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.
==========
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