Hungry Blues

By The Arkansas Delta Peace And Justice Center

Will Mississippi prosecute others? It
does not look encouraging, especially given the statement that they intend to
release all evidence they have. Please see statements in bold type in article.
But we can continue to push as we have in the past to obtain as much as
possible of a full measure of truth and justice.

Also note Duncan's quote at the end of the article: “Neshoba
Countians will no longer be “painted and described around the world by a
hollywood movie.” Is that what this was all about for some?

Also please note Jared Storey's insightful comments in response
to the article at the end of this message.

http://www.neshobademocrat.com/main.asp?FromHome=1&TypeID=1&ArticleID=10597&SectionID=2&SubSectionID=297

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Duncan: Trigger men dead

By JOSH FOREMAN
The Neshoba Democrat
Staff Reporter

Still-living remnants of the gang that murdered three civil rights workers here fall into two categories, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said – the still-proud “nod and wink” kind, and those who have convinced themselves that they didn’t have anything to do with the murders.

Edgar Ray Killen, Hood said, belongs to the former group. “They want to brag about it but they’re cowards and they don’t want to take the medicine,” he said.

Killen was convicted of manslaughter in the deaths of three young men who were helping blacks register to vote four decades ago.

Hood and Neshoba County District Attorney Mark Duncan discussed the challenge of trying the 41-year-old case in a question and answer session about an hour after Killen was convicted on three counts of felony manslaughter Tuesday.

The two said that they knew much more about the case, including who actually killed the three, than they were allowed to tell jurors in court.

They faced several problems, they said. For one, some witnesses, including several of those who were convicted in a 1967 federal civil rights violation trial, refused to testify or sign written statements. Others, Hood said, were dead. Three of the most significant witnesses in the case against Killen died, he said.

Duncan said Wayne Roberts and James Jordan, both of Meridian, were actually responsible for shooting the young men, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. Roberts shot Goodman and Schwerner, he said, and Jordan shot Chaney, they said.

Another witness committed suicide after telling investigators that Killen had been present when Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers gave the orders to “eliminate” or murder Schwerner, whom they had nicknamed “Goatee.”

They said one thing they didn’t know about the case was whether Killen had been present at the shootings or the subsequent disposal of the bodies. “There’s some questions that will go to the grave unanswered,” Hood said.

Hood said the state plans to make public all evidence collected in the investigation, even pieces that weren’t admissible in Killen’s trial.

Hood and Duncan were upbeat after the conviction. “First, I want to say to the families of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman that while we can’t undo what was done 41 years ago, at least now the state of Mississippi has done what it can do,” Duncan said.

Duncan said that although they pushed for a murder conviction in the case, they were satisfied with a manslaughter conviction. “I do not see it as a failure,” he said. “It was not a perfect verdict, but you have to understand, it was not a perfect case.”

Dozens of national and international news organizations called Neshoba County home throughout the trial.

Duncan and Hood called it the most important case in Mississippi history, as did Circuit Court Judge, Marcus D. Gordon in the courtroom before the jury was brought in the verdict was read.

But Hood said the political and social ramifications of the trial didn’t concern him in his investigation. “I’m just a prosecutor,” he said. “I don’t pretend to be a sociologist.

“Mark and I didn’t bring this to a grand jury to solve any social problems,” he said. “I don’t know what to say other than we were just doing our jobs.”

Duncan, a Philadelphia native, said the trial spoke volumes about the character of Neshoba County residents. “Finally I want to say something about the people of Neshoba County,” he said. “Today, like I said before, I know the character of the people of this county.

“Neshoba Countians will no longer be “painted and described around the world by a hollywood movie.”

___________________________________________________________
Reader Comments

...

Posted: Thursday, June 23, 2005
Article comment by: Jared Story

The statement that "at least now the State of Mississippi has done what it can do," is laughable. The State of Mississippi has done what it WANTED to, not what it CAN do. The State of Mississippi did not hold Edgar Ray Killen or any one of the many others at different levels of Mississippi society accountable for the crime of MURDER.

[I am proud to say I wrote the forward to Susan Klopfer's new book, which becomes available next week. You will see a couple of quotations from the forward, below. Once Susan's book is available to the public, I'll post the forward here. Note, too, that Susan's small book on Emmett Till is available now.--BG]

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/6/prweb254115.php

Where Rebels Roost, Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited

M. Susan Orr-Klopfer

http://themiddleoftheinternet.com/

662-745-6571

New Nonfiction Book Examines Civil Rights in Mississippi

M. Susan Orr-Klopfer’s new book revisits Mississippi’s state government 50 years ago, which fostered a culture of racism and fueled the civil rights movement.

(PRWEB via PR Web Direct) June 22, 2005 -- Edgar Ray Killen has been found guilty of manslaughter for slayings in Mississippi that spurred the civil rights movement 41 years ago. M. Susan Orr-Klopfer’s timely new book, “Where Rebels Roost, Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited,” examines the circumstances of this case and suggests that a racist Mississippi government of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s allowed several other alleged confidants to escape charges.

Killen was accused of helping organize the posse that murdered civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in 1964. Killen is the only person ever indicted on state murder charges in the case, but was tried, with several others, in 1967 on federal charges of violating the victims' civil rights. Killen was found innocent then, but seven others were convicted.

“We cannot begin to fathom the nature of racial repression in Mississippi without knowing what Klopfer reveals in her book,” states Benjamin T. Greenberg, in the book’s foreword. “It is no exaggeration to say that Mississippi of the 1950s and 1960s was a totalitarian police state.”

Little has been written about civil rights in the Delta, particularly about the struggle that began before Mississippi became a state, and the continuation of those struggles into the youth of Mississippi’s statehood.

Orr-Klopfer has spent the last two years traveling the Delta and writing the book’s 32 chapters and more than 700 pages of historical content. Descriptions and dialogue in “Where Rebels Roost, Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited” are based on interviews conducted by eyewitnesses and participants in the events. In addition, Orr-Klopfer used newspapers, books, journals and magazines, documents, letters, diaries, and oral histories from various libraries, archives and private collections.

About the author:

M. Susan Orr-Klopfer holds an M.B.A. from Indiana Wesleyan University and a B.A. from Hanover College. She is a former acquisitions and development editor for Simon & Schuster, Inc., and is an award-winning journalist for her investigative reporting in Missouri. In addition to “Where Rebels Roost, Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited,” available on Tuesday, June 28 at www.lulu.com and http://themiddleoftheinternet.com, she is the author of several other books, including “The Emmett Till Book,” which is being released today, June 22, and a computer book, "Abort! Retry! Fail!”

For more information, please contact:

Susan Klopfer

662-745-6571

http://themiddleoftheinternet.com

###

This morning, Edgar Ray Killen was sentenced to sixty years in prison after being found guilty of three counts of manslaughter.

John Steele speaking, as Hollis Watkins looks on. The two men stand in front of the largest remaining wall of the Longdale Community Center. (Photo by Benjamin T. Greenberg)

Last Sunday, I attended the 41st Annual Chaney Goodman Schwerner Memorial in Neshoba County, Mississippi. This year the memorial was held on the Steele family land, at the site of the former Longdale Community Center.

One of the speakers at this year's memorial was John Steele, son of Cornelius and Mable, a civil rights pioneering couple. Cornelius Steele first started trying to register to vote on his own accord in 1951, without the support of civil rights workers. It was Cornelius Steele who first conceived of the memorial service forty-one years ago, as a way to honor these struck down American heroes, ensure they were not forgotten and provide a vehicle for bringing justice in their murders. John Steele was ten during the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964, and he knew James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner. John says that they were truly close friends and playful with one another. John Steele has since then been one of the strongest and longest standing voices for truth and justice in the murder case.

Last week, during the trial, a reporter asked John Steele what he thinks about Killen being prosecuted for murder after all this time. Steele said, “I told the reporter he [Killen] needs some company.”

In 1982 the community center burned down under mysterious circumstances. All that remains are portions of the brick walls and the concrete that was poured into the foundation. The land had not been used for years. The grass and brush were so overgrown that the remains of the Community Center were not visible to anyone passing by on the road. In the week before the memorial Steele family members and others in the local community cleared the grounds completely, to make an open space where they set up tents and tables and chairs and served all the guests wonderful food—traditional Southern items like ribs and fried chicken and baked beans, as well as nice vegetarian salads for people like me who are not meat eaters.

In the Longdale community in rural Neshoba County, Mickey had befriended Cornelius Steele, who "has been most eager and cooperative in the freedom registration and also has a great desire to help set up the Summer Project there." Steele showed Mickey an abandoned Negro school that was for sale as a possible site for a freedom school and community center. He told Schwerner he thought people in Longdale would put up the money to buy the place. "As promising as things look," Mickey noted, "one must keep in mind that Neshoba is a very 'tough' county, indicated by the fact that no Negro has been registered since 1955."

Owing to Cornelius Steele's encouragement, Longdale was a constant destination for Schwerner and Chaney. Between February and June 1964, as they prepared for the Summer Project, Schwerner and Chaney made some thirty trips there.

(Seth Cagin and Phillip Dray, We Are Not Afraid, 271)

John Steele continued in his remarks last Sunday, saying, "we’ve called for justice for 41 years . . . there is too much blood crying from the ground from those veterans who have died so we could live better . . . If they wanted to kill them all, then let them all stand trial together.”

Killen needs some company in that prison cell.

That's how Diane Nash put it this past Sunday at the 41st Annual James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner Memorial Service, which I attended in Neshoba County, Mississippi (more on the service coming soon...). Ms. Nash has a real knack for stating the truth of things. I've been asking repeatedly, Why only Killen? But it is really more to the point to ask, Why is Mississippi protecting white, racist murderers? If you've been following the news on the trial at all, you know that the jury is deadlocked, 6-6. There is a whole lot to say in the why is Mississippi protecting racist murderers department about how the case has been pursued, but this bit from a recent article (via The Arkansas Delta Peace And Justice Center) about the deadlocked jury also speaks volumes:

"These people, and I'm not just talking about the jurors but just about everyone involved in this case, are acting like they have non-refundable tickets for a cruise later in the week and they don't intend to let a murder trial get in the way of their travel plans," CBS News Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen said.

"I have never seen a case seem so rushed as this one as been," Cohen added. "From the 15-minute opening statements to the jury coming back after only a few hours and declaring themselves deadlock. There is a reason they call it 'deliberations.' It is supposed to be a slow, thoughtful process. Not a rush for the doors.

"If this isn't the quickest deadlock in legal history it's got to be close."

The same article also provides a handy contrast between the image Philadelphia, MS is trying to promote about itself by having this trial and the reality of what still exists there:

"That's not the Neshoba County I know," Duncan said in contrasting today's community with the violence and hatred of 1964. "People here don't treat people that way."

Prosecutors said that while there was no testimony putting the murder weapon in Killen's hands, the evidence showed he was a Klan organizer and had played a personal role in preparations the day of the murders.

"He was in the Klan and he was a leader," Attorney General Jim Hood said.

Killen was tried in 1967 along with several others on federal charges of violating the victims' civil rights. The all-white jury deadlocked in Killen's case, with one juror saying later she could not convict a preacher. Seven others were convicted but none served more than six years.

The defense rested Monday after a former mayor testified that the Klan was a "peaceful organization." Harlan Majure, who was mayor of this Mississippi town in the 1990s, said Killen was a good man and that the part-time preacher's Klan membership would not change his opinion.

Majure said the Klan "did a lot of good up here" and said he was not personally aware of the organization's bloody past.

"As far as I know it's a peaceful organization," Majure said. His comment was met with murmurs in the packed courtroom.

Between the time when I started this post and when I'm finishing it now, the Killen verdict came in: guilty on three counts of manslaughter, not murder. That is, he is guilty of kidnapping them and that they died after they were kidnapped, not for murdering with intent. As both Ben Chaney and Rita Schwerner Bender said in the news conference that I caught on TV, it is a significant first step that Killen has been convicted and held responsible for Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman's deaths, and for that I am happy. But it is only a small first step.

Why is Mississippi protecting white, racist murderers?

In his closing statements yesterday, Mississippi AG Jim Hood revealed his overt insensitivity to the Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman families.

Some of you have asked why I am here. . . Because this is where justice is done.

I wish some of my predecessors had done their duty. I wouldn't have to be here, to have missed my daughter’s second birthday.

It would be extremely unprofessional for Jim Hood to complain about missing his daughter's second birthday during his closing statements in any court case. But does he hear himself?! There's been 41 missed birthdays for the families of the victims.

Jim Hood also went so far as to desecrate what Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman stood for, by comparing the Southern Freedom Movement to Bush's war in Iraq:

They came down here doing God's work. They were here in peace. They weren’t troublemakers. They were doing the same things that we are doing in Iraq — fighting for people's freedoms. They showed a lot of courage. They were heroes for being here to grant people the freedom to vote.

Jim Hood had the chutzpah to claim that another reason he showed up to make closing arguments (and not just leave it to DA Mark Duncan) was that

I wanted to be here myself, I didn't want to have any regrets. That I did my duty to the victims and their families.

What a lying, insensitive boor. I'm pretty much ready to believe he was being insulting on purpose. But I guess when you've got an ego that big you probably manage to insult people all the time while you tell them how important you are to them.

More than 4,700 lynchings took place between 1882 and 1968. A majority of the victims were young black men.

Most of the lynchings — 581 — took place in Mississippi, followed by 531 in Georgia, 391 in Texas, 391 in Louisiana and 347 in Alabama, according to the Tuskegee Institute archives.

[Sen. Thad] Cochran and fellow Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott, also a Republican, were among 15 senators who did not co-sponsor the apology resolution that passed the Senate by voice vote Monday night. Eighty-five senators did co-sponsor the measure.

(Clarion Ledger)

Remember, too, that these numbers are probably very low estimates.

Too many old black people keep their own lists of all of the other thousands of people who were lynched or who "disappeared" in Mississippi over the years. (Klopfer)

In anticipation of Killen's "Trial of the Century" James Prince III, of the Neshoba Democrat and the Philadelphia Coalition wrote:

For 40 years Philadelphia and Neshoba County have been synonymous with redneck vigilante justice, and we’ve been saddled with the “Mississippi Burning” stereotypes. The role of law enforcement in the murder conspiracy seems to amplify the disdain outside observers feel, a certain breakdown in civility and law and order.

Most decent people here have felt the shame of a crime unpunished and applaud justice.

Before us is an historic opportunity to once and for all set the record straight . . .

Which record? How? With the conviction of one unrepentant 80 year old man?

Those who once had the confidence of the community, on the sides of non-violence, are losing the confidence of the Black citizens of our communities, especially when we were the ones to caution and advise the masses to have confidence in the law or the legal system. You see, if a jury acquits a man who is tried, and in this case a white man for the murder of a Black citizen, then at least there has been some attempt to secure justice.

But when the District Attorney pronounces that those charged will not be brought to trial, then we are almost back to where we were in the “Dred Scott,” U. S. Supreme Court decision of a hundred years ago, that established that a Black had no rights that whites were bound to respect. Of course this also meant the privilege of a white to take the life of a black with no fear of ever coming to trial, just as your announcement today.

Once the pent up violence that exists in many members of the Black Community begins to explode, then the cry of the white community is going to be a call for “peace.” … You can help us in our position, or render us useless, and those prone toward violence will be in the position of advising our people what steps to take next…. Think it over!

Quote via Susan Klopfer in the coments. There's more, and you should definitely read the whole thing!

If you don't know who Aaron Henry was, that's another reason why you'll want to order Susan's book once it is available next week. I would be remiss if I don't also mention Henry's autobiography, Aaron Henry: The Fire Ever Burning.

More from the Democracy Now! interview with Ben Chaney (and Carolyn Goodman, mother of Andrew, and Jerry Mitchell, reporter from the Clarion Ledger) by Amy Goodman.

AMY GOODMAN: . . . Ben, can you talk about your feelings, even if there is a conviction in this trial, what that means to you? And who you think is responsible?

BEN CHANEY: You know, I think a whole lot of people are responsible, and unfortunately the state has not, I don't believe, has made a sincere effort to bring these other individuals to justice. You know, I think this concept of having a coordinated effort to look at these cases is a great idea, but I'm looking at what happened in Birmingham and what's happened with the Emmett Till case. The local D.A. in northern Mississippi requested the assistance of the Justice Department. And they took the case on. And that's why the investigation is moving forward. The D.A. in Alabama -- in Birmingham, Alabama, requested the assistance of the Justice Department, and they took the case on. Unfortunately, the D.A. in Mississippi for some particular reason decided that they didn't need the real assistance of the Justice Department, as where a special prosecutor could be appointed. And that information that the Justice Department had could probably have been used, and even though we requested that he make that, that he follow that same procedure, and for that reason, I think that there is a need for some national coordinated effort to look at these cases and use that, and be able to have access to that information.

I think that, you know, I've always believed that if there was a jury, an impartial jury, impaneled anywhere in Mississippi to look at this case, they would convict. And I still believe that, and I think that if the District Attorney or the prosecutors here present the evidence they have aggressively and vigorously, I believe that the jury is going to convict. How do I feel about a conviction? I think that a conviction here is not the end, because there's still individuals in this community where I'm at now who were involved in this case, and they're walking around free and acting as if their lives are still intact, and nothing's happening. So until each individual who participated in this case, and perhaps whether or not there can be some type of investigation to determine the role the State of Mississippi played to prevent a prosecution in the 1960s, so that this would not happen in the future again, I think that -- you know, there's going to be some delight in knowing that one individual has been convicted, if he is. But there's not going to be no closure. You know, the case will still be open.

Could Mark Duncan be a little anxious to controll the flow of evidence lest it lead to more indictments after Killen? There is some back story that suggests this may well be the case.

Ben Chaney is the brother of the late James Earl Chaney. Excerpts from Democracy Now! interview by Amy Goodman.

AMY GOODMAN: Ben, at that time, when you were 11, what 10, 11, 12 years old?

BEN CHANEY: Twelve.

AMY GOODMAN: 12 years old. What did you understand? And do you remember the day that your brother's body was found, along with Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner?

BEN CHANEY: Well, the day that the bodies was found, I think, we got – that was at a – I was at a rally at a church in Meridian, and it was in the evening time. And I got a call, I had to come home. And the F.B.I. was there. They was explaining to my mother, they had found three bodies. What I remember most about the entire incident, though, I guess, is just watching my mother during those 44 days. You know, she would tell us stories about her Grandpa Jim, about other members of her family that disappeared, and stories that she told, that she witnessed, the things she witnessed when she was -- since she was four years old. She would walk around the house, always humming, singing spirituals, and clean the house up, you know, from top to bottom, three or four times a day. So the thing that I remember most was the agony and the pain in her eyes. That was probably the saddest thing in the whole period. I didn't have no concept of death until the funeral. I was pretty well protected as a kid, and I just had no real concept of what death was about, until my brother's funeral.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about your brother's funeral.

BEN CHANEY: It was sad. It was sad for me. That wasn't a real funeral, because his body was so badly decomposed and just messed up. So they had a little memorial service that evening, but during that morning they had the burial at the cemetery. And it was when the coffin was being lowered into the ground that I realized that death was final. So it was a pretty sad time in the 1960s.

I already mentioned Will Bardwell's Neshoblog, but you may want to make a point of seeing what he's got to say today, since he got one of the coveted 27 press seats inside the courtroom. If things continue as they did today, he may well have an inside seat throughout the trial...

UPDATE Jackson Free Press also got inside seats. Hopefully Irby and/or Ladd will post some more of their observations, too.

Check out Susan's Neshoba County Mississippi blog, for first hand updates and observations concerning Mississippi v. Edgar Ray Killen, at the Neshoba County Courthouse.

UPDATE: Susan just wrote to me with a correction: "I'm not in Philadelphia, yet. I will be there Sunday and then part of next week."

As anyone who sifts through the neshoba murders posts on this blog will know, the emphasis here at Hungry Blues is not so much Edgar Ray Killen but the big picture, of which Killen is only a small part. For excellent reading with good historical background and a broad understanding of the issues that are involved in this case, read Susan's two part series, based on her forthcoming book, Where Rebels Roost: Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited. (Available for order by next mid week; go here to sign up for email notification with book ordering information.)

From Overdue Mississippi Trial Finally Begins (Part 1):

Taped conversations released in 1997 show that on June 23 President Johnson, dealing with the disappearance of the young civil rights workers, was angry over receiving conflicting information on the telephone from Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Senator James Eastland.

Kennedy had advised Johnson to meet with the student workers' parents. He also suggested Johnson make a statement expressing his ''personal concern for them and for their families.''

Less than an hour later, Eastland told Johnson he believed the whole incident was a hoax. ''I believe it's a publicity stunt,'' Eastland said. ''I don't think there's a damn thing to it. There's not a Ku Klux Klan in that area…. There's no organized white men in that area,'' Eastland said. ''Who could possibly harm them?''

Johnson asked Eastland whether the senator thought he should expand on an earlier statement on the investigation, as advised by Kennedy, and Eastland answered "no."

The name "Goodman" must have attracted the senator’s interest, since Goodman had family ties to Pacifica Broadcasting, a progressive, alternative broadcasting network founded in 1949 by pacifists. Goodman’s father, Robert, was President of the Pacifica Foundation. Only a year prior to Andrew Goodman’s death, The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS), headed by Senator Eastland, completed a three-year investigation of Pacifica’s programming, looking for "subversion."

In 1962, Pacifica station WBAI was the first station to publicly broadcast former FBI agent Jack Levine's exposé of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. The program was followed by threats of arrests and bombings, as well as pressure from the FBI, the Justice Department, and the FCC. Also that year, Pacifica trained volunteers to travel into the South for coverage of the awakening Civil Rights Movement. The station also took a strong anti-Vietnam war stance, helping to prompt the investigations.

Sovereignty Commission documents show that Eastland knew the names and backgrounds of all volunteer workers in advance of their arrival, including Goodman, since the senator requested this information from the Sovereignty Commission well before the opening of Freedom Summer.

From News Update: Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited (Part 2):

Thirty-five shootings, thirty bombings, thirty-five church burnings, eighty beatings, and at least six racially motivated murders took place in Mississippi during the first eight months of 1964. Fourteen died in civil rights-related killings. This violence constituted a "deliberate pattern of Klan terror," according to the FBI.

Aftermath

By the following spring, Sovereignty Commission director Johnston was definitely looking for a direct link between Andrew Goodman and "communists." On February 26, 1965, he wrote a letter to newly elected Congressman Prentiss Walker, requesting that he "ask the HUAC for any information about the Pacifica Foundation of New York…. We have reason to believe this foundation also is subversive."

Walker, whose district included Philadelphia, Mississippi wrote back to Johnston that he had been in contact with Congressman John Ashbrook, HUAC chair, who offered a "thorough search … to obtain any information on the people and organizations mentioned."

Included on Walker’s list he sent to the Sovereignty Commission was Robert Goodman (the same name as Andrew’s father) but the HUAC committee’s director reported he could find no records of any testimony by Goodman.

Johnston also mailed to Eastland a list of COFO workers "in the Mississippi Summer Project as of August 1964," explaining he had obtained this list through "one of our pipelines" and that it was possible "some of these names are in the files of the Senate Internal Security Committee or the House Un-American Activities Committee," referring, of course, to Goodman.

There is essential, ongoing coverage and extensive background available at the Clarion Ledger's Neshoba County slayings archive. Of special recent note are some excerpts released just this past Sunday from the famous, secret interview with Klansman Sam Bowers, which contributed to the reopening of the case and the indictment of Edgar Ray Killen. It was Bowers who ordered the the slayings of Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman.

The Jackson Free Press has set up a separate Mississippi v. Edgar Ray Killen blog, with Donna Ladd, editor of the JFP and Neshoba County native, and Natalie Irby, a native of Jackson, MS, reporting. Under Ladd's editorship the JFP has become a model for how independent weeklies can incorporate blogging into their online format.

I also recommend the Jackson Free Press Chaney, Goodman & Schwerner Archive, which contains articles by Ladd, dating back to 2002. Ladd is a gifted writer, with a strong moral compass. See, for example, For The Children, Keep Your Eyes On The Prize, and 'Say These Words With Me.'

June 12, 2005
Woman grapples with loss of father
By Billy Watkins
The Clairon Ledger

MERIDIAN — This is what the little girl inside Angela Lewis still begs for: To sit on her daddy's lap when she's skinned her elbow. A hug. A bedtime story told with his voice, his inflections. A trip for ice cream.

This is what the grown-up Angela Lewis constantly pictures in her mind: Murderers sitting down to dinner with their families, saying grace beforehand. Their wives washing their clothes, fixing their meals, laying beside them in bed every night, thousands of nights, as if nothing happened. Businessmen carrying on relationships with known killers. Friends shaking their hands, realizing they're covered with blood.

This is what the spiritual Angela Lewis has reconciled in her heart: "God requires I love everybody, so I'm not angry at them. I pray for them, and I pray for their families. But I would like them to know that I think they're cowards. Nothing but cowards. . . ."

Lewis, who rarely grants interviews, will attend Monday's trial of 80-year-old Edgar Ray Killen, accused of plotting the killings.

"Every time I think about it, I get a knot in my stomach," she says. "I'm told there were 21 men involved, eight are still living, and this one man is going on trial. I asked my uncle not long ago, 'What are we really accomplishing here?' But when it's all over, no matter how it turns out, I think I'm going to understand my father a little better, add another piece of flesh to this man who is still forming in my mind. . . ."

She begged people to stop informing her what a hero he was. Tell her something that would make him real.

"It was like going to funerals and listening to the eulogies. It always sounds like they're burying St. Peter," Lewis says.

"I remember my grandmother told me she used to make his lunch for him to take to school, but he would stop and eat it on the way," she says, laughing. "Now, that's the kind of thing I wanted to know. . . ."

Lewis aches for her grandmother, Fannie Chaney, now living in New Jersey, who has had a series of strokes.

"My fear is I'm going to lose her before I find out everything I want to know about my dad," she says. "She came down last summer, went to his grave and told me, 'This will probably be my last trip here. But I want you to know that I love you and I love your kids.'

"I would like some closure for her. Maybe this trial will do it. The pain is so consuming. She told me, 'They treated my son like he was a dog in the street. . . .' "

Lewis works as a nurse/counselor with abused children ages 12-17, at The Crossings, a 60-bed facility that is part of the Alliance Health Center. Her students are violent. They spit on her and even hit her. She responds with words she never heard as a child while her mom and stepfather worked endless shifts as waiters. "I tell them, 'You can be great. All you have to do is have a passion for something and do it with all your heart.'"

(Read the whole thing.)