Monday, August 1, 1966: University of Texas Tower shooting

A puff of smoke is visible at the University of Texas Tower during the sniper attack on August 1, 1966, by Charles Whitman. (Texas Student Publications photo by Richard Kidd; courtesy of the Barker Texas History Center)

Charlotte Darehshori, then a secretary in the office of the dean of graduate studies, crouching behind the base of a flagpole in a grassy area just south of the Tower. She was trapped nearly 1 1/2 hours by the sniper fire. The photograph was one of the first transmitted from the Tower sniping incident and was one of the most widely published photographs from the incident. (Staff photo by Tom Lankes, American-Statesman)
     -- Photos from Austin American-Statesman archives: @

A crazed student went on an 80-minute campus rampage with an armful of weapons Monday in the worst mass killing in U.S. history. He killed 15 persons, including his mother and his wife, and gunned down 30 others before a shaken off-duty policeman shot him dead atop the 27-story University of Texas tower.
     -- United Press International: @

* Stories from Austin American-Statesman: @

* Summary (Finding Dulcinea): @
* Short biography of Charles Whitman (Texas State Historical Association): @
* Resources (Austin History Center): @

* "Texas Sniper Kills 15, Wounds 31, Then Slain" (Associated Press, published August 2, 1966): @
* "Campus Sniper Slays 13, Wounds 30" (UPI, August 2, 1966): @ 
* "Death Spree Carefully Planned, Executed" (UPI, August 3, 1966): @
* Life magazine (August 12, 1966): @

* "A Sniper in the Tower: The Charles Whitman Murders" (Gary M. Lavergne, 1997): @
* "University of Texas reopens tower's deck" (Associated Press, September 15, 1999): @

* "Sniper 66" (2006 documentary by Whitney Milam) first of 5 parts: @ (other 4 parts also available on YouTube)
* "96 Minutes" (Pamela Colloff, Texas Monthly, 2006): @
* A Buried Memory is Preserved: The Unborn Victim of a Texas Sniper's Shot in 1966" (Reeve Hamilton, New York Times, 2014): @
* Fifty years after the first campus massacre, a question lingers: Who killed the killer?" (Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times, 2016): @
* "Tower" (2016 documentary): @

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Wednesday, July 13 - Thursday, July 14: Murders in Chicago

A young killer forced his way into a quiet residential dormitory early Thursday, bound nine student nurses, then dragged them one by one into other rooms and methodically strangled or stabbed eith of them to death. The ninth escaped the killer's insatiable lust for blood by crouching in frozen terror under a bed.

     -- Associated Press: @

* Summary (Chicago Tribune): @

* Summary (www.history.com): @

* Summary (www.biography.com): @

* Chicago Tribune, July 14, 1966: @
* "Detailed Account of a Terrible Crime" (Chicago Tribune, July 23, 1966): @

* Life magazine (July 29, 1966): @

* Richard Speck obituary (New York Times, December 5, 1991): @

* "The Crime of the Century: Richard Speck and the Murders That Shocked the Nation" (Dennis L. Breo and William J. Martin, 2016): @

* Photos (murderpedia.org): @ 

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Monday, June 13, 1966: Miranda v. Arizona

The Supreme Court laid down today a strict set of guidelines for police investigations -- including a rule that if a suspect "is alone and indicates in any manner that he does not wish to be interrogated, the police may not question him." Before questioning begins, the prisoner must be told of his right to remain silent and to have a lawyer at his side, Chief Justice Earl Warren said for a 5-4 court. Also, Warren said, the suspecte need not request a lawyer in order to have one. And, if he cannot afford one, counsel must be provided "prior to any investigation."

-- Associated Press: @

* "High Court Puts New Curb on Powers of the Police to Interrogate Suspects" (New York Times): @
* Summary (PBS): @
* Summary (Arizona Republic): @
* Podcast (www.uscourts.gov): @
* "How 'You Have the Right to Remain Silent' Became the Standard Miranda Warning" (Slate, 2014): @
* "Famed Miranda Dies In Game-Stabbing" (Associated Press; story from February 2, 1976; Miranda was killed January 31): @
* Earlier post on arrest of Ernesto Miranda (March 13, 1963; includes other resources): @ 

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Saturday, September 25, 1965: 'In Cold Blood'

The first installment of Truman Capote's four-part series is published in The New Yorker magazine. It would be published in book form in January 1966.

* First installment (www.newyorker.com): @

* Second through fourth installments (www.newyorker.com; subscription required): @

* Book: @
* "Horror Spawns A Masterpiece" (Life magazine, January 7, 1966): @
* "The Story Behind a Nonfiction Novel" (George Plimpton, The New York Times, January 16, 1966): @
* Review by Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic (January 22, 1966): @

* "Truman Capote and the Legacy of 'In Cold Blood' " (Ralph F. Voss, 2011): @ 

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Wednesday, April 14, 1965: 'In Cold Blood' killers executed

Lansing, Kas. -- Richard Eugene Hickock, 34, and Perry Edward Smith, 36, were hanged early Wednesday for the 1959 slayings of a family of four. They were convicted of the Nov. 14, 1959, robbery-murder of rancher Herbert W. Clutter, his wife, and the couple's two teen age children. The four victims had been bound, gagged and shot point blank in the head with a 12 gauge shotgun. Clutter was a farm adviser of the Eisenhower administration. The killers had been searching for a nonexistent fortune supposedly stashed away by the Clutter family in their Garden City (Kas.) home. All Hickock and Smith got for their efforts was $80 a portable radio and a pair of cheap binoculars. Their last hope of avoiding the noose died Tuesday when United States Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White took no action on a last minute appeal for a stay of execution.
     -- Story by United Press International
     -- Photo by Associated Press; Hickock is at left

Note: "In Cold Blood," Truman Capote's account of the killings, first appeared as a four-part series beginning with the September 25, 1965, issue of The New Yorker magazine, and was then published in book form in January 1966.

* 50th-anniversary story from The Topeka Capital-Journal: @

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Sunday, September 27, 1964: Warren Commission report

The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22, 1963, was a cruel and shocking act of violence directed against a man, a family, a nation, and against all mankind. A young and vigorous leader whose years of public and private life stretched before him was the victim of the fourth Presidential assassination in the history of a country dedicated to the concepts of reasoned argument and peaceful political change. This Commission was created on November 29, 1963, in recognition of the right of people everywhere to full and truthful knowledge concerning these events. This report endeavors to fulfill that right and to appraise this tragedy by the light of reason and the standard of fairness. It has been prepared with a deep awareness of the Commission's responsibility to present to the American people an objective report of the facts relating to the assassination.  (Introduction to Warren Report)

The assassination of President Kennedy was the work of one man, Lee Harvey Oswald. There was no conspiracy, foreign or domestic. (New York Times)

Lee Harvey Oswald, in a solitary act of violence free of foreign or domestic conspiracy, assassinated President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, the Warren Commission ruled Sunday. (Los Angeles Times)

Why? The great unanswered question in the report of the Warren Commission -- which has just concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy -- is why he did it. (Associated Press)

The Secret Service, the FBI, the Dallas police, the State Department and American news media bear the sharpest stings from the Warren Commission for laxness and poor judgment before and after the assassination of President Kennedy. (Associated Press)

The report contains no sensational revelations or unorthodox conclusions. In its sum and substance, it reaffirms almost everything that was already known and understood by most knowledgeable people. Its great value comes from the thoroughness with which the Commission carried out its investigation, from its laying to rest many malignant rumors and speculations, and from its fascinating wealth of detail by which future historians can abide. (Time magazine)

The major significance of the report is that it lays to rest the lurid rumors and wild speculations that had spread after the assassination. (Life magazine)

-- Photo from Allen W. Dulles Papers, Princeton University (Dulles served on the Warren Commission; scale models were built for the investigation)

* Text of report (National Archives): @

* More information from The John F. Kennedy Assassination Information Center: @

* More information from Mary Ferrell Foundation: @

* More information from History Matters: @

* CBS special report, September 27: @
* NBC special report, September 27: @
* New York Times, September 28: @

* Los Angeles Times, September 28: @

* Miami News, September 28: @
* Sarasota Herald-Tribune, September 28: @
* The Guardian, September 28: @
* Time magazine, October 2: @
* Life magazine, October 2: @ 

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Sunday, June 21, 1964: Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner

-- Quote from an equipment operator hired by the FBI to dig for the bodies. The man was interviewed by The Meridian Star for a story published September 20, 1964; he was not identified, saying he feared for his life. The story was distributed by United Press International; this image was taken from the front page of The Delta Democrat Times in Greenville. (Story available through www.newspapers.com.)

-- Photo from the FBI, made public in 2005 during the trial of Edgar Ray Killen (see entry below). 

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"Good evening, three young civil rights workers disappeared in Mississippi on Sunday night near the central Mississippi town of Philadelphia, about 50 miles northeast of Jackson. The last report on the trio came from Philadelphia police, who said they were picked up for speeding on Sunday, fined $20, then released."
-- Lead story from "CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite," June 22, 1964 (audio, National Public Radio: @)

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Timeline

-- Neshoba County map from "Three Lives for Mississippi" (William Bradford Huie, 1965): @

May 31: Meeting at Mt. Zion UMC

     Michael Henry Schwerner (24, New York) and James Earl Chaney (21, Meridian, Mississippi) speak at the Mt. Zion United Methodist Church in the Longdale community, just west of Philadelphia in Neshoba County. They and church members were making plans for the church to house a Freedom School.
* Earlier post on Freedom Summer: @

Tuesday, June 16: Mt. Zion burns

-- Photo taken June 17 by Associated Press

     "Night riders struck Neshoba County in north-central Mississippi Tuesday when a Negro church was surrounded by armed white men, most of them masked. Three Negroes attending a church board meeting were beaten and were chased away. A short time later the church went up in flames." -- New York Times, June 21: @
* Account from Junior Roosevelt Cole, lay leader of church: @
* "Mississippi Bombings Since June 16, 1964" (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, October 5): @
* Church website: @

Saturday, June 20: Arrival in Mississippi

-- Postcard written by Andrew Goodman, postmarked June 21. Image from The Andrew Goodman Foundation (link below).

     Goodman (20, New York), Chaney and Schwerner reach Meridian after driving from Freedom Summer training in Oxford, Ohio.

Sunday, June 21: Disappearance 

     "The Neshoba County Sheriff's Office said today three civil rights workers were arrested on a charge of speeding Sunday and released after paying a $20 fine. The Council of Federated Organizations said the trio has been unaccounted for since Sunday afternoon." -- Associated Press, June 22: @
* "3 in Rights Drive Reported Missing" (New York Times, June 23): @

* Memo, probably from Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (June 22): @

Sunday, June 21: Death
   Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner drive to Longdale, site of the burned church. En route back to Meridian in mid-afternoon, they are arrested by Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price (Cheney on a speeding charge, Goodman and Schwerner on suspicion of arson in the church fire) and taken to the county jail in Philadelphia. Price releases the three around 10:30 p.m. Leaving Philadelphia, their station wagon is overtaken on a rural road by Price and other members of the Ku Klux Klan. The three are driven to another area where they are shot dead. Their bodies are then moved to the site of an earthen dam, where they are buried nearly 20 feet down.
* "Post Mortem Examination Report of the Body of James Chaney" (David M. Spain, M.D., August 7): @

Tuesday, June 23: Car found

-- Photo by Associated Press via FBI

     "The car driven by three integrationists who disappeared after being arrested last Sunday night here has been found by Federal Bureau of Investigation officers about 13 miles from Philadelphia, in the northeast corner of Neshoba County. The car, a 1963 or 1964 Ford station wagon, was located in heavy sweetgum growth on Highway 21, about 100 feet from the Bogue Chitto creek and about 100 feet off the highway. The station wagon had been burned." -- Neshoba Democrat, June 25: @
* Rights Workers Still Missing" (The Student Voice, publication of SNCC, June 30): @

Monday, June 29: FBI poster

-- Image from Mississippi Department of Archives and History: @

* "The Limpid Shambles of Violence" (Life magazine, July 3): @

Tuesday, August 4: Bodies found

-- Photo by Bill Eppridge for Life magazine, August 14 issue (story: @). Caption: "FBI agents stand under an awning at the excavated dam to search for clues. Arrow marks the actual grave, covered with a white sheet."

DeLoach: Mr. President?
Johnson: Yeah.
DeLoach: Mr. Hoover wanted me to call you, sir, immediately and tell you that the FBI has found three bodies six miles southwest of Philadelphia, Mississippi, the six miles west of where the civil rights workers were last seen on the night of June 21st. A search party of agents turned up the bodies just about 15 minutes ago while they were digging in the woods and underbrush several hundred yards off Route 21 in that area. We're going to get a coroner there right away, sir, and we're going to move those bodies into Jackson, Mississippi, where we hope they can be identified. We have not identified them as yet as the three missing men. But we have every reason to believe that they are the three missing men. They were under a -- they were at the site of a dam that had been constructed near Philadelphia, Mississippi. Wanted to let you know right away, sir.
 -- Telephone conversation between the FBI's Cartha "Deke" DeLoach and President Johnson, just after 8 p.m.

* Transcript (from teacherweb.com, page 217): @
* Audio (from LBJ Library): @
* Oral history with DeLoach (from LBJ Library; remarks on the Mississippi case begin on page 45): @
* "Rights Trio Bodies Found?" (Associated Press, August 5): @
* "Bodies of 3 Missing Rights Workers Found" (UPI, August 5): @
* "Three Murdered Workers Found" (The Student Voice, August 12): @

* "President's Daily Diary, August 4, 1964" (LBJ Library): @

Friday, August 7: Funeral for James Chaney in Meridian

-- Photo of funeral procession by Bill Eppridge

* "Tragedy in Mississippi: Deep-Seated Feelings of Negroes are Reflected in Funeral for Slain Civil Rights Worker" (New York Times, August 8): @
* "Emotional Appeal Marks Rights Worker's Funeral" (UPI, August 8): @
* "Triple Lynching" (Baltimore Afro-American, August 8): @
* Funeral announcement (Tougaloo College Archives): @
* Funeral program (Queens College Civil Rights Archives): @
* Eulogies by Dave Dennis and the Rev. Edwin King (begins on page 55; from "A Righteous Anger in Mississippi: Genre Constraints and Breaking Precedence," William H. Lawson, Florida State University, 2004): @

Sunday, August 9: Funerals for Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in New York

-- Photo by Associated Press. Caption: "The mothers of the three civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi leave the meeting hall of the Society for Ethical Culture, where funeral services were held for 20-year-old Andrew Goodman." From left: Fannie Lee Chaney, Carolyn Goodman and Anne Schwerner.

     "Joined hand to hand and chanting 'we shall overcome,' thousands of white and Negro mourners paid tribute Sunday night to two white civil rights workers slain in Mississippi." -- Associated Press, August 10: @
* "Andrew Goodman 1943-1964" (a collection of eulogies, Carolyn Goodman Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society): @
* "Nation Mourns Slain Workers" (The Student Voice, August 19): @
* Excerpt from "To Serve the Living" (Suzanne E. Smith, 2010): @

Monday, August 10: Neshoba County Fair opens
     "The white people of Neshoba County put aside today talk of the murder of three civil rights workers and flocked to their fairgrounds for a week or reunion, fun and politics. But the 'nigra issue' was present, nevertheless, just as it has been since the turn of the century ... J.B. Hillman, the 86-year-old chairman, who is as much an institution as the fair itself, said the people were determined not to let the scandal dampen the festivities." -- New York Times, published August 9: @
* The Klan-Ledger, Special Neshoba County Fair Edition (White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi): @

Friday, December 18: 'Day of Accusation in Mississippi'

-- Photo by Bill Reed, showing Neshoba County deputy sheriff Cecil Price and Sheriff Lawrence Rainey during their arraignment in Meridian, as it appeared across two pages in the December 18 edition of Life magazine (story begins on page 34: @).  Image from Iconic Photos. 

Friday, October 20, 1967: Convictions

-- Photo by Jack Thornell, Associated Press. Caption: "Neshoba County Sheriff Deputy Cecil Price holds a copy of the Meridian Star newspaper as he awaits the verdict in the murder trial of three civil rights workers ... Price was convicted on conspiracy charges along with six other defendants. At left is Edgar Ray Killen ... whose case ended in mistrial."

* "News of Mississippi 'Justice' Silences Band, Shopkeepers" (UPI, November 4): @

* Trial summary (Douglas Linder, University of Missouri-Kansas City): @

* "Trial transcripts in the case United States v. Price, et al. (also known as the Mississippi Burning' incident)" 1967 (U.S. Department of Justice): @ 

Sunday, August 3, 1980: Ronald Reagan speech

-- Photo by Ron Edmonds. Caption: "Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan and wife, Nancy, share a chuckle as they try rocking chair presented them during their visit to the Neshoba County Fair. The visit to the fair billed as 'Mississippi's Giant Houseparty' marked the first time a major party nominee had ever addressed the fair."

     Reagan's speech took place a little more than two weeks after he won his party's nomination. He was criticized for his choice of venues and for saying, "I believe in states' rights," that term having been used through the years as an argument against enforced integration. Reagan went on to carry Mississippi, narrowly, in the November election against Democrat Jimmy Carter. He won 56.5% of the vote in Neshoba County.
* Transcript (The Neshoba Democrat): @

* Recording (Reagan's speech begins just before the 18:00 mark; from Mississippi Digital Library): @
* Mississippi results of 1980 election, by county (Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections): @
* "Red, White and Blue-Gray" (Walker Percy, The Commonweal, December 1961): @

Wednesday, June 21, 1989: Mississippi apologizes
     Mississippi Secretary of State Dick Molpus, a native of Philadelphia, addresses a memorial service at Mt. Zion UMC. Speaking to the victims' families, he says: "We deeply regret what happened here 25 years ago. We wish we could undo it. We are profoundly sorry that they are gone. We wish we could bring them back."
* Text (The Philadelphia Coalition): @
* "The '64 Civil Rights Murders: The Struggle Continues" (Jesse Kornbluth, New York  Times Magazine, July 1989): @
* "Q&A with Dick Molpus" (The Hechinger Report, June 2014): @

Wednesday, June 21, 1989: Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner Day
     The U.S. Congress passes a resolution that states, in part: "Whereas the lifework of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner remains unfinished until all barriers are removed that bar the full participation of every citizen of this Nation in the democratic process of this Nation, especially in the election process."
* Text (U.S. Government Printing Office): @

Tuesday, June 21, 2005: Edgar Ray Killen convicted

     Killen, 80, whose trial in 1967 ended in a hung jury, is found guilty on three counts of manslaughter. He is sentenced to 60 years in prison.

* "Former Klansman Guilty of Manslaughter in 1964 Deaths" (New York Times, June 22): @
* "Ex-Klansman gets 60 years for 1964 slayings" (Story and video, NBC News): @
* "Racial Healing in Mississippi" (John F. Sugg, Creative Loafing Atlanta, June 29): @
* "Justice in Mississippi: The Murder Trial of Edgar Ray Killen" (Howard Ball, 2006): @
* "Out of the Past" (American Journalism Review, April/May 2005): @
* "Barry Bradford and the Reopening of Mississippi Burning Case" (from barrybradford.com): @

* Killen record, Mississippi Department of Corrections: @

November 24, 2014
     Goodman, Cheney and Schwerner are awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
* White House announcement: @

June 20, 2016
* "Mississippi Ends Inquiry Into 1964 Killing of 3 Civil Rights Workers" (New York Times): @
* Department of Justice report: @

Other resources

Related links can also be found in the earlier Freedom Summer post.

Overviews

* FBI summary and files: @ and @

* Summary (Mississippi Civil Rights Project): @

* Summary ("Freedom Summer," Stanley Nelson): @
* Chronology (Arkansas Delta Truth and Justice Center): @

* "Mississippi Burning Murders (1964)," from "Encyclopedia of the Sixties": @

Books

* "Student Activism and Civil Rights in Mississippi" (James P. Marshall, 2013): @
* "Transformed: A White Mississippi Pastor's Journey into Civil Rights and Beyond" (William G. McAtee, 2011): @
* "Devil's Sanctuary: An Eyewitness History of Mississippi Hate Crimes" (Alex A. Alston Jr. and James L. Dickerson, 2009): @
* "We Are Not Afraid: The Story of Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney and the Civil Rights Campaign for Mississippi" (Seth Cagin and Phillip Dray, 2006): @
* "Where Rebels Roost: Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited" (M. Susan Orr Klopfer, 2005): @
* "Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws That Changed America" (Nick Kotz, 2005): @ 
* Murder in Mississippi: United States v. Price and the Struggle for Civil Rights" (Howard Ball, 2004): @

* "The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission: Civil Rights and States' Rights" (Yasuhiro Katagiri, 2001): @
* "In a Madhouse's Din: Civil Rights Coverage by Mississippi's Daily Press" (Susan Weill, 2002): @
* "Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi" (John Dittmer, 1994): @

* "The Courting of Marcus Dupree" (Willie Morris, 1983): @
* "Witness in Philadelphia" (Florence Mars, 1977): @
* "Attack on Terror" (Don Whitehead, 1970): @
* "Mississippi: The Closed Society" (James W. Silver, 1964): @

Audio / video

* Conversations between President Johnson and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (June-August 1964, C-SPAN): @

* "Mississippi Burning, 1964" (Miller Center, University of Virginia): @

* CBS News special (June 25): @
* NBC News special (June 27): @

* Hoover at opening of field office in Jackson (video, July 10): @
* Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive (University of Southern Mississippi): @

Photos

* Matt Herron and George Ballis (Take Stock): @
* Bill Eppridge (near bottom of page): @

* From CBS News: @

Newspapers / magazines

* "Mississippi Eyewitness" (special issue of Ramparts magazine, 1964): @

* "The Lasting Impact of a Civil Rights Icon's Murder" (Hank Klibanoff, Smithsonian magazine, December 2008): @

* New York newspaper clippings (Carolyn Goodman Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society): @

Organizations

* The Andrew Goodman Foundation: @

* James Earl Chaney Foundation: @

* William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation: @

* Mississippi Truth Project: @

* Mississippi Center for Justice: @
* "Freedom Mosaic" (National Center for Civil & Human Rights): @

Miscellaneous

* Mississippi Sovereignty Commission archives (Mississippi Department of Archives and History): @
* Freedom Summer Collection (Wisconsin Historical Society): @

* Information Resources (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee): @ 
* "Neshoba County African-American Driving Tour" (brochure from The Philadelphia Coalition and the Philadelphia Community Development Partnership): @
* "Partial List of Racial Murders in the South in the Last 2 Years" (April 1963-March 1965, Poor People's Corporation): @
* "Civil Rights Martyrs" (Southern Poverty Law Center): @

* Account by Freedom Summer volunteer Jonathan Steele: @
* Rita Schwerner deposition in COFO v. Rainey (signed July 29, 1964): @ 

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