Edgar Ray Killen, the former Ku Klux Klansman responsible for a notorious civil rights era murder, has died in a Mississippi prison. Killen orchestrated the killings of three Freedom Summer workers in Neshoba County, Miss. in 1964, a crime that shocked the nation and acted as a catalyst for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The state corrections department says Killen died at 9 p.m. Thursday night at the Mississippi State Penitentiary. He was 92 years old and was serving a 60-year sentence for manslaughter in the killings of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.
The three civil rights workers, all in their 20s, were ambushed on June 21, 1964. They’d been lured to the area to investigate a church burning outside Philadelphia, Miss., and as they were leaving, local authorities arrested them. Hours later, they were released from jail, chased down by carloads of Klansmen, and shot to death.
Read this story now for free
To continue reading, sign up for our newsletter and get unlimited access to WABE.org
You can select your preferences for news and local content. We will never share your email address. Learn how your newsletter sign-up will support WABE and Public Media
