Girls' documentary prompts arrest

By Caroline Overington
New York

January 11, 2005
Brittany Saltiel, left, Sarah Siegel and Allison Nichols watch their documentary.

Photo: Supplied

In 1988, audiences were shocked by the film Mississippi Burning, which told the story of three civil rights workers - one black, two white - who were beaten to death and shot after trying to get black people to vote.

Despite the attention, the case was not reopened and so, for 40 years, no murder charges were laid.

Now three Chicago schoolgirls, who spurred a civil-rights campaign to address the injustice, have been credited with helping to refocus attention on the case, leading to the arrest of an 80-year-old part-time preacher, Edgar Ray Killen.

Killen, who is the first person to be charged with the 1964 murders, has long been suspected of involvement in the crime and of being a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He has pleaded not guilty but families of the victims are already hailing the students as "superhero gals".

Sarah Siegel, Allison Nichols and Brittany Saltiel, of Chicago's Stevenson High School, spent a year studying documents related to the case in an assignment for National History Day. They produced a 10-minute film called We Are Not Afraid, which was shown in the United States last year. As part of the project, they asked a teacher to interview Killen.

The documentary won a school prize but it also prompted a group of congressmen to ask investigators to reopen the case.

"I was really happy for all the families who I knew had been waiting for this for 40 years," 17-year-old Sarah said. "It was also a little saddening to know that it took 40 years for justice to start working."

The three men who were killed - James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman - were taking part in the so-called "Freedom Summer" of 1964, an effort to register black people to vote.

It is believed that two carloads of Klansmen followed the civil rights workers out of town, dragged them from their vehicle and beat and shot them to death. Their bodies were not found for 44 days.

Killen's name has been linked to the killings. He was among a group of men charged in 1967 with violating the men's civil rights, but an all-white jury failed to convict him. Investigators said at the time that Killen had led the Klansmen on the rampage.

Carolyn Goodman, the mother of Andrew Goodman, who was 20 when he was killed, welcomed the charges against Killen. "This was something that had to happen," she said.

Dr Goodman, now 89, has just completed her own documentary on the murders called Freedom Now.

Fannie Lee Chaney, the mother of 21-year-old black victim James Chaney, said the charges were "a mighty long time" coming.

Besides the schoolgirls' documentary, interest in the case was reignited by an article in Mississippi's Clarion-Ledger newspaper, which featured an interview with Sam Bowers, who was once the imperial wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

Bowers, who is serving a life sentence for another race crime, said that he had helped cover up the murders of the civil rights workers and that he did not mind serving time because he had helped other Klansmen get away with murder.