On June 21, 1964, civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were arrested in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price, and taken to a Neshoba County jail.[2] The three men worked on the "Freedom Summer" campaign, attempting to organize a voter registry for African Americans.[3] Price charged Chaney with speeding and held the other two men for questioning.[2] He released the three men on bail seven hours later and followed them out of town.[4][5] After Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner failed to return to Meridian, Mississippi, on time, workers for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) placed calls to the Neshoba County jail, asking if the police had any information on their whereabouts.[6] Two days later, FBI agent John Proctor and ten other agents began their investigation in Neshoba County. They received a tip about a burning CORE station wagon seen in the woods off Highway 21, about 20 miles northeast of Philadelphia. The investigation was given the code name "MIBURN" (short for "Mississippi Burning"),[7][8] and top FBI inspectors were sent to help with the case.[2]
On August 4, 1964, the bodies of the three men were found after an informant nicknamed "Mr. X" in FBI reports passed along a tip to federal authorities.[5][9] They were discovered underneath an earthen dam on a 253-acre farm located a few miles outside Philadelphia, Mississippi.[10] All three men were shot.[4] Nineteen suspects were the subject of a federal indictment for violating the workers' civil rights.[5] On October 27, 1967, a federal trial conducted in Meridian resulted in only seven of the defendants, including Price, being convicted with sentences ranging from three to ten years. Nine were acquitted, and the jury deadlocked on three others.[4]
