Mississippi Burning

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Today I saw something I wish I hadn’t had to see. Not because I didn’t want to see it; rather, because I would have preferred that it never happened. If you’re old like me and saw the made-for-TV movie Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan or you’re younger and saw the Gene Hackman/William Dafoe film Mississippi Burning, then you know about this. In 1964, as the Civil Rights Act was nearing congressional vote and presidential enactment, groups were heading to the Deep South to help blacks register to vote. This was the era of George Wallace and his “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever” speech and the deep-seated roots of the Klan. Three men were in Philadelphia, Mississippi to help organize groups coming to the are to help register black voters. They had planned to use the primarily black Mt. Zion United Methodist Church as their meeting place. On June 16, 1964 it was burned to the ground, and many parishioners were beaten by Klansmen. Five days later, three civil rights activists — one black and two Jewish — would disappear. Their bodies were discovered six weeks later, when an FBI informant told the law where the three were buried. The sign above shows the approximate location of the murder of the three. James Chaney, 21, was a Mississippi native. Andrew Goodman, 20, and Michael Schwerner, 24, were victims of hatred. That was nearly 60 years ago (next June will make the 60th anniversary). It’s a painful scar on Mississippi, the south, and America.