Three civil rights workers, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman
and James Chaney, were killed on June 21, 1964, by members of the Ku
Klux Klan while working to register Black voters in Mississippi.
Schwerner and Goodman, who were both white, traveled with Chaney, who
was African-American, on a trip passing through Philadelphia,
Mississippi. They were pulled over by a local sheriff, who was a
member of the Klan. Although they eventually were released, the three
men were later stopped and taken to a secluded area where they were
shot and buried. Their bodies were found on August 4. No one was
convicted of murder.
Their deaths continue to serve as a vivid symbol of the fight for
voting and human rights to African-Americans in the South.
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