Aaron Rodriguez
Vitous
May 1, 2014
The Mississippi
burning is the story of 3 civil rights workers in Mississippi who were reported missing. The
FBI was sent into the state of Mississippi to
investigate the matter because it was an interstate matter. The county
officials were unhappy about this intrusion by the FBI.
The FBI was asking several people questions about the incident and went around
the town and found that a Baptist church was burned down. The 2 officers
working on the jobs had opposing viewpoints on solving the case. One was more
personable and got answers out of people while the other solved his cases by
the book. In the beginning local African Americans hesitated to talk to federal
agents because they thought that they were going to be beat up by Klansmen if
they talked to the FBI. The FBI looked to the local sheriff’s for assistance
but they didn’t give it to them. The local sheriff’s believed that the FBI was
wasting their time. The Klansmen where brought to court but the charges were
dismissed because the judge believed the actions by the Klansmen were provoked
by outside influences. The officers kept going around the town looking for the
truth and interviewed one of the Klansmen’s wives and consistently questioned
her for answers. After that they got the answers they needed to convict the
Klansmen of killing the civil rights workers. The African American church then
has a ceremony in remembrance of the African American civil rights worker and
in the pastors speech he brings up that this man will not be able to be buried
with the other civil rights workers because of the differences in the color of
their skin. After the ceremony in the church the congregation marches through
the town and goes to the burial site. The
trial went to federal court because it became a federal issue when county
officials were involved. The sentences of the Klansmen were between 7-10 years.
The mayor was then found hanging in a basement after the trials.
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