[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 86 (Friday, June 24, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1339]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




THE CONVICTION OF EDGAR RAY KILLEN ON JUNE 21, 2005, IN NESHOBA COUNTY, 
                              MISSISSIPPI

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. JOHN LEWIS

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 23, 2005

  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, it is so strange. It is so ironic. 
It is almost eerie that Edgar Ray Killen was convicted today exactly 41 
years to the day that James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner, and Andy Goodman 
were found missing in Philadelphia, Mississippi. I knew these three 
young men, these brave and courageous fighters for freedom. They did 
not die in Vietnam. They did not die in the Middle East. They did not 
die in Eastern Europe. They did not die in Africa or South America; 
they died right here in the United States. And they were killed simply 
for helping Americans exercise their constitutional right to vote.
  They were killed, not just by vicious members of the Ku Klux Klan, 
but they were also killed by an evil system of tradition and government 
that perpetuated segregation, racial discrimination, and deliberately 
and methodically denied African Americans the right to vote. Their 
murder was a sad and dark hour for the whole Civil Rights Movement, and 
especially for those of us who participated in the Mississippi Summer 
project. When we realized that these three young men were missing, it 
broke our hearts, but it did not destroy our determination to continue 
the struggle to gain the right to vote.
  For more than a thousand young people who risked their lives in 
Mississippi that summer, and for the mothers and the families of James 
Chaney, Mickey Schwerner, and Andy Goodman, maybe, just maybe, what 
happened today will offer some degree of closure. It took a long time 
to bring some resolution to this case, but justice is never too late. I 
hope that this conviction will have a cleansing effect on our nation's 
dark racial past.
  I also hope that the state of Mississippi and the American people 
will do more. I hope that we will seek and find appropriate ways to 
honor the sacrifices of these three young men. I hope that as a nation 
and as a people we will always remember that the struggle for civil 
rights in America is littered by the battered and broken bodies of 
countless men and women who paid the ultimate price for a precious 
right--the right to vote. We must not take that right for granted. We 
have a mandate from these three young men who gave their lives for our 
freedom in the red clay of Mississippi. We must continue the struggle 
for justice in America and around the world.

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