James Chaney
Age 21
A young Black man who helped Black people register to vote
Philadelphia, Mississippi
June 21, 1964
Born and raised in the segregated town of Meridian, Mississippi, James Chaney engaged with the civil rights movement early in his life, wearing civil rights buttons that eventually got him expelled from high school. When Michael and Rita Schwerner, civil rights workers from New York, moved to his town in January 1964 as part of an effort to register Black voters in the area, Chaney sought them out and asked how he could help. Together, they worked to establish a community center from which they could launch voter registration and education efforts.
According to a Department of Justice memo on the case, the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a chapter of the violent white supremacist organization, was so outraged by such efforts that local members had discussed killing Schwerner. State Klan leader Sam Bowers eventually gave authorization for them to do so, the DOJ memo says.
On June 21, 1964, Chaney, Michael Schwerner and a third civil rights worker, Andrew Goodman, traveled to a community near the town of Philadelphia, about an hour from Meridian, to visit the victims of a Klan attack on a Black church. On the way back, they were pulled over by the Neshoba County deputy sheriff, Cecil Price, a Klan member, allegedly for driving over the speed limit. Price arrested the three men and took them to the Philadelphia jail, where he booked Chaney for speeding and held Schwerner and Goodman for investigation. According to information later gathered by law enforcement officials, Price then contacted local Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen, a minister, to tell him he had the three young men in custody. Killen gathered other Klan members and came up with a plot to attack Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman as they left the jail, according to the DOJ memo. He reportedly asked to be dropped off in town so he would have an alibi, leaving the others to execute his plan.
At about 10:30 p.m., Price charged Chaney a $20 speeding fine and escorted the three civil rights workers to their station wagon, telling them to “see how quickly they could get out of Neshoba County,” according to the DOJ memo. Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman immediately headed for Meridian but soon had three cars on their tail — Price’s patrol car and two others full of Klansmen. Price caught up to the men after a high-speed chase and pulled them over once more. The Klansmen then forced Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman into Price’s patrol car and drove them to an isolated location. There, according to the DOJ memo, they shot and killed the three young men. They used a bulldozer to bury the bodies in an earthen dam on a farm owned by another Klansman and set the station wagon ablaze in a swampy area near the highway, the memo states.
Initial Investigation
Justice Department attorneys had been collaborating with civil rights workers to investigate voter suppression in Mississippi, according to the DOJ memo, and the three men were quickly reported missing. The FBI launched a search within a day, and federal officials confronted Price, who said he had no knowledge of what happened to the men after he released them from jail. The following day, the scorched station wagon was recovered in the swamp.
The FBI conducted approximately 1,000 interviews over summer and fall 1964, developing key sources within the Klan. Eventually, a confidential source told the FBI where to find the bodies.
Local law enforcement led a parallel investigation, but there were no state or local criminal charges at the time. Instead, after a lengthy legal fight, a federal grand jury in 1967 indicted 19 suspects on one criminal civil rights conspiracy charge. One hundred and fifty-one witnesses testified in the trial, the majority of whom offered character and alibi evidence for the defendants. In October 1967, seven defendants, including Price, were convicted. Eight were found not guilty. Three cases, including Killen’s, ended in mistrial. Of the seven people who were found guilty, two received 10-year prison sentences, while the others were sentenced to between three and six years in prison.
In 1998, investigative journalist Jerry Mitchell obtained the transcript of a secret taped interview in which a Klan leader divulges that the “the main instigator” behind the killings, Killen, was walking free. His reporting revived interest in the case.
In 2000, federal officials persuaded Price to provide incriminating information against Killen. Price died before he could testify, but the FBI helped state officials gather enough evidence to indict Killen on three counts of murder. In 2005, after an eight-day trial, a Neshoba County jury convicted Killen on three counts of manslaughter. He died in prison in 2018.
After Chaney’s death, his parents and siblings received death threats. They fled to New York City, where Chaney’s youngest brother, Ben, also became active in the civil rights movement. He later joined the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army.
Till Act Status
In 2010, the Department of Justice reopened the case, working closely with then Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, who would likely prosecute the case if a suspect were identified. Agents reviewed the investigative files, read through the transcripts of the two major court cases, and searched for witnesses to determine who might still be alive and where they were located. The FBI then launched “several covert operations” to gather more information about the murders, but the efforts produced “neither inculpatory admissible evidence against any subject, nor any reliable, credible exculpatory evidence,” according to a DOJ memo. Only five of the original suspects were still alive at the time; at least three have since died.
The DOJ determined it did not have enough evidence for any federal prosecutions but shared its findings with state investigators. In 2016, then Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood also closed the case.
Case Status closed
Closed 06/20/2016
Themes
- Closed Cases
- Closed with Living Subject
- Deaths Involving Law Enforcement
- Men
- Prosecuted Cases
About the Project
This multiplatform investigation draws upon more than two years of reporting, thousands of documents and dozens of first-hand interviews. FRONTLINE spoke to family and friends of the victims, and witnesses, some of whom had never been interviewed; current and former Justice Department officials and FBI agents, state and local law enforcement; lawmakers, civil-rights leaders and investigative journalists, to explore the Department of Justice’s reopening of civil rights-era cold cases under the 2008 Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.
In addition to an examination of the federal effort, the project features the first comprehensive, interactive list of all those whose cases were reopened by the Department of Justice. Today, the list stands at 151 names. Among the victims: voting rights advocates, veterans, Louisville’s first female prosecutor, business owners, mothers, fathers, and children.
The project consists of a web-based interactive experience, serialized podcast, a touring augmented-reality exhibit, documentary and companion education curriculum for high schools and universities.
A project like Un(re)solved would not be possible without the historic and contemporary contributions of universities, civil rights groups, and the press, particularly the Black press, who have ensured the ongoing public record of racist violence in the United States. To pay homage to these groups, the web interactive begins with a quote from journalist, activist and researcher Ida B. Wells, one of the first to document with precision the horrors of racial terror in America. “The way to right wrongs,” she wrote, “is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
At the outset of the project, FRONTLINE forged a relationship with Northeastern University’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ), bringing them on as an academic partner. Launched in 2007 by Distinguished Law Professor Margaret Burnham, CRRJ is a mission-driven program of interdisciplinary teaching, research and policy analysis on race, history, and criminal justice. Their work has expanded beyond the names on the Justice Department’s list, archiving documents in over 1,000 cases of racially motivated homicides.
With support from the CRRJ, FRONTLINE reporters gathered what could be known about the individuals on the list, conducting interviews with family, friends and witnesses, delving into newspaper archives and gathering documentation including headstone applications, draft cards and archival photographs.
At the heart of the project has been a drive to center the voices of the families of those on the list. FRONTLINE partnered with StoryCorps to record nearly two dozen oral histories with victims’ next of kin, which are featured both in the web-based interactive and traveling AR exhibit. These oral histories will also be archived in the National Library of Congress.
To lead the creative vision for the web experience and installation, FRONTLINE partnered with Ado Ato Pictures, a premier mixed reality studio founded by artist, filmmaker, and technologist Tamara Shogaolu.
Shogaolu rooted the visuals in the powerful symbolism of trees. In the United States, trees evoke the ideal of liberty, but also speak to an oppressive history of racially motivated violence. In Persian myth, trees are humanity’s ancestors, while in Toraja, Indonesia, they serve as sacred burial sites.
“I was really inspired by looking at the role of the tree as a symbol in American history” Shogaolu said. “It’s been looked at as a symbol of freedom, we look at it as a connector between generations, and also there’s the association of trees with racial terror.” When designing the creative vision for Un(re)solved Shogaolu wondered whether she might be able to reclaim the symbol of the tree. “As a person of color, we’re often terrified of being in isolated places in the woods. And I thought it was kind of crazy that there are natural environments that instinctually give great fear because of this connection with racial terror and I wanted to reclaim that — to turn these into beautiful spaces.”
Un(re)solved weaves imagery of trees, which also recall family ties, into patterns and textures from the American tradition of quilting. Among enslaved African Americans forbidden to read or write, quilts provided an important space to document family stories. Today, quilting remains a creative outlet rich with story and tradition for many American communities.
We invite you to enter this forest of quilted memories — a testimony to the lives of these individuals, and the multi-generational impact of their untimely, unjust loss.
(Credits to come)