The only complete on-the-scene account of the heinous Freedom
Summer murders in Mississippi
"This book is a part of the arsenal decent Americans can employ
to make democracy for all truly a birthright and not a distant
dream. It relates the story of an atrocity committed on our
doorstep." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
In the civil rights movement, 1964 was the year of Freedom
Summer. On June 21, Mississippi, one of the last bastions of
segregation in America and a bloody battleground in the fight for
civil rights, reached the low point in its history. On that steamy
night three young activists were abducted and murdered in Neshoba
County near the small town of Philadelphia.
Their names were James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael
Schwerner. Two were from the North and labeled locally as "outside
agitators." Chaney was a Mississippi black. The murders not only
shook the nation and shamed the state of Mississippi but also
forced loose the iron grip of white supremacy in the South.
William Bradford Huie was sent to this seething community by the
"New York Herald Tribune" to cover the breaking story. Probing for
answers and conducting interviews, he wrote this documentary
account in the heat of the dangerous and dramatic moment, not in
the safe zone of retrospection.
This is not a political or sociological study, a collection of
articles or a diary, but a journalist's fact-filled story of people
that fate brought together in a tragic confrontation. Huie tells
the history of each young man and studies the personalities of the
killers. He reveals not only the harrowing events in this heinous
case but also the prejudice of ordinary citizens who allowed murder
to serve as their defense of prejudice. He helps us know the young
martyrs closely and introduces us to their killers and to the
hatred and suspicion that led inexorably to murder. This Banner
Books edition includes Huie's report on the trial three years
later. Nineteen local men were charged. Seven were found guilty of
conspiracy but none of murder.
William Bradford Huie (1910-1986), an Alabama journalist and
novelist who fought prejudice and hypocrisy throughout his
professional life, especially in his native South, wrote many
books, including "The Americanization of Emily," "The Execution of
Private Slovik," "The Revolt of Mamie Stover," "Mud on the Stars"
(all made into films), and "Wolf Whistle," the story of the Emmett
Till lynching.
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