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U.S. NEWS A5
Saturday 13 January 2018
‘Mississippi Burning’ KKK leader Killen dies in prison at 92
By EMILY PETTUS The movie title came from This June 20, 2005 file photo shows Edgar Ray Killen in Schwerner, a white New
REBECCA SANTANA the name of the FBI inves- Philadelphia, Miss. On Friday, Jan. 12, 2018. Mississippi’s Yorker, moved to Mississip-
Associated Press tigation. corrections department said the former Ku Klux Klan leader, pi in early 1964 to work on
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Ed- Killen, a part-time preacher who was convicted in the 1964 “Mississippi Burning” slayings of black voter registration and
gar Ray Killen, a 1960s Ku and lumber mill operator, three civil rights workers, has died in prison at the age of 92. other projects. Chaney was
Klux Klan leader who was was 80 when a Neshoba a black Mississippian who
convicted decades later County jury of nine white (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) befriended him.
in the “Mississippi Burning” people and three black Andrew Goodman, an-
slayings of three civil rights people convicted him of other white New Yorker,
workers, has died in prison three counts of manslaugh- underwent civil-rights train-
at the age of 92, the state’s ter on June 21, 2005, de- ing in Ohio and arrived in
corrections department spite his assertions that he Mississippi a day before he,
announced Friday. was innocent. Prosecutors Schwerner and Chaney
Killen was serving three said Killen masterminded were killed. Investigators
consecutive 20-year terms the slayings, then went searching for their bod-
for manslaughter when he elsewhere so he would ies found bodies of other
died at 9 p.m. Thursday have an alibi. black men who had been
inside the Mississippi State Killen was the only person killed in Mississippi, includ-
Penitentiary at Parchman. ever to face state murder ing two who were brutal-
An autopsy was pend- charges, and even then, ized before being dumped
ing, but no foul play was it was the lesser charge of in the Mississippi River.
suspected, the statement manslaughter that put him Schwerner’s widow, Rita
said. in state prison. Schwerner Bender, said on
His conviction came 41 “It wasn’t even murder. It the day Killen was convict-
years to the day after was manslaughter,” Da- ed that the slayings were
James Chaney, Michael vid Goodman, Andrew’s part of a larger problem
Schwerner and Andrew younger brother, observed of violence in Mississippi
Goodman, all in their 20s, Friday. against black people and
were ambushed and killed “His life spanned a period others who challenged the
by Klansmen. in this country where mem- segregationist status quo.
The three Freedom Sum- bers of the Ku Klux Klan like “Preacher Killen did not act
mer workers had been in- him were able to believe in a vacuum and the mem-
vestigating the burning of they had a right to take bers of the Klan who were
a black church near Phila- other people’s lives, and members of the police de-
delphia, Mississippi. that’s a form of terrorism,” partment and the sheriff’s
A deputy sheriff in Philadel- Goodman said. “Many department and the high-
phia had arrested them on took black lives with impu- way patrol didn’t act in a
a traffic charge, then re- nity.” vacuum,” she said.q
leased them after alerting
a mob. Mississippi’s then- Man who aided patient discharged in gown shocked
governor claimed their dis-
appearance was a hoax, BALTIMORE (AP) — The ated Press he was so angry He described frigid temper- hit “record” while growing
and segregationist Sen. man who said he came he decided to record Tues- atures in the 30s and a cold increasingly angry. “At first
Jim Eastland told President to the aid of a woman dis- day night’s events on cell- wind blowing at the wom- I was shocked. I couldn’t
Lyndon Johnson it was a charged from a Baltimore phone video, fearing no an’s hospital gown, expos- believe what I was seeing.
“publicity stunt” before hospital wearing only a one would believe him if he ing her to the elements. And I move beyond that
their bodies were dug up. gown and socks on a cold reported a woman being Baraka, who said he has a to the next level from be-
The slayings shocked the winter’s night, says he was left at a bus stop like that. psychotherapy practice in ing shocked. I became ...
nation, helped spur pas- left outraged and stunned “I saw the unthinkable: an- a building across the street irritated and fearful for the
sage of the landmark Civil at how she was treated. other human in a wheel- from the Maryland Medi- young lady. And then I be-
Rights Act of 1964 and Imamu Baraka, identified chair being wheeled out cal Center Midtown Cam- came angry,” he recalled.
were dramatized in the in local reports as the per- in the dead of cold,” he pus, said he rushed back He added he failed to get
1988 movie “Mississippi son who sought to help the said in the phone interview to his office, retrieved his satisfactory answers as he
Burning.” woman, told The Associ- Thursday evening. cellphone, returned and tried to help the woman. q
