HATE IN MISSISSIPPI

A protest in Meridian, Mississippi this
past summer (21 June 2008) about the lack
of arrests and convictions in the murder
cases of approximately 50 people all over
the state during the 1960s. I was proud to
join these folks in their protests.

How can so many murders go unsolved? The answer is quite simple!
by Charlie Leck

Below you can browse through a report released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on 12 February 2009. The report includes the names of 43 people who were “possible” hate crime fatalities, in Mississippi alone, in the terrible period before 1970.

I hope you will browse through it. At least scroll down so you can see how massive this list is -- so you will feel the impact.

The FBI claimed in 2006 that it would “identify and closely examine” each of these unsolved cases. You should note that the names of James Cheney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner are not on this list. I guess the FBI figures that case was solved when one lone person was imprisoned in 2005 on a manslaughter charge. More than a dozen men were involved in those murders and several of them are still alive and walking free.

How can so many murders go unsolved? The answer is quite simple. In Mississippi, in those days, the murder of “a colored” wasn’t taken seriously and a police effort to solve the crime wasn't undertaken with any earnestness. Do you think these kinds of murders of “whites” would have gone unpunished?

Late in 2007 and early in 2008, I wrote a great deal, here on this blog, about Mississippi and my experiences there during the hot, hot summer of 1964. Links to those blogs will follow the list below. I went back to Mississippi this past June for a memorial service, 44 years after the fact, for Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner. I blogged about that also, and those blogs are listed too.

The FBI list of names are as follow:

LOUIS ALLEN
Date of Death: January 31, 1964
Location: Liberty

BENJAMIN BROWN
Date of Death: May 10, 1967
Location: Jackson

CHARLES BROWN
Date of Death: June 20, 1957
Location: Yazoo City

JESSIE BROWN
Date of Death: January 13, 1965
Location: Winona

ELI BRUMFIELD
Date of Death: October 13, 1961
Location: McComb

SILAS CASTON
Date of Death: March 1, 1964
Location: Jackson

VINCENT DAHMON
Date of Death: May-July, 1966
(circa James Meredith's March Against Fear)
Location: Natchez

WOODROW WILSON DANIELS
Date of Death: June 25, 1958
Location: Yalobusha County

ROMAN DUCKSWORTH
Date of Death: April, 1961 or 1962
Location: Taylorsville

PHELD EVANS
Date of Death: 1964
Location: Canton

J. E. EVANSTON
Date of Death: Unknown;
Body discovered December 24, 1955
Location: Tallahatchie

JASPER GREENWOOD
Date of Death: June 30, 1964
Location: Vicksburg

JIMMIE GRIFFEN (or GRIFFIN)
Date of Death: September 24, 1965
Location: Near Sturgis

PAUL GUIHARD
Date of Death: September 30, 1962
Location: Oxford

ADLENA HAMLETT and BIRDIA KEGLAR
Date of Death: January 11, 1966
Location: Sidon

LUTHER JACKSON
Date of Death: October, 1959
Location: Philadelphia

WHARLEST JACKSON
Date of Death: February 27, 1967
Location: Natchez

ERNEST JELLS
Date of Death: October 20, 1963
Location: Clarksdale

ORGE LEE
Date of Death: May 7, 1955
Location: Belzoni

HERBERT LEE
Date of Death: September 25, 1961
Location: Unknown

WILLIAM LEE
Date of Death: February 25, 1965
Location: Rankin County

GEORGE LOVE
Date of Death: January 7, 1958
Location: Ruleville

SYLVESTER MAXWELL
Date of Death: Unknown;
Body discovered on January 17, 1963
Location: Canton

ROBERT MCNAIR
Date of Death: November 6, 1964
Location: Pelahatchie

CLINTON MELTON
Date of Death: December 3, 1955
Location: Tallahatchie

BOOKER MIXON
Date of Death: October 12, 1959
Location: Clarksdale

NEIMIAH MONTGOMERY
Date of Death: August 10, 1964
Location: Cleveland

SAMUEL O'QUINN
Date of Death: August 14, 1959
Location: Centreville

HERBERT ORSBY
Date of Death: September 7, 1964
Location: Canton

MACK PARKER
Date of Death: April 25, 1959;
Body discovered May 4, 1959
Location: Poplarville, Pearl River County

WILLIAM PRATHER
Date of Death: November 1, 1959
Location: Corinth, Alcorn County

JOHNNY QUEEN
Date of Death: August 8, 1965
Location: Fayette

DONALD RASPBERRY
Date of Death: February, 1965
Location: Okolona

JESSIE SHELBY
Date of Death: January 29, 1956
Location: Yazoo City

OLLIE SHELBY
Date of Death: January 22, 1965
Location: Hinds County Jail, Jackson

ED SMITH
Date of Death: April 27, 1958
Location: State Line

LAMAR SMITH
Date of Death: August 13, 1955
Location: Brookhaven

EDDIE STEWART
Date of Death: July 9, 1966
Location: Jackson, Hinds County, Mississippi
or Crystal Springs, Copiah County

ISAIAH TAYLOR
Date of Death: June 26, 1964
Location: Ruleville

FREDDIE THOMAS
Date of Death: August 16, 1965;
Body discovered August 19, 1965
Location: Batesville

SALEAM TRIGGS
Date of Death: January 23, 1965
Location: Hattiesburg

CLIFTON WALKER
Date of Death: February 28, 1964
Location: Woodville, Wilkinson County
or Natchez, Adams County

______________________

This is my daughter, Cynthia, walking along
Rock Cut Road, not far from the spot where
Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner were murdered
on 21 June 1964. We had gone there on
21 June 2008 to memorialize their lives and deaths.
It was a very touching and emotional moment for us.

These are the blogs I wrote, in 2007 and 2008, about my Mississippi experiences.

PART 1: REMEMBERING THE SIXTIES (28 December 2007)

PART 2: REMEMBERING THE SIXTIES (31 December 2007)

PART 3: SOUTHERN JAIL (3 January 2008)

PART 4: CHANGING POLITICS IN MISSISSIPPI (7 January 2008)

PART 5: THE BLACK CHURCHES OF MISSISSIPPI (9 January 2008)

PART 6: SAYING GOODBYE TO ANGELINA (11 January 2008)

STILL HUNTING THE KILLERS (21 January 2008)

GEORGE WASHINGTON IS DEAD (21 June 2008)

WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH (22 June 2008)

MINNESOTA MORNING (23 June 2008)

MISSISSIPPI BLOGGING (27 June 2008)

LETTER TO THE EDITOR (28 June 2008)

On our visit to Rock Cut Road and the site where the three young
civil rights workers were murdered, we made a pile of rocks at the
place where they were gunned down. Protestors had come from all
over America and brought rocks with them from their home
regions. Many of us, who gathered there, had been civil rights
workers in Misissippi in 1964. I arrived there on 21 June 1964,
the day the young men went missing. We made this rock pile on
21 June 2008, 44 years after the killing and no one has yet to be
convicted of murder in the case -- though one man was sent to
prison in 2005 on a manslaughter charge.