Justice, of a sort

Civil rights

Jun 23rd 2005
From The Economist print edition

Four decades on, Mississippi makes amends

EIGHTEEN men were originally brought to court after the killing, almost exactly 41 years ago, of three civil-rights workers in Neshoba County, Mississippi. The federal government tried them, but only on a charge of depriving the dead men of their civil rights. Edgar Ray Killen, who was convicted of manslaughter on June 21st, was the first to be charged with their murder.

He was also the first to be tried by the state of Mississippi. At the time, Mississippi turned a blind eye to the case. The accused, all Klansmen, were well known in the town. By contrast, the civil-rights workers were outsiders. Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were Jews from the north. James Earl Chaney was a black from nearby Meridian. To the townsfolk they were interferers, who had come to investigate the burning of a black church and to get blacks to register to vote. They were not wanted.

Their killers would probably not have been convicted then in any state trial. Hence the trial now, to salve Mississippi's conscience. But it has been problematic. Much of the evidence has been on paper, because witnesses are dead. Memories have faded, though emotions have not. Mr Killen himself, who is 80, in a wheelchair and on oxygen, inevitably has the look of a scapegoat about him. His opponents were disappointed that he did not go down for murder; but at this distance, the evidence could not possibly convict him.

Eight other Klansmen survive of the group who carried out the killings and buried the victims, 15 feet deep. A grand jury, however, has not found enough evidence to indict them. And in any case Mr Killen's trial has probably done what Mississippi needed.

Copyright © 2005 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.