Seven Convicted for 1964 Mississippi Civil Rights Murders
Neshoba County, Mississippi, Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price and six others were convicted on this day of the murders of civil rights workers James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner in Philadelphia, Mississippi, on June 21, 1964.
The three men were part of the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project, which brought about 1,000 white volunteers to Mississippi for the summer in a voter registration and Freedom School effort. Freedom Summer began on June 21, 1964; the three civil rights workers were kidnapped and murdered that night.
Read about Freedom Summer: Bruce Watson, Freedom Summer (2010)
Learn more about the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtPoaqb9328
Read: Howard Ball, Murder in Mississippi: United States v. Price and the Struggle for Civil Rights (2004)
Visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture here