From Commemoration to Conviction

• Author: Claire Whitlinger
• DOI: 10.1177/2153368715573366
• Published date: 01 April 2015
• Date: 01 April 2015
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

From Commemoration to

Conviction: Prosecuting

Edgar Ray Killen for the

‘‘Mississippi Burning’’ Murders

Claire Whitlinger

1

Abstract

Despite the growing number of civil rights era cold cases brought to trial over the past 20

years, surprisingly little social scientific research has examined how these cases emerged.

This article examines one such case—the 2005 prosecution of Edgar Ray Killen for the

1964 murder of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael

Schwerner. Using event structure analysis and drawing on archival sources, media

accounts, and interview data, this study finds thatthe trial would not have occurred without

the 40th anniversary commemoration in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Furthermore, this study

suggests that commemorations can serve as mechanisms connecting collective memory

with broader social change by catalyzing mnemonic entrepreneurship and cultivating

organizational structures and resources necessary to achieve positive legal outcomes. Such

outcomes, however, can only occur when political opportunities are favorable and

potential jurors have been primed through the ‘‘memory of commemoration.’’

Keywords

criminal trials, collective memory, race/ethnicity, lynching, civil rights movement

Introduction

On June 21, 2005, Edgar Ray Killen was convicted on three counts of manslaughter in

the 1964 murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and

Michael Schwerner. Although those responsible for perpetrating the crime had long

1

Department of Sociology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Corresponding Author:

Claire Whitlinger, Department of Sociology, University of Michigan, LSA Building, Room 3001, 500 S. State

Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.

Email: cwhitlin@umich.edu

Race and Justice

2015, Vol. 5(2) 144-167

ªThe Author(s) 2015

Reprints and permission:

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DOI: 10.1177/2153368715573366

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escaped punishment, the citizens of Philadelphia, Mississippi, where the crimes had

been committed, remained ‘‘in the prison of public opinion’’ for 41 years

(Salter, 2003). As a result of the silence, denial, and collective obstruction of justice

surrounding the murders, Philadelphia had come to represent intractable Southern

racism and the failures of American democracy.

The murders occurred on June 21, 1964, during the 1st week of what would be

called ‘‘Freedom Summer,’’ a massive voter registration campaign in Mississippi

involving hundreds of White students from Northern Universities who had volun-

teered for the summer project. After 6 weeks of investigation, the search effort came to

a close when a local informant provided the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

with the location of the bodies. By the end of the formal investigation, three Klan

members had confessed to the FBI and recounted in detail how local Klansmen—

including business leaders and law enforcement officials—had kidnapped, murdered,

and buried Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman 30 feet beneath an earthen dam.

Three years after the murders, seven men from Neshoba County and nearby

Lauderdale County were convicted on federal charges that they denied Chaney,

Schwerner, and Goodman their civil rights, but despite over 44 000 pages of FBI

documentation on the case, no one stood trial for murder—a state charge that no

Mississippi District Attorney saw fit to prosecute. That is, until 2005, when a con-

fluence of factors culminated in the indictment and, ultimately, conviction of Edgar

Ray Killen.

The Killen trial is one of nearly a dozen civil rights era cold cases that have been

reopened and prosecuted since 1989. And since 1989, family members of Chaney,

Schwerner, and Goodman have actively called on Mississippi state legal authorities to

prosecute the case (Chaney, 2000). By 2000, it appeared the case would finally move

forward. An interview with Sam Bowers, the former Imperial Wizard of the White

Knights of the Ku Klux Klan who was serving time for his role in another civil rights

era murder, had been leaked and implicated Edgar Ray Killen as the mastermind

behind the 1964 murders. Shortly, after this information became public, then-

Mississippi Attorney General, Mike Moore, reopened the case. The following year

it appeared the case was gaining traction after the Attorney General’s office collected

testimony from two new witnesses, including the Deputy Sheriff of Philadelphia in

1964—a known accomplice in the killings.

But by the spring of 2001, unforeseeable developments threatened the case’s

viability. Both witnesses died suddenly and their testimony, which had not been

delivered before a jury, was inadmissible in court. The loss of these witnesses seemed

to be the final blow to an already fragile case. By 2002, the Attorney General of

Mississippi reported that there was only a ‘‘slim chance’’ of murder charges being

brought by the state. Effectively, the case was closed.

Then, after a nearly 3-year hiatus—and without having uncovered any additional

evidence—the newly elected Mississippi Attorney General and Neshoba County

District Attorney presented the case before a Neshoba County Grand Jury. That this

seemingly intractable case moved forward without any new evidence is puzzling.

What could have occurred between 2002 and 2005 to propel this case forward?

Whitlinger 145