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Deaths of Civil Rights Workers


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This is an interesting case well worth wide study.

A few hours before Medgar was shot (it has been described as the first modern political assassination in the area, different from the numerous murders and disapperances of black people occuring during these years) he had been at a meeting watching John F. Kennedys famous Civil Rights speech. People who spoke of him at that meeting spoke of a distracted, troubled man. There seems something more than usual to be troubling him. He was not a newcomer to mistreatment.

After the assassination, Robert F. Kennedy flew to Medgars brother Charles' side and they over time became close friends. Charles later was with Roberts retinue when Robert himself was assassinated.

A study of the treatment of the Medgar case is a study in contrast to the JFK assassination. Had the case against Oswald come to court and run in a similar manner, Oswald would have been aquitted. The Rifle abandoned at the site, the fingerprints, the cartridge cases, the rifles history, FBI testimonies, witness testimonies etc etc etc were dealt with by Byrons lawyers in such a way that the White jury could comfortably accept a not guilty verdict.

The Governor of Mississippi and General Walker, (the instigators and leaders of the Oxford insurrection) both turned up in court to offer moral support to Byron.

+++++++++++++++++

technically Emmett Till was not a civil rights worker, he was simply a boy who had grown up in a different climate where his normal young lad behaviour was seen by his murderers as a threat to their way of life, a bad 'uppity' example for the local 'niggers'.

extensive thread on Till : http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...ost&p=39158

Another similarity here to the JFK asassination: His mother refused a closed casket over his mutilated body, saying 'let them see what they have done'. Words echoed nine years later by Jackie when refusing to change out of her blood/brain stained clothes.

Thanks all for the great posts here. This subject is something that really needs immediate, serious investigation, and prosecution where deemed nessessary. These horrible acts that took place during those turbulant years, are acts that are still ringing in our ears today. It doesnt matter if the guilty people are 90 years old today, they need to be sentenced to death immediately! These crimes were hate crimes, carried out by radical racists, that were supported by all of the same types in their respective areas. This is why they got away with these crimes so many years ago. Even most of the police were Klan, and helped in assisting in the crimes themselves! All of them, including the Sherriffs, Police, and Troopers involved should also have the needles put in their arms! I have always been friends with Negroes, and still have many today. I attended my best friends [white Pastor] ,basically black, church for several years. I was accepted by most all of the congregation, but there were some who were leary of me, as can be expected. There are some blacks today who still carry that hatred from those years today, which I cant blame them. [ I may have too, but I wasnt put in that position to know]. Anything that can be done today to solve these crimes from years ago, should be supported by all who are sympathetic to this problem. Personally, there are times I am ashamed to be white, when I think of all of the hateful, hidious, and disgusting things these radical scumbags did to the blacks during that period. Just think what this country might be today if Martin Luther King wast killed so many years ago? This country might be a much better place to live today. I live in an area that has a large black population, and for the most part, we all get along very well. But you will always have some racial people stirring up trouble no matter where you live. I just hope and pray, that these people are brought to justice, and these people who were killed so many years ago, never are forgotten for who they were, and what they were trying to do. I hope you all support any and all bills brought up, that will help continue this fight against these horrible crimes, and people connected with them. Just my opinion FWIW.

thanks-smitty

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Thanks all for the great posts here. This subject is something that really needs immediate, serious investigation, and prosecution where deemed nessessary. These horrible acts that took place during those turbulant years, are acts that are still ringing in our ears today. It doesnt matter if the guilty people are 90 years old today, they need to be sentenced to death immediately! These crimes were hate crimes, carried out by radical racists, that were supported by all of the same types in their respective areas. This is why they got away with these crimes so many years ago. Even most of the police were Klan, and helped in assisting in the crimes themselves! All of them, including the Sherriffs, Police, and Troopers involved should also have the needles put in their arms! I have always been friends with Negroes, and still have many today. I attended my best friends [white Pastor] ,basically black, church for several years. I was accepted by most all of the congregation, but there were some who were leary of me, as can be expected. There are some blacks today who still carry that hatred from those years today, which I cant blame them. [ I may have too, but I wasnt put in that position to know]. Anything that can be done today to solve these crimes from years ago, should be supported by all who are sympathetic to this problem. Personally, there are times I am ashamed to be white, when I think of all of the hateful, hidious, and disgusting things these radical scumbags did to the blacks during that period. Just think what this country might be today if Martin Luther King wast killed so many years ago? This country might be a much better place to live today. I live in an area that has a large black population, and for the most part, we all get along very well. But you will always have some racial people stirring up trouble no matter where you live. I just hope and pray, that these people are brought to justice, and these people who were killed so many years ago, never are forgotten for who they were, and what they were trying to do. I hope you all support any and all bills brought up, that will help continue this fight against these horrible crimes, and people connected with them. Just my opinion FWIW.

thanks-smitty

Smitty, (and all) It's understandable to feel revulsion and anger when reading of these sorts of crimes.

The ones mentioned in this thread are really only the tip of a huge ice berg.

I see couple of important problems.

(IMO) One is that they still happen today, which is why remembering yesterday is important. In those days people actively organised to bring the issues to global consciousness. It taught the generations of those days that we can make a difference.

Today, somehow, there has come a great desensitization and a kind of disarming of the individual where the veneer of the law as an ass, gives a sense that the problems are being dealt with.

Another problem is the death penalty. It does two things. It encourages the perpetrators to do everything to avoid absolution, and it denies the victims, which includes the friends and relatives, the benefits of forgiveness.

In (imo) the final analysis it perpetuates the cycle of hate, violence, vengeance, violence, vengeance.

When it is the state that sanctions this cycle, one (at least I do) shakes ones head in despair.

Strangely enough it is in those states that kill most people, (like Texas) that a large proportion of the hate crimes occur.

Like many things it's a matter of economics. The "Prison Industrial Complex" is today, and not just in the USA, a fast growing one. (One growing horror is (as is done in China for example) the harvesting of the organs of the victims of state sanctioned murder.)

There has to be an end to it. Martin Luther King jr. had an answer, 'non-violence". IMO opinion his non violence, an examination of the state of ones own backyard, and a defensive rather than offensive foreign policy is part of the solution.

The end of the death penalty, IMO, is part of this.

Then, means whereby victims and perps can find peace within must be explored and implemented.

Exposure of these acts, while revolting, and facing them equanimously is (IMO) important.

Edited by John Dolva
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The deaths of civil rights activists goes back to the 19th century. For example, the killing of Elijah Parish Lovejoy in 1837.

Lovejoy, the son of a Congregational minister, was born in Albion, Maine, on 9th November, 1802. After graduating from Waterville College in 1826, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he established a school before attending the Princeton Theological Seminary.

In 1834 Lovejoy became the pastor of the Presbyterian Church in St. Louis. He started a religious newspaper, the St. Louis Observer, where he advocated the abolition of slavery. In 1836 Lovejoy published a full account of the lynching of an African American in St. Louis and the subsequent trial that acquitted the mob leaders. This critical report angered some local people and in July, 1836, his press was destroyed by a white mob.

Unable to publish his newspaper in St. Louis, Lovejoy moved to Alton, Illinois where he became an active member of the local Anti-Slavery Society. He also began editing the Alton Observer and continued to advocate the end of slavery.

Three times Lovejoy's printing press was seized by white mobs thrown into the Mississippi River. Lovejoy wrote in his paper: "We distinctly avow it to be our settled purpose, never, while life lasts, to yield to this new system of attempting to destroy, by means of mob violence, the right of conscience, the freedom of opinion, and of the press."

On 7th November, 1837, Lovejoy received another press from the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. When local slave-owners heard about the arrival of the new machine, they decided to destroy it. A group of his friends attempted to protect it, but during the attack, Lovejoy was shot dead.

Elijah Parish Lovejoy was America's first martyr to freedom of the press. In 1952 the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award was established and it is given to a member of the newspaper profession who continues the Lovejoy heritage of fearlessness and freedom.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASlovejoy.htm

post-7-1173081217_thumb.jpg

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Clyde Kennard, a Chicagoean in the late fifties when, because of his stepfather's poor health, returned to Mississippi to run his family's farm.

He then attempted several times to enroll at the all-white Mississippi Southern College (now USM); the president, William D. McCain, befriended Kennard and won his trust, but never admitted him to the college. Kennard's efforts to get a college degree in a white institution attracted the attention of the State Sovereignty Commission (a secret police force created by the Mississippi state legislature in 1956), whose agent Zack Van Landingham directed a dirty-tricks campaign against Kennard that included recruiting compliant black leaders to dissuade Kennard from applying to Mississippi Southern.

When Kennard remained determined, he was framed for the theft of twenty-five dollars worth of chicken feed. At his trial, a jury took ten minutes to convict him, and the judge sentenced him to seven years in Parchman Penitentiary.

In 1962, Kennard was diagnosed with cancer and underwent surgery at the University of Mississippi Hospital in Jackson. The hospital staff recommended parole, but Kennard was returned to Parchman. (parchman was a particularly brutal prison camp)

Hattiesburg business leaders, Vernon Dahmer, J. C. Fairley, and Victoria Gray, struggled for Kennard's freedom. At Tougaloo College, Joyce Ladner organized a student demand for Kennard's release.

Jet magazine picked up the story, and national leaders including Martin Luther King and Dick Gregory demanded that Kennard be set free. Fearing the unfavorable publicity that would follow Kennard's death in Parchman, Governor Ross Barnett ordered Kennard's release in the spring of 1963. It came too late. Kennard went for further surgery to Chicago, where he died at age thirty-six on July 4, 1963.

http://www.crmvet.org/info/hburg.htm

Edited by John Dolva
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  • 2 months later...

Interesting article on this subject in today's Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/st...2090854,00.html

Thomas Moore is looking forward to finally coming face-to-face with James Ford Seale, a Ku Klux Klansman who came back from the dead. "I want to look at him," he said. "I want to tell him about the pain he caused me and my family."

Mr Moore, 63, a retired sergeant-major, recalled the day he found out that Mr Seale was still alive. "I was so happy. We thought he was dead - and so did everyone else."

The trial opens here today of Mr Seale, 71, a former worker in a paper plant, crop-duster and policeman, accused of kidnapping and conspiracy in relation to the murder of two black teenagers in 1964, one of them Mr Moore's brother. According to the indictment, the two 19-year-olds, Charles Moore and Henry Dee, were kidnapped by the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, tortured and dumped in the Mississippi, Moore tied to a jeep engine block, and, according to an FBI informant at the time, still breathing.

The killings marked the beginning of a summer of madness, as the KKK responded to the civil rights movement with the fiery crosses, church bombings and murders depicted in Alan Parker's 1989 film Mississippi Burning.

The Seale prosecution could be among the last of the KKK trials. Although the justice department has promised to re-open cases, witnesses are dying off and files have been lost.

Now living in Colorado, Mr Moore had been brought up in Franklin County, one of the strongholds of the White Knights. He returned in 2005 with a Canadian film-maker, David Ridgen, to investigate the murders. Pulling up at a petrol station for an egg and sausage sandwich, he met by chance a distant cousin, Kenny Byrd.

Mr Moore explained why they were there and said it was a pity that Mr Seale, who had been one of the main suspects, was dead. His family had been saying so since 2000. The local Clarion-Ledger had reported it as fact: so too had the Los Angeles Times. Mr Byrd replied: "Hell no, he lives over there."

Mr Moore traced lost files, spoke to potential witnesses, harassed former Klansmen, mobilised the African-American community and successfully campaigned to have the FBI re-open the case.

Mr Seale is expected to plead not guilty in a trial expected to last about a fortnight. If found guilty, he faces life sentences.

Mississippi is different these days, at least on the surface. It is evident to anyone arriving at the airport at Jackson, now called Jackson-Evers International in recognition of the civil rights leader, Medgar Evers, who was assassinated in 1963. It is evident, too, in the fact that the judge who will try the case is African-American, Henry Wingate.

But Heidi Beirich, deputy director of intelligence at a Jackson-based civil rights group, the Southern Poverty Law Centre, which investigates hate crimes, cautioned that although the KKK and institutionalised racism is mainly a thing of the past, Mississippi still has problems. She noted that when the state voted in 2002 to retain the Confederate flag, a symbol of hate for African-Americans, the divide was on racial grounds. African-Americans in the state continue to live in the poorest areas, with the worst schools.

"As far as the Klan is concerned, its heyday is definitely in the past. It hit its peak in the 1920s at 4 million. The number of Klansmen is way down: we estimate 5,000-6,000. It is not a cohesive organisation any longer: it is fragmented. They are no longer capable of the kind of terror they rained down on the South in the 1950s and 1960s," Ms Beirich said.

But the sense of dread inspired by the KKK has not gone completely. Ridgen, who put together a documentary Mississippi Cold Case, said: "The psychological threat was always there. There was fear every time in Franklin County. We never took the same route. We never told anyone in advance about coming."

At the trial, the key witness is likely to be a former Klansman, Charles Edwards, a suspect at the time, who is expected to give evidence against Mr Seale in return for immunity. Former FBI agents who carried out a fairly thorough investigation at the time are also scheduled to testify. After their investigation in 1964, they handed the case over to the local justice department who, as was not unusual at the time, quickly dropped it.

No real explanation has been given for the killings. Klansmen at the time told the FBI that Mr Dee had been peeping at one of their wives while others alleged gun smuggling into a black church. The indictment suggests otherwise: "The White Knights ... targeted for violence African-Americans they believed were involved in civil rights activity in order to intimidate and retaliate against such individuals."

Mr Dee's sister, Thelma Collins, who now lives in Louisiana, said yesterday she could not remember him being involved in any civil rights activity. "He was quiet, never said much," she recalled. She is saddened that the case has taken 43 years to come to court: "It is pitiful that those boys were killed and no one did anything about it."

Like Mrs Collins, Mr Moore will be given his chance to make a victim's statement in court. He said: "I want to tell how it is to go without a brother, my son without an uncle, how Charles never had the opportunity to make mistakes, to live his life."

Backstory

The reopening of racist murder cases from the 1960s in the South began in 1990 when a white supremacist, Byron La Beckwith, was indicted and eventually jailed for the assassination in 1963 of Medgar Evers, then chairman in Mississippi of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. This encouraged the FBI and local justice departments to look again at unsolved cases. Since then, there have been six prosecutions in Mississippi, including Mr Seale's today. Authorities in seven states have re-examined a total of 29 killings and made 29 arrests, leading to 22 convictions.

One of the most prominent was the trial and jailing in 2001 of Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry for the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four young girls. The revulsion created by the bombing helped turn public opinion behind the civil rights movement. In 2005, Edgar Ray Killen, 80, was jailed for the murder of the three civil rights activists depicted in Mississippi Burning. But the reality is that there may not be many more cases brought to court: elderly witnesses are dying off and records of crimes have been lost.

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what is lost can be found

This case is receiving extensive coverage in Australian news with contemporary footage of the search for the "Mississippi Three" and images of persons involved, mug shots etc. No time to capture them, but they exist. Only one of the many perps and accessories before and after the fact in this particular case is now finally being dealt with.

The two victims mentioned in the above post were among numerous bodies and body parts found in the Southern States swamps and rivers during the search. Meanwhile the perps and their supporters were spreading stories that the M3 had left the US to a country behind the iron curtain.

The Kennedy assassination was a hate crime, quite likely by the people in the milieu that Seale and his 'brethren'. As such, the 'Emmett Till Bill' and the resources that can become available in the form of documents etc., is an avenue to reopening the Kennedy assassination. It's incumbent on researchers to be alert to this and share irrespective of their particular theory of choice in order to take this opportunity that now exists.

Edited by John Dolva
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

Justice at Last for Two Murdered Teens

After 43 Years, James Seale Was Sentenced to Life in Prison for His Role in the Klan Murders of Henry Dee and Charles Moore. ABC News, August 24, 2007

James Ford Seale, a reputed member of the Ku Klux Klan, was sentenced today to three life terms in prison for his role in the abduction and murder of two black teenagers in Mississippi in 1964.

Seale was convicted in June of kidnapping and conspiracy in the deaths of Henry Dee and Charles Moore, both 19, in what may have been one of the last of the Klan cold cases to reach trial. Seale's alleged accomplice, Charles Edwards, was the state's star witness.

Full story:

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3157885&page=1

Edited by Michael Hogan
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  • 4 months later...

Partial list of civil rights murders in '63 '64 - no arrests, no conviction : common theme:

http://www.mdah.state.ms.us/arlib/contents...19|1|1|1|43727|

"technique of terror..." :

http://www.mdah.state.ms.us/arlib/contents...11|2|1|1|46015|

"The Challenge" incl Algerian doc. (12 pages)

http://www.mdah.state.ms.us/arlib/contents...66|1|1|1|63065|

_______________

Just a curiosity for no particular reason except not wanting to start another topic (no diversion meant)

http://www.mdah.state.ms.us/arlib/contents...29|3|1|1|25043|

apologies for using toilet :

http://www.mdah.state.ms.us/arlib/contents...35|2|1|1|37641|

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