Freedom Summer Murder Of June 21, 1964

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On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers went missing in Mississippi. James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were working with the Congress of Racial Equality during the summer of 1964, also known as Freedom Summer. During this time, white people came to Mississippi to register black people to vote. This act showed that citizens wanted the American Society to cese segregation and racism from continuing in their society. People wanted equal rights not depending on the color of your skin rather than your rights of being a human. However, there were still many people that despised Freedom Summer and anyone who was involved with it. These people believed that whites were superior and anyone who was black should be separated from …show more content…

There were more people against Freedom Summer than there were people who supported it. Citizens were hard headed and didn't want the colored to be accepted. They were fine with where they were fitting in America's society and they didn't want any change. Citizens took this to the point that there were riots, protests, and acts of violence towards anything or anyone that supported the colored in any way. People were beaten and murdered depending on their beliefs. This is the reason that the Freedom Summer Murders took place on June 21, 1964. Such acts were mainly caused by a group the called themselves the Ku Klux Klan or KKK for short. This group felt very strongly about discriminating blacks. These people felt deep hatred towards them for no reason and they believed that no black man should ever be in a higher social class than a white man. The KKK had burned things that supported the colored in any way like black churches. They would beat and sometimes kill anyone who stood up for the colored. Unfortunately, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner fell into this category. During Freedom Summer, these 3 men were working with the Congress of …show more content…

Four months passed by, and trials were set in motion regarding the case. Twenty-one men were tried during this time but nobody was convicted for the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. However, on November 24, Horace Doyle Barnette came to the FBI to confess on what happened on June, 21. If he hadn't had done this, we may have never found out what had actually happened on that night. He exclaimed that he was eating dinner at his friends Jimmy Arledge's house (a Ku Klux Klan member) when Arledge got a call from another Klan member telling him they had a job. Arledge agreed and asked Barnette if he wanted to come. Barnette also agreed to participate in the job not knowing what it was. Barnette continued to tell the FBI that Cecil Price (the patrolman that pulled the three men over) was also a Klan member and been following them for a while. Price took his chance when he saw them on the road and pulled them over to arrest them. It was all a set up. When Price got them to the jail, he organized the attack on the three men. He contacted Edgar Ray Killen, the leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Killen rounded up 2 cars full of klan members, when they were ready, Price released the men and the KKK began their chase for them. When they caught up to the station wagon, they pulled guns on Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner and ordered them to get in their car. They took the men to Rock Cut road were they

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