1/7/2005 6:00:00 PM
EDITORIAL/June 21, 1964: It’s time for an accounting (May 3, 2000)
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An Editorial
The following editorial, written by Stanley Dearman, who published and edited The Neshoba Democrat for more than 30 years, appeared on May 3, 2000:
Philadelphia, Mississippi: Put those words into a computer for a web search and what comes up, along with the usual data about geographical places, is a difference that stands out - a distinction that put this place on the map 36 years ago: “ . . . the scene, near here, of the murder of three civil rights workers on June 21, 1964.”
The same information turns up in other reference sources because of an act that turned out to be the single most notorious crime committed anywhere in the United States by the Ku Klux Klan during the violent decade of the Sixties. It turned out to be the high-water mark of armed resistance during the civil rights era. No one has ever been charged, indicted or tried for the triple murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. It made news around the world when the three men disappeared from the face of the earth - until their bodies were found in an earthen dam 44 days later.
It’s time for an accounting. The successful recent prosecutions of civil rights murders committed in the Sixties, including those involving the murder of Vernon Dahmer near Hattiesburg and the conviction of Byron de la Beckwith for the murder of Medgar Evers, shows that it can be done, despite difficulties.
The Neshoba County case would be relatively free of some of the legal questions that caused problems with some of the other cases, such as the right to a speedy trial, because the clock would not start ticking until a person is indicted and arrested.
The office of the attorney general of Mississippi has been reviewing the massive file on the case that was obtained from the FBI. We hope that the attorney general and the district attorney conclude that the case can be effectively prosecuted. It’s time.
There are those in this community who will say that it’s been too long. The trouble with that position is that they were saying it after five years, after 10 years, after 15 years. If it involved a member of their family or a friend, they would never say it’s been too long. And if they claim that right for themselves, how can they in good conscience deny it to anyone else?
Besides, the law in no state or nation excuses murder after a certain number of years.
If that were the case it would mean a free murder every 20 or 30 years. There are some crimes so terrible that no one is given a chance to beat the system by marking time; murder is one of them. When a person’s life is taken away without legal justification, such as self-defense, societies everywhere consider it a crime so horrible that a killer has no right to think he is beyond the reach of the law, no matter how remote in time it may be.
None of this would be an issue if a group of self-appointed saviors of the status quo had not taken it upon themselves to murder three unarmed young men who were arrested on a trumped up traffic charge and held in jail like caged animals until night fell and they could be intercepted by the Ku Klux Klan, a group whose bravery increases in direct proportion to their numbers and how long the sun has set.
If the law enforcement officers involved in the case had just left the three men alone, this case would not have put Neshoba County and Philadelphia on the map the way it did. Nor would it have made fodder for television documentaries and dramas or motion pictures. Nor would there be the steady stream of visitors, or of unflattering journalists from other parts of the nation and many foreign countries, usually around the June 21 anniversary.
The Klansmen may have thought they represented the community; they didn’t represent everyone as, for example, the late Mrs. Annie Lee Welsh who, shortly after the murders, encountered an old man, obviously a Klan sympathizer, in front of a downtown shop. “Well, Lee,” he said, “they did it for us.” Miss Annie Lee drew up all of her five feet and 90 pounds into the man’s face and said, between clenched teeth, “Well, they didn’t do it for me.”
This is a case that never goes away for the reason that it has never been dealt with in the way it should have been. It’s time to bring a conclusion by applying the rule of law.
Come hell or high water, it’s time for an accounting.
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Posted: Thursday, February 09, 2006
Article comment by:
Robert Lyddan
Dear Editor,
With an opportunity to reflect on the conviction of Edgar Ray “Preacher” Killen and the words of former editor Stanley Dearman in his editorial originally published on May 3, 2000, I breathe a sigh of relief. Mississippi, particularly Neshoba County, will regrettably be forever tainted by the malicious actions of an ignorant, racist, Klansmen, who pursued his life for 41 years as if he had done nothing wrong. Three civil rights workers who believed in their soul’s right to breathe had life taken from them without hesitation or consequence until now. I believe the words of civil rights activist and leader, Ella Baker are appropriate, “One of the things that has to be faced is the process of waiting to change the system, how much we have got to do to find out who we are, where we have come from and where we are going.” We have waited a long time to close this dark chapter of our states’ history but maybe this period has been beneficial for a few reasons. The era of racism deep within Southern leadership no longer exists, which helped insure a fair trial. Also, the role of then-Neshoba County Sheriff Rainey and Deputy Cecil Price, both members of KKK, cannot be discounted particularly since they were in positions of authority. These men enabled their sympathizers and could have easily swayed the jury if pressed for a decision 40 years ago. We finally have the first and most likely the only conviction for the murders during Freedom Summer of 1964. Edgar Killen will now spend the remainder of his natural life with his conscience bearing down on him for the brutal murder he ordered and possibly carried out decades ago. Justice has been served.
Posted: Friday, June 17, 2005
Article comment by:
MILTON BROWN
I AM A 42 YEAR OLD AFRICAN AMERICAN WHO HAS BEEN A VICTIM OF RACISM MANY TIMES & THINK ANY FORM OF EQUALITY IS A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. HOWEVER, WHEN YOU CONSIDER THE ENORMOUS BURDEN THAT WE MUST CARRY IN THIS SOCIETY AS PEOPLE OF COLOR,YOU MUST AGREE THAT IT IS TOO FAR & IN BETWEEN. DECADES LATER, A WOMAN CAN MURDER HER KIDS & YELL A BLACK MAN DID IT OR A HUSBAND CAN KILL HIS PREGNANT WIFE AND SAY A BLACK MAN DID IT, WE HAVE A VERY LONG WAY TO GO. THEIR ARE SOME WHO SAY WE DON'T DESERVE ANY COMPENSATION FOR BEING A BATH MAT TO THIS NATION FOR CENTURIES SHOULD KEEP LOOKING AT OUR DISPOSITION VERSES ANY OTHER CULTURE.
Posted: Sunday, June 12, 2005
Article comment by:
Robby Myrick
AMEN, Johnny Lee Clary!
I've observed your ministry over the past few years, and I am highly encouraged that you would have the guts to take the vocal stand that you have towards this "black eye" issue that has haunted our great state for over 40 years.
Thank God for Honorable Jim Hood (AG), and Honorable Mark Duncan (DA) for their persistence and courage to re-open this case, unpeel the "scab" from the wound, perform the surgery of revelation, apply the healing power of justice, repentance, and forgiveness ... then, hopefully, lead this generation of Mississippians to the "new day" we have envisioned for most of our lives!
Thank you, Stanley Dearman, for your unwavering commitment to TRUTH-telling in journalism.
Thank you, Neshoba County, for standing behind your leadership as they insist on exposing and bringing to light this despicable evil that has bound our people for generations.
May God be honored, and may His hand be upon the justices, attorneys, and jury members througout the days ahead.
Posted: Thursday, May 05, 2005
Article comment by:
Kelley A. Pasmanick
May 4, 2005
To the Editor:
I believe that Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney, all participants in the “Freedom Summer” of 1964 were men of integrity fighting for equality and mostly for the improvement of society when their lives ended prematurely under wrongful circumstances. They were murdered and the man convicted of these murders is former Mississippi Ku Klux Klan member, Edgar Ray Killen. Killen has been walking around as a free man for 41 years until recently. I believe when Killen is tried in June of this year, that if he is found guilty for these crimes, he should serve whatever sentence is prescribed to him, without the judicial system taking into account his age of 80 years and recent ailments. Such a malicious criminal should not go unnoticed.
I have deduced from reading the articles concerning his case that many believe that because Killen is elderly, he should not have to serve a possible jail sentence. However, he will not immediately begin to decay in prison. The law in the United States requires that prisoners be given adequate medical care. In addition, prisoners are given three meals a day. There is very little chance of Killen suffering of neglect if he is obligated to serve a prison sentence. Furthermore, the prison personnel will obviously consider that he is elderly and they will not make him partake in arduous labor. It is highly likely they will deal with him like many other elderly prisoners. They will leave him to sit quietly in his cell or they will put him into solitary confinement.
Secondly, if Killen does not serve any type of sentence, that will be a lesson to the United States, if not the world, that this man is allowed to be free, when he tried to take that same freedom away for which the men he allegedly murdered were fighting. Killen’s freedom would demonstrate a lack of order and justice. Thus, the destructive people in our society would be free to wreak havoc and destruction, while the productive individuals of the world would be reduced to men and women whose ultimate purpose would be to be destroyed. Furthermore, by allowing Killen to remain free, the ideas that Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney fought for are just theories and cannot be applied.
Finally, if Killen is not punished, the young people, me included, will realize that the American system of justice is hypocritical. We will discover that the institutions of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness upon which our country was founded, are in fact conditional and that these ideas are able to be compromised permanently. In essence, segregation and bigotry will continue and progress and honor will once again be blotted out just as it was in 1964 and the previous years of the civil rights movement.
Thank you for your time,
Kelley A. Pasmanick
Posted: Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Article comment by:
Rev. Johnny Lee Clary
Finally after all these years, any countless cries for justice, charges have now been filed. As the former Imperial Wizard of the White Knights Of the Ku Klux Klan, I am now a member of Congress Of Racial Equality (The same group that the men who were killed by the Klan, belonged to) and a full time minister and civil rights speaker. Although I was only a child when these murders were committed, racism is a learned response and I was taught racism by my family.
I eventually would become the leader of this same organization that killed those young men even though it was many years after the deed was done. I knew some of the members who were involved and I visted Philadelphia. I came back after I had renounced the Klan and accepted Christ as my savior and visted with Stanley Dearman and we both discussed the case back in 1995.I was scheduled to preach in a church there in Philadelphioa and some of these men threatened the pastor which caused him to cancel my visit out of fear that his church might be harmed by these men. I did a TV interview in Meridian and said then that justice would never prevail until these men were brought to trial. I remember telling Mr. Dearman that I hoped that this would one day finally come to trial and now, 10 years after my last visit to Philadelphia, it is finally happened.Mississippi finally has a chance to send out a message that that the South has risen again, but this time everybody, Black and White,working hand in hand to show a positive message of brotherhood and unity, and not the division and segregation that the Klan has always sent out.I am proud of those who have finally filed these charges. James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner are no longer among us today, but from Heaven they cry out for Justice and hopefully Justice will prevail.I am also in hopes that people will see that if the former Imperial Wizard of this group can change, then there is hope for anyone.
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