duncan said Wayne Roberts and James Jordan, both of Meridian, were actually responsible for shooting the young men, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. Roberts shot Goodman and Schwerner, he said, and Jordan shot Chaney, they said.

Another witness committed suicide after telling investigators that Killen had been present when Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers gave the orders to “eliminate” or murder Schwerner, whom they had nicknamed “Goatee.”

They said one thing they didn’t know about the case was whether Killen had been present at the shootings or the subsequent disposal of the bodies. “There’s some questions that will go to the grave unanswered,” Hood said.

Hood said the state plans to make public all evidence collected in the investigation, even pieces that weren’t admissible in Killen’s trial.

Hood and Duncan were upbeat after the conviction. “First, I want to say to the families of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman that while we can’t undo what was done 41 years ago, at least now the state of Mississippi has done what it can do,” Duncan said.

Duncan said that although they pushed for a murder conviction in the case, they were satisfied with a manslaughter conviction. “I do not see it as a failure,” he said. “It was not a perfect verdict, but you have to understand, it was not a perfect case.”

Dozens of national and international news organizations called Neshoba County home throughout the trial.

Duncan and Hood called it the most important case in Mississippi history, as did Circuit Court Judge, Marcus D. Gordon in the courtroom before the jury was brought in the verdict was read.

But Hood said the political and social ramifications of the trial didn’t concern him in his investigation. “I’m just a prosecutor,” he said. “I don’t pretend to be a sociologist.

“Mark and I didn’t bring this to a grand jury to solve any social problems,” he said. “I don’t know what to say other than we were just doing our jobs.”

Duncan, a Philadelphia native, said the trial spoke volumes about the character of Neshoba County residents. “Finally I want to say something about the people of Neshoba County,” he said. “Today, like I said before, I know the character of the people of this county.

“Neshoba Countians will no longer be “painted and described around the world by a hollywood movie.”

___________________________________________________________
Reader Comments

...

Posted: Thursday, June 23, 2005
Article comment by: Jared Story

The statement that "at least now the State of Mississippi has done what it can do," is laughable. The State of Mississippi has done what it WANTED to, not what it CAN do. The State of Mississippi did not hold Edgar Ray Killen or any one of the many others at different levels of Mississippi society accountable for the crime of MURDER.