National Report on a Small Town Murder: The Freedom Summer

Photography quickly became a popular media outlet that provided exposure for the Civil Rights movement and racial violence in the South. For example, the New York Journal-American provided months of coverage on an event dubbed "The Freedom Summer Murders," an incidence of racial violence that occurred on the other side of the country. On June 25, 1964, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were in Mississippi helping register voters with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), an activist organization during the Civil Rights movement. The three civil rights workings were driving on a road near a small town called Philadelphia when they were pulled over for speeding. They were arrested and held in a county jail for several hours. After their release, they were followed by law enforcement, pulled over again, and then abducted. After being taken to another location, the three men were shot, and their bodies were buried in a nearby dam. 

The station wagon they had been driving was left in a swamp and burned, which was found by police three days later. The disappearances were treated as a missing persons case, with extensive searches being conducted for a month and a half. Many different authorities were brought in to assist the search, including the FBI, the Navy, and the state authorities. While the men were missing, the nation was on edge. By the tenth day of the search, most major news networks were covering the story, including CBS, Time magazine, and the New York Journal-American. Such extensive news coverage over a long period of time created more awareness of racial violence in the South, and even the federal government became involved. President Lyndon B. Johnson met with Goodman and Schwerner's parents to offer his support. The FBI offered a $25,000-dollar reward to anyone who could bring forth information. The country was waiting for the men to be found.

The bodies were not discovered in the dam until August 4, almost six weeks after the men went missing. When autopsies reported that the bodies had been beaten and shot, the FBI launched a murder investigation. However, the state of Mississippi refused to charge any suspect of murder. Eventually, a federal grand jury indicted 21 men, and their trial in 1967 was followed by several jail sentences. However, none of the men found guilty served more than six years behind bars. All in all, the investigation and trials uncovered that the murders were a conspiracy involving the Ku Klux Klan, the Neshoba County Sheriff's Office and the Philadelphia Police Department. One of the murderers was Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price, the officer who had originally arrested the men, and was later a member of their search party.

The murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner in a town of less than 6,000 people became national news in less than a week, and the news outlets continued to cover the narrative until 2005, when the last murderer was prosecuted. The South was no stranger to racial violence at the time, but this event took hold as a larger force during the Civil Rights movement. Media outlets across the nation used photographs and reports from the investigation to spread awareness of racial violence, and this coverage created a platform for civil rights activists and an initiative for new policy. President Johnson fueled public outrage over the deaths to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. Malcolm X, a human rights activist, spoke about how the case was evidence that federal and local governments were not protecting the lives of black people in the United States. On the night of June 25, 1964, three men lost their lives in a hate crime, and that event helped to impact the course of the Civil Rights movement.