Freedom Summer
Mississippi was historically a conservative state where whites exercised considerable control over the majority black population; over the years, it had developed a strong distrustful attitude toward outsiders or anyone who threatened “the southern way of life,” meaning segregation and the denial of many basic rights to black people. As early as 1961, civil rights workers had targeted Mississippi for efforts to encourage expanded voting rights, for in its repressive environment, few blacks were allowed to vote. That’s where James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner’s role in the civil rights movement began. These are but three of many who knew the importance of these events, the civil rights movement put together a plan to create the Mississippi Summer Project, later known as Freedom Summer, in which 1,000 northern college students, mostly white, would visit the state to help with voter registration and hopefully by their presence make Mississippi’s situation better. (The image below are of some Summer Project volunteers)
Many local Mississippians called this an “invasion,” and local resistance became worse; belligerent state leaders vowed to keep these folks out and the Klu Kux Klan was revived. Tom Ethridge, from the Clarion-Ledger said this about the Freedom Summer movement in Mississippi, “In turn, Mississippians have preconceived notions about the invading students -- smug, shrill know-it-all extroverts with a saviour complex . . . problem brats defiant of parental restraint . . . sexually promiscuous, addicted to interracial love-making . . . brainwashed in Communist doctrines with no clear idea of Americanism . . . more hostile to the White South than to Red Russia . .” This quote is a perfect example of the white privilege ideology that the people of Mississippi had.
Murder
On the very first day of Freedom Summer, June 21, the three civil rights workers — Chaney, a local black Mississippian who was 21; Goodman, a 20-year old New York college student; and Schwerner, a social worker from New York’s Lower East Side who at 24 was already a veteran activist — drove to the remote black hamlet of Longdale to investigate a recent Klan assault; which was a local church that had supposedly been burnt down by the Klu Klux Klan. After their brief investigation, the young men were heading west toward the county of Philadelphia when Deputy Sheriff Cecil Ray Price stopped them for speeding. He handcuffed them and placed them under arrest and escorted them to the Neshoba County jail. While the three were being held in jail a mob of Klan members were gathering..
Later that night the deputy finally released the three boys, who immediately returned to their car and began on their original way. Out on the dark rural highway, however, a Klan posse of vehicles, including that of Deputy Price, chased down the civil rights workers. Removing them to a secluded area nearby, the Klansmen pulled their victims from the car, shot and lynched them, and secreted their bodies in an earthen dam being built on a neighborhood dairy farm. (the image to the right is of the dam where the three civil rights workers bodies were found)Verdicts
(The image below is of Deputy Sheriff Price and Sheriff Rainey at the hearing in 1964)
Cecil Ray Price: Cecil was the deputy sheriff of Neshoba County and the man in the center of the conspiracy to murder Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney. Price was the man who stopped their car on the afternoon of June 21, the man who placed the three in the Neshoba County Jail, and the man who, around 10:30 at night, sent the three civil rights workers on their way to meet their murderers. Cecil was found guitly and sentenced to 6 years in prison, where he served his full term. 
Edgar Ray Killen: Edgar was the point man in the conspiracy to murder the three men. It was Killen ("the Preacher") who Deputy Sheriff Price contacted that afternoon to get the word out to local klansmen to put a mob together. In 2005 Killen was tried again for the three murders at 80 years old. Edgar was sentenced to 60 years in prison for manslaughter of the three civil rights workers back in 1964. Many say that this was an "atonement trial" and brought much needed justice to these three boys and their families.
Sam Bowers: Bowers was the imperial wizard of The White Knights of the Klu Klux Klan of Mississippi. Evidence in the Mississippi Burning trial found that he played a lead role in planning the killings. There was testimony in the trial that said he had overseen the entire operation. Bowers was quoted as saying after the murders that "It was the first time that Christians had planned and carried out the execution of a Jew." Bowers was found guilty and served his sentence in Washington state.
Others that were involved in the murder and found guilty: Jimmy Arledge, Jimmy Snowden, Billy Wayne Posey, and Horace Doyle Barnette.
Acquitted: Bernard Akin, Sheriff Lawrence Rainey, Olen Burrage (owner of the farm on which the bodies were found), Frank Herndon, Richard Willis, Herman Tucker, James Harris.
The movie vs. the actual murder
Hollywood depicted the actual murder of Andrew Goodman, James Cheney, and Michael Schwerner very closely to what actually had happened. In the movie it shows the three boys being shot inside their car, but the actual murder took place outside their car in a secluded area where members of the KKK also lynched the three men. The murder was not glorified or sensationalized. The victims in the movie were depicted as hero's and innocent young boys who were trying to make a difference in the civil rights movement and who were brutally murdered, and to what history and research has shown this is true to what these boys were.
