Remembering the Names

USA Today reports that the FBI Field Office in Jackson, Mississippi may soon be named after James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman---the three civil rights workers murdered by Klansmen in Neshoba County, MS, June 21, 1964.

JACKSON, Miss. — This state, whose civil rights history is marred with negatives, wants to name its new Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters after slain civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman.

"Given our state and its history, it would do a lot to show that Mississippi has changed," said U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat.

"I think it's an excellent idea and one that I would support," Thompson said.

The Jackson City Council will vote today on a resolution supporting the move. Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman were killed June 21, 1964, while participating in Freedom Summer, an intensive voter registration drive aimed at breaking Mississippi's resistance to civil rights for African Americans....

"It could send a signal to the rest of the nation that we at least understand some of the things that have happened in the past and realize that this is in tune of correcting some of the negatives back then," Smith said.

FBI spokeswoman Deborah Madden said the agency will defer to Congress for a final decision on naming the building, which the federal government is leasing....

Angela Lewis, Chaney's daughter, said naming the building after the trio would be "a very nice gesture" that could contribute to a better understanding of the era.

I'm ambivalent about this possibility of a Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman FBI Field Office. In 1964, when the field office was established, attention to the three murdered civil rights workers precluded attention to most other of the numerous incidents that warranted investigation and response. In his book Racial Matters: The FBI's Secret File on Black America, 1960-72, historian Kenneth O'Reilly writes:

The reason for skepticism about the FBI presence was obvious. The violence had not abated. By COFO's estimate 450 incidents makred the three months beginning June 15. Segregationists three voter registration workers in Hattiesburg as Hoover made his speech [at the opening of the Jackson Field Office]. (171)

Despite enormous resources expended by the Bureau on solving the Neshoba murders, there was much skepticism about that as well. As Dick Gregory remarked at the time:

If these Mississippi white Klansmen, who do not know how to plan crimes, who are ignorant, illiterate bastards, can completely baffle our FBI, what are those brilliant Communist spies doing to us?

Though Edgar Ray Killen was finally convicted in 2005 on manslaughter charges for his role in the murders, the case is far from resolved.

The FBI has been been trying to set a different tone in the present day, but questions remain about what the Bureau will accomplish.

It is meaningful that US Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS), who is a Mississippi Civil Rights Movement veteran, as well as the Mississippi NAACP and James Chaney's daughter Angela, support the name change. It is worth noting, however, that journalist Chris Joyner has no quotes from Ben Chaney, brother of James Chaney, Rita Schwerner-Bender, widow of Michael Schwerner, or David Goodman, brother of Andrew Goodman. All three regularly make public statements regarding the Neshoba murders and are outspoken advocates for a broad approach to justice for their murdered family members—and for the countless other victims, many still nameless to the world at large.