Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner

On June 21, 1964, three civil rights movement activists, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, were murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi by local members of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Earlier the same day they were arrested for speeding, and after being released were followed by local law enforcement and others affiliated with the authorities, all of which were associated with the Klan. After being followed for some time, the three were abducted by the group, brought to a secluded location, and shot and killed. They were then buried in an earthen dam. All three activists were associated with the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) and its member organization, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). They had been working with the Freedom Summer campaign by attempting to register African Americans in Mississippi to vote. Since 1890, southern states had systematically disenfranchised most black voters by discrimination in voter registration and voting.

Chaney was African American, and Goodman and Schwerner were both Jewish. The three men had traveled roughly 38 miles (61 km) north from Meridian, to the community of Longdale, Mississippi, to talk with congregation members of a black church that had been burned; the church had been a center of community organization. The disappearance of the three men was initially investigated as a missing persons case. The burnt-out car the three were using was found parked near a swamp three days after their disappearance. An extensive search of the area was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), local and state authorities, and 400 U.S. Navy sailors. Their bodies were not discovered until seven weeks later, when authorities received a tip leading them to the remains of the three activists. During the investigation, it emerged that members of the Ku Klux Klan, the Neshoba County Sheriff's Office, and the Philadelphia Police Department were involved in the incident.

The murder of the activists sparked national outrage and an extensive federal investigation, filed as Mississippi Burning (MIBURN), which later became the title of a 1988 film loosely based on the events. In 1967, after the state government refused to prosecute those involved in the murders, the United States federal government stepped in and charged 18 individuals with civil rights violations. Seven were convicted and another pleaded guilty, and all received relatively minimal sentences. Outrage over the activists' murder helped pass of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Forty-one years after the murders took place, one perpetrator, Edgar Ray Killen, was charged by the state of Mississippi for his part in the crimes, and in 2005 was convicted of three counts of manslaughter and was given a 60-year sentence. On June 20, 2016, federal and state authorities officially closed the case. Killen died in prison in January 2018.