Tuesday, June 21, 2005
CLAY HOPES THAT MISSISSIPPI VERDICT WILL HELP NATION DEAL WITH PAINFUL HISTORY
Conviction of Former Klansman Is an Important Step Towards Justice
Washington, DC – Congressman Wm. Lacy Clay (D) Missouri, said that today's conviction of former Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen, in the 1964 killings of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, marked an "Important step towards justice that was long overdue." Clay commented after a Philadelphia, Mississippi jury found Killen guilty of three counts of manslaughter. The convictions come 41 years to the day after the three civil rights workers were beaten, shot and buried in an earthen dam. They had gone to Mississippi to help African Americans register to vote.The Congressman commented, "James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner gave their lives to help other Americans vote. Today's conviction of the man who helped plan their brutal killings, shows that we should always pursue truth and justice, even if it takes decades. In 1964, the deaths of these three brave young men shook the conscience of the nation and helped to ensure the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
I hope that this long-overdue verdict will help encourage all Americans to deal more openly and honestly with our painful history of racially motivated violence. Much of that story is still untold. And the time has come to tell the whole truth about what happened in the South and elsewhere."