Existing comment:
On June 21, the first day of the Freedom Summer campaign, three young civil rights workers vanished while investigating a church burning near Philadelphia, Miss. Local authorities said the men had been arrested for a traffic violation but were released that night. The disappearance brought the FBI and hundreds of reporters to Mississippi to investigate the story. The FBI called the case "Mississippi Burning," a reference to the men's burned-out station wagon, discovered days after they disappeared. In August, the men were found shot to death. A deputy sheriff and six other Ku Klux Klan members were convicted of the killings. |