[DSCN9388.jpg, originally uploaded by BenTG.]
43 years ago today, Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee were hitchhiking from Meadville, MS and were picked up by James Ford Seale. Seale and others took the two 19-year-old Black men into the Homochitto National Forest, which surrounds the highway, tortured and interrogated them. Later the same day, several of the Klansmen hauled Dee and Moore in the trunk of a car across the state line into Louisiana and then 100 miles north to a spot on the Mississippi River and dumped them in, weighting their bodies down with a jeep engine block and pieces of railroad track.
The Dee-Moore murders were originally referred to as the "Torso Murders" because the young men's bodies were found in parts. The first body parts were discovered by James Bowles, a fisherman, in the Old River adjunct of the Mississippi River on July 12, 1964. Information from Klan informant Ernest Gilbert led Navy divers to the rest of the young men's remains three and a half months later, on October 31. The MS Highway Patrol conducted a murder investigation in conjunction with the FBI. On November 6, 1964, MS Highway Patrol officers arrested James Ford Seale and Charles Marcus Edwards for the murders of Henry Dee and Charles Moore. But District Attorney Lennox Forman never brought the case to the Grand Jury and dropped the charges altogether by January 11 , 1965.
On January 24, 2007, reputed Klansman James Ford Seale was arrested on charges of kidnapping and conspiracy in connection with the murders of Dee and Moore. US Attorney Dunn Lampton will prosecute the case in the Southern District Court of Mississippi in Jackson. Jury selection is scheduled to begin May 29, 2007. Pre-trial hearings are currently underway.
Thomas Moore, is pictured above, with a photo of his brother Charles Moore, at the Crimes of the Civil Rights Era conference, which I also attended this past weekend, at Harvard and Northeastern.
Let us hope that James Ford Seale is convicted and that Mr. Moore and the family members of Henry Dee can feel able to have some closure in this terrible crime. Let us also hope that the trial of James Ford Seale is an occasion for honest discussion of a largely suppressed history of racist oppression and violence. Klan violence is only part of the story.
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Are you going to be able to come to the Memorial, my friend? I know it’s a long, long way for you (it’s a half-a-day’s drive for me and I’m in Mississippi).
If you have not seen the press release about it, go to:
http://www.mississippipolitical.com/deemoorememorial.htm
See you there, if you can make it. It should be a powerful, powerful time.
Hi CW. Nice to “see” you. Unless I have a sudden windfall I probably will have to wait till June to get back to MS. I was there the week before last but the time was too packed tight with research plans to make social calls. Hopefully I’ll see you next time I am there.
My E-mail address is littleowle@yahoo.com I have this great desire to speak with Mr. Thomas Moore. I saw the documentary Sunday on 60 minutes and Oh to have a loving brother like him! After all of these years he did not give up until he got justice for his baby brother. This man is a real Hero. I would love to meet him in person. I have lived long and witnessed much but that was the most hanis crime next to the Emmett Till murder.
If anyone knows how to get in touch with Mr. Moore please give him my e-mail address.