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The shell of the burned station wagon of three missing civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney is seen in this June 24, 1964 photo.
The bodies of three civil rights workers missing for six weeks have been found buried in a partially constructed dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation found the three young men - two white and one black man - about six miles from the town in a wooded area near where they were last seen on the night of 21 June.
They were Michael Schwerner, aged 24, Andrew Goodman, 20, both from New York and James Chaney, 22, from Meridian, Mississippi. All were members of the Congress of Racial Equality(CORE) dedicated to non-violent direct action against racial discrimination.
As soon as the men were reported missing, the case was made top priority and codenamed Miburn (Mississippi burning). FBI agents headed by Major Case Inspector Joseph Sullivan were sent down to Mississippi to investigate the matter.
After a tip-off they found the mens' burnt-out car two days after their disappearance.
The bodies have been taken to Jackson, Mississippi, for further examination into the cause of death. It is believed all three had been shot and the finger of blame is pointing at the Ku Klux Klan white supremacist group.
Church burned down
The three young men had left the CORE office in Meridian six weeks ago to investigate the destruction of a black congregation church in Longdale, Neshoba County because it was used as the site for a "freedom school".
The school was set up by Mr Schwerner as part of a wider civil rights campaign in Mississippi teaching black children, among other things, black history and the philosophy of the civil rights movement.
The Mount Zion Church was burned down on 16 June by members of the KKK searching for Mr Schwerner.
His wife, Rita, made an emotional statement to newspapers today.
She said: "My husband, Michael Schwerner, did not die in vain. If he and Andrew Goodman had been negroes, the world would have taken little notice of their deaths.
"After all, the slaying of a negro in Mississippi is not news. It is only because my husband and Andrew Goodman were white that the national alarm had been sounded."
On 13 October 1964 James Jordan, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, told FBI agents he had witnessed the murder and was willing to testify. A total of 19 men were arrested and charged.
On 24 February 1967 Judge William Cox dismissed 17 of the 19 indictments but he was overruled by the Supreme Court and the so-called Mississippi Burning trial took place in October 1967.
It emerged that the three young men had been arrested by Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price on 21 June, then released from Neshoba jail and stopped again on a country road and killed by the KKK.
Among those convicted were Deputy Sheriff Price, who got six years in jail. Ku Klux Klan leader Sam Bowers and KKK member Wayne Roberts were sentenced to 10 years each.
A film based on the FBI investigation was made in 1988 called Mississippi Burning.
Civil Rights History Index
FBI poster with missing three listed
James Earl Chaney's Family at his funeral
Chronology of Events
June 13, 1963
Medgar Evers, Mississippi's most prominent black leader, is assassinated.
January, 1964
Bob Moses and COFO (Council of Federated Organizations) announce the Mississippi Summer Project to register blacks to vote.
February, 15, 1964
Founding meeting of the White Knights of the Klu Klux Klanof Mississippi.
April 24, 1964
KKK burns crosses at 61 separate locations across Mississippi.
Memorial Day,1964
Michael Schwerner and James Chaney speak at Mt. Zion Methodist Church in Neshoba County and urge its all-black congregation to register.
June 14, 1964
Andy Goodman and other student volunteers attend training session for Summer Project volunteers in Oxford, Ohio. Also in attendance are CORE members Schwerner and Chaney.
June 16, 1964
Armed KKK members assault leaders of Mt. Zion Church.
June 17, 1964
Klan burns Mt. Zion Church to the ground. It is one of twenty black churches in Mississippi to be firebombed in the summer of 1964. FBI begins investigation into church bombing codenamed "MIBURN", for "Mississippi burning."
June 20, 1964
Michael Schwerner, James Earl Chaney and Andy Goodman drive from Ohio to the COREoffice in Meridian, Mississippi.
June 21, 1964
Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman drive to site of burned church in Neshoba County. On their way back to Meridian, they are arrested by Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price and taken to the county jail in Philadelphia, Miss. In a conspiracy with at local members of the Klan, Price releases the three from jail at 10 pm. The civil rights workers' station wagon is overtaken on a rural road, the three are beaten and shot and their bodies buried in an earthen dam.
June 22, 1964
The FBI begins its investigation into the disappearance of the three civil rights workers. Joseph Sullivan is appointed to head the investigation.
June - July, 1964
The FBI interviews about 1000 Mississippians, including an estimated 500 members of the KKK.
June 23, 1964
President Johnson meets with Attorney General Robert Kennedyand others to discuss an Administration response to the crisis in Mississippi.
June 24, 1964
Prominent black leaders including James Farmer, John Lewis, and Dick Gregorymeet with Neshoba County official in Philadelphia.
July 2, 1964
President Lyndon Baines Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964into law.
July 10, 1964
J. Edgar Hoover arrives in Jackson to open a Mississippi office of the FBI.
July 31, 1964
The FBI learns the probable location of the bodies.
August 3, 1964
A search warrant is obtained to look for bodies in an earthen dam at the Old Jolly Farm.
August 4, 1964
Bodies of Michael Schwerner, James Earl Chaney, and Andy Goodman are discovered.
October 13, 1964
Klan member James Jordan confesses his involvement in the conspiracy to the FBI and agrees to cooperate in its investigation.
November 19, 1964
Klan member Horace Barnette confesses and describes actual shootings.
December 4, 1964
Nineteen members of the conspiracy are arrested and charged with violating the civil rights of Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman.
December 10, 1964
A U. S. Commissioner dismisses charges against the nineteen.
January, 1965
A federal grand jury in Jackson reindicts the nineteen.
February 24, 1965
Judge William Cox dismisses the indictments (except as against Price and Sheriff Rainey) on grounds that the conspirators were not "acting under color of state law."
March, 1966
The United States Supreme Court reinstates the original indictments, overruling Judge Cox.
February 28, 1967
A new grand jury indicts the nineteen conspirators.
October 7, 1967
The trial of the Neshoba County conspirators begins.
October 18, 1967
The case goes to the jury.
October 20, 1967
The jury returns verdicts of guilty against seven conspirators, nine are acquitted, and the jury is unable to reach a verdict on three of the men charged.
December 29, 1967
The conspirators found guilty are sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to ten years.
March 19, 1970
After exhausting their appeals, the seven convicted men enter federal prisons.
September 8, 1970
Two of the conspirators are badly beaten by black inmates in a federal prison in Texarkana.
1974
Cecil Price is released from prison.
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