[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 83 (Tuesday, June 21, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H4805]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              JUSTICE DELAYED, BUT JUSTICE FINALLY SERVED

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 21, 2005

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the memory of three 
heroic young men James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, 
brutally killed in Mississippi exactly 41 years ago today and to 
welcome today's verdict of the Mississippi jury that found Edgar Ray 
Killen guilty of three counts of manslaughter in their deaths. I would 
have preferred the murder convictions sought by Neshoba County district 
Attorney Mark Duncan in the deaths of these three brave civil rights 
activists but I recognize the important step Mississippi has taken in 
finally convicting Killen of the crimes he proudly and publicly took 
credit for after a jury was deadlocked in his 1964 Federal Civil Rights 
trial.
  Killen was a recruiter and organizer for the Neshoba County Chapter 
of the Ku Klux Klan during the ``freedom summer'' in 1964 when Goodman 
and Schwerner came from New York to work with James Chaney and other 
civil rights activists in Mississippi to register African-American 
voters. Schwerner had been in Mississippi but returned with Goodman 
when he heard of the burning of an African-American Church and beatings 
of members of the congregation. The night Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner 
died they had been jailed for speeding by Neshoba County Deputy Sheriff 
Cecil Price. By the time they were released at 10 p.m., the plan 
formulated by Killen to kill them and bury their bodies in an earthen 
dam was in place.
  The Klan had used fear, intimidation and murder to brutally oppress 
over African-Americans who sought justice and equality and it sought to 
respond to the young workers of the civil rights movement in 
Mississippi in the same way. The murders of Chaney, Goodman and 
Schwerner were intended as a message to civil rights activists that the 
Klan was to be feared in Mississippi. It was a message to stay out of 
Mississippi. The failure of the State of Mississippi and the local 
district attorney's office to charge a single person in the killings of 
Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner offered the same message and another even 
more chilling message. Not only was the state uninterested in killings 
of African-Americans, a fact well known in that state, but it was 
uninterested in the killings of white people trying to help them. The 
failure of the State of Mississippi to prosecute Killen and others was 
a sign of the influence of the Klan in the state.

  Everyone involved in reopening and retrying this case should be proud 
of this success. I would particularly like to thank Representative 
Bennie Thompson of Mississippi for his leadership in the House on this 
issue. Hopefully, the parents and families of Chaney, Goodman and 
Schwemer will find solace in the fact that, in the end, justice has 
defeated intimidation and fear.
  While the verdict is an important sign that this Nation can and will 
face the ugliness of its past, it is also a reminder that we have far 
to go in creating a just and equal society. The verdict today shows 
Mississippi is changing. I agree with Ben Chaney, brother of James 
Chaney, that today's verdict is ``recognition of the terrible thing 
that happened.'' I hope, as he does, that this conviction helps ``shine 
some light'' on what has happened in Mississippi. However, I also agree 
with Rita Schwemer Bender, widow of Michael Schwemer when she said: ``I 
would hope that this case is just the beginning and not the end.''
  This Congress should lead the effort to reverse the centuries of 
discrimination and racism that has so long held us back and apart. We 
should close the inequalities in education, employment, civil rights 
and health care that impacts the poor and minorities of this country on 
a daily basis. We should not take another 41 years to achieve justice 
for all Americans.


                          CONGRESSIONAL RECORD

                         United States of America
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       PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 109th CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION


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Vol. 151           WASHINGTON, TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 2005            No. 83