Posted on 06/26/2005 8:32:42 AM PDT by SJackson
A big secret they couldn't escape
By William Neikirk
Tribune senior correspondent
Published June 26, 2005
By October, Mississippi's searing heat usually gives way to the cool spells of fall. And so it was in 1967, in the graceful city of Meridian, where I had come to cover a federal trial as a reporter for The Associated Press.
But a different kind of heaviness hung in the air that October long ago, a feeling no less oppressive than the swelter of a Mississippi summer.
You could sense it by viewing Confederate flags some people had unfurled near the federal building.
You could sense it by the way some of the residents talked about "outside agitators" and viewed the assembled national press corps with disdain.
You could sense it in the precautions the government took. Police set up barricades around the building. Federal marshals planted themselves on the courthouse steps, keeping a watchful eye. Reporters could come and go only during recesses.
But the real tension stemmed from the prospect of an epic struggle inside the courtroom. It would be a battle between the federal government and the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a battle between the FBI and local law enforcement in the state, and a battle between the old Mississippi and the prospect of an emerging Mississippi.
It had been three years since three young civil rights workers, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney, had been shot and killed and buried in an earthen dam in nearby Philadelphia, Miss. Schwerner and Goodman were white, Chaney was black.
Second article in Post 1
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
By Dahleen Glanton
Tribune national correspondent based in Atlanta
Published June 26, 2005
PHILADELPHIA, Miss. -- It was difficult to watch the old man sitting in a wheelchair in the courtroom and not, at times, feel sympathy for him.
After all that Edgar Ray Killen had done to keep things the same, the South had changed in spite of him--or perhaps because of him--and seemed to be reaching back to settle an old score.
The pity was fleeting, though, erased by the images of three young men who died under Killen's reign as a Kleagle--planning murders and recruiting members for the Ku Klux Klan--and the sight of two of the victims' mothers, old and frail, but still hoping for justice.
That justice came Tuesday, exactly 41 years to the day that Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were murdered by the Klan while spending the summer in Mississippi registering blacks to vote.
I wondered what was going through Killen's mind as the jury of three blacks and nine whites lined up before the judge and pronounced the 80-year-old guilty of manslaughter. His face offered no clues either that day or on Thursday, when Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon sentenced him to the maximum 60 years in prison.
I wanted to ask him face to face, as I have other segregationists, what he thinks about the progress blacks have made in the past 40 years. Was the hatred and evil he spewed as a young man worth the penalty he was paying in his old age? Does he still believe he was right in enforcing what many whites believed were the God-sanctioned social mores of the South?
How ironic, I thought, that a man who had killed in order to keep blacks in their place would spend the rest of his life in a state penitentiary where almost 70 percent of the population is African-American.
2 types of supremacists
To all the people who say the old guy should have been let go: There is no statute of limitations on murder.
Ofercripesake! That was 1967, people. 1967. You know, before Robert Kennedy was shot. Before Nixon was elected. Before the light bulb, motorcars, and flush toilets. Why is this tawdry little incident newsworthy 41 years later?
I don't think he had anything against blacks, per se. He was trying to preserve a proud old way of life against the depradations of encroaching federalism.
When does Robert C. Byrd go on trial?
I don't really care about the racial or civil-rights aspect. Looking at it purely as a murder prosecution, this was exactly what should have happened.
Or are you saying that if you commit murder and then escape prosecution for it for nearly 40 years, you should be allowed to get off scott free? Are you sure you're not a liberal?
Because he was convicted last week.
With luck, next week. :)
That said, this sort of investigation has to be keeping old Sheets awake at night with worry.
I don't support a statute of limitations on murder. But that is the case his supporters have to make.
Amen. Those who value human life must understand that it's criminal taking will always be punished by a lawful society, no matter the delay.
I don't much like the guy, but I've never seen any criminal allegations of this nature. If there are people out there with that knowledge, this is the time to speak, else he'll escape justice.
Has Byrd been accused of murder?
"I don't really care about the racial or civil-rights aspect. Looking at it purely as a murder prosecution, this was exactly what should have happened."
Yep. It was a murder trial. As you said, no statute of limitations nor should there be. Justice was eventually served. As a Mississippian, I'm glad. This is a new south. Many refuse to belive it, though.
IIRC, yes, but the charges never went anywhere and were rapidly dropped. Then again, with the desire of the people of the South to do some housecleaning, the charges may be revived and a new investigation begun. You never know....
You can't examine it in any other light. The media certainly aren't. The only thing that made the case noteworthy to begin with was its civil rights implications.
Looking at it purely as a murder prosecution, this was exactly what should have happened.
The prosecution, sure. But the media storm surrounding it??? Why? How does a racial slaying 41 years ago have a bloody thing to do with today's world?
Or are you saying that if you commit murder and then escape prosecution for it for nearly 40 years, you should be allowed to get off scott free?
Yeah, that's what I'm saying ... if you write my post in Sanskrit and then play it backwards at 78 speed. I don't care one whit about prosecuting the murder. I am bored to tears with the triumphal crowing of the media about the imaginary "civil rights victory" this prosecution supposedly represents.
Are you sure you're not a liberal?
Are you sure you're not drunk?
"I don't much like the guy, but I've never seen any criminal allegations of this nature."
I doubt Byrd hardly ever saw a black person, much less hurt one. According to the 2000 census, W.V. only has a 3.2% black population, and the town Byrd in which organized his group only had 25 back people living there in 2000. I can only imagine how few, if any, black people lived there in the '40's.
The involvement of a Klan leader in criminal activities wouldn't have been unusual in those days. If you have some information, I'd be interested in hearing about that. When, where, victim's name, that stuff.
So? So were hundreds of other criminals. What makes this particular schmuck worthy of my front page?
Let's face it. This case is nothing more than racial scab-picking. Gotta do SOMETHING to keep Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in $2,000 suits.
You're not aware of the notoriety of this case over the years? If they catch the Columbians who murdered Nicole Simpson in 30 years that will be news too. Something would be wrong if the media buried it.
The KKK was/is a terrorist organization and he was not only a member but a recruiter.
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