Kate Cavett and John Biewen share unused excerpts of "O Freedom Over Me" documentary

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MPR’s John Biewen and Kate Cavett, both producers of the documentary "O Freedom Over Me," discuss excerpts, interviews, and outtakes that did not make it into final production. The documentary focused on the 30-year anniversary of Freedom Summer.

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This week as you probably know we're presenting a week of special programming on Freedom Summer the peaceful assaulted racism in Mississippi, which got underway 30 years ago this week about today on. Midday. We've been joined in the studio by Minnesota Public Radio reporter John biewen, who was the producer of oh Freedom over me the documentary broadcast yesterday and take Kevin who is Consulting producer on the project and the person who actually suggested the special project on Freedom Summer to a Minnesota Public Radio, Jon and Kate have brought some tape with them pieces of interviews that were interesting and informative but simply did not fit in the documentary. Thanks for coming in folks happy to be here as we work our way through some of the so-called outtakes here and I well we we we got about 60 hours of tape for this program, which I think is actually pretty good.Pretty good ratio about an hour of of interviews per minute of a radio program. We interviewed dozens of people who were involved because this is a big complicated store and we felt it in order to do it justice. We really needed to talk to representative numbers of people from the different groups that were involved and there's just as you said, there's just so much interesting stuff that that we couldn't get in the piece that that illuminate the story further. So we thought this would be a good opportunity. Maybe I'll just go ahead and talk a little bit about the first one we can just kind of kind of get going a gentleman named MacArthur cotton was a was a is a Mississippian. He was a member of a staff member with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Source, Nick and he is still in Mississippi still doing political and social organizing and he told us we were talking about the way that life was for black people in Mississippi prior to the Civil Rights Movement.When people could simply be beaten or killed for the most trivial reasons and nobody did anything about it charges were not likely to be brought people were sometimes just shot in broad daylight and and there was nothing done about it and he told us that one victim of of that kind of a couple stories but one victim of that kind of brutality was his own grandfather. He was a few people at time you had a reed and I he would be quiet and I'll smell of books and he would advise people there their rights to know. And I guess he if I gave somebody the wrong advise against the wrong person summer 1.8 just a beat him. You know, they didn't kill him is beat him so bad until he died and I like another month or two. He never recovered and you know, you had that kind of thing when I was back. Crank 15 awesome music church at the church Association at the open, Winston County. in Alaska, was in a country that was kind of big day, you know people took off and took part in that kind of activity in an interview there would He wanted to take off. He didn't go to plow that day, but the you know his boss man wanted to plan. so he came on up the trash with the recipe for then and there in his trailer came up there and And in fact, I told you to go to the field. I shot him 6 times, you know right there and you know, you fake my images he was laying there and you know do something to me cuz I didn't understand at the time. How that one man came up there? in inshot disperse and nobody nobody really said nothing. Nobody really did anything. MacArthur cotton in Jackson, Mississippi, is that right? I think just north of Jackson and I don't remember the name of the town. He came into Jackson tit to talk with us in doing the project. We interviewed three groups of people. Matt cotton would be one of the local mississippians who was there working actively with the movement was actively working as part of Snick, but that we would consider a local person. He's continued to stay in Mississippi. He continues to work for a change in Mississippi. We also interviewed staff of snake and core. A lot of them have moved out of Mississippi primarily. We interviewed those people in Washington DC cuz there's a large group of them in Washington DC and then we interviewed volunteers. That was probably the smallest number of people that we interviewed. We were fortunate to find some volunteers right here in Minnesota. One of the volunteers was Lester golf Lester had been a student in North Dakota had gone down to Mississippi done the training in Oxford, Mississippi and had gone on down to two Mississippi at the end of the week's training and was sent to Ruleville, Mississippi and in Ruleville Fannie Lou Hamer. This was her hometown Fannie Lou Hamer is known as one of the spiritual leaders of Snick. She was a very powerful woman. She was a song leader and she did a lot of traveling after she had been throwing off the plantation. Mrs. Hammer had tried to register to vote and when the plantation owner found out that she had tried they hadn't allowed her to but she had tried by after being a supervisor a timekeeper on the plantation for 20 years how he threw her and her family also Plantation. They have no place to live. And so she had these powerful stories to tell when she would raise money for Snick. She had been on a trip and had arrived home the same day that Mr. Galt arrived as a brand-new volunteer from the North in Mississippi, and he was sent over to guard her house because they weren't sure what would happen and so he went over and knocked on the door and said that he was ready to he was supposed to guard her house for this first night of her being back in town very much. Then she said I'm going to have some chicken Rio some chicken with me. And and I had my first reaction was I was making $3.03 an hour $3 a day. Before she a blacklisted of speaking to her as hopefully getting her a little more money, but her husband used to sit out in front everyday and he couldn't work then nobody would hire him and so I should almost late food cost money. I can't take it when your food but there's a whole social thing in my life even like him being together and that was more important if you were there for and so I core Sideshow. Yeah, and so we sat and and ate some food and visiting and then I was just really she was exhausted of course, but I was so amazed at the determination and intelligence this woman and she is as much as anybody really understood. The morality of the situation. It's not a question a lot? We're right we have to have the same opportunities. We have to have the same opportunities to vote. We have to the same opportunities to hold their head up and say we're human beings. and we have to be free of the threat of lizards of threats of Lynch and we have to be free of the insult that we're not as good as one of the things that we heard a lot was about the morality and about the southern Civil Rights Movement being a movement of I'm soul of morality of spirit and those were with the stories that ran through but everyone told us houses. That was he armed and stuff for some of these volunteers aren't I didn't know they weren't an interesting question because I'm not sure exactly how he was going to guard the house but non-violence was an important part of the philosophy of the civil rights groups and of the Freedom Summer in the volunteers who are involved. It's interesting that nonviolence was not necessarily adopted by black folks in Mississippi. In fact many of them were armed and that's how they they survived the clan knew that that people in this house had firearms and that was one of the ways that that they protect themselves and that was partly just part of the culture. People that hunting and so on so they had Firearms but a lot of people would say you need a Blackwell who was a local Mississippi and would say the other people in the Civil Rights group sniffing snake Encore for nonviolent. The local people would say, we're not nonviolent. But if we have to protect ourselves we will and in fact there were a couple stories of people told about about local black, Mississippi and shooting back when the night riders came around their house and actually in a couple cases killing a couple of of white supremacists and that was not it's it's it's fascinating that the local authorities would not even report that let alone let alone prosecute because they preferred to leave it to the clan to try to retaliate. So there's a story about this man named Hartman turnbow who who shot shot back when Knight Riders came around to try and burn this house down or whatever and killed a couple man, and it was no I was down about except they eventually burn down his house and made a couple of times to kill him, but but never did. The I remember Lester saying that he did pick up a a baseball bat when he was sent out to guard this house and he said I didn't know what I was going to do with her somebody shot at us. But you know, I felt a little bit better picking that up the volunteers would always turn the conversations around and talk about the local people and I think the volunteers see the local people as the heroes. The Press has had a tendency to look at the volunteers has wonderful. Wonderful young white students going down to save Mississippi, but the volunteers would see the local people as as the heroes. One of the volunteers were interviewed is is a man named Robbie Osman who lives in San Francisco now, he was from Brooklyn than 19 years old when he went down to Mississippi and he talked very thoughtfully about The just the enormous cultural chasms between these between people who were trying to work together during Freedom Summer just different realities that people came from northern educated whites on the one hand and poor disenfranchised blacks just unimaginably poor and disenfranchised in the South and Osman stayed for several weeks with a local black Farm family in Holmes County, Mississippi. They had a few acres and they were almost goes without saying treated unfairly by the cotton allocation laws, but they did what they could to make a living on this little piece of land that they had and we lived in Another civil rights worker and I shared a bed with something. I never done before and learn to love southern cooking and we live two very different life. It wasn't like Brooklyn. They were of course, very brave and took a Monumental risk and putting us up. The possibility of Retribution was real and there was no safety net for them. If someone I don't know the details of their Financial lives with them for they had no insurance if somebody bomb their house they were going to be without a house. And if and when once we left in particular or they certainly could have been in danger of retaliation, so they took a tremendous risk and I had great admiration for them. They obviously thought that what we were doing was important. It's also quite possible that they forgot us strange. I mean we were very different from them, but we would sit around and talk. I think that It embarrasses me a little to remember that how I could say to people whose experience of racism and risk of standing against it were hard for me to calculate either one of those things were hard for me to appreciate it. I was beginning to understand but really only beginning and I would say now is the time that the attention of the country is on, Mississippi and if if if you're ever going to make a stand for Freedom now is the time to do it and It embarrasses me to think now, about how naive that can sound it's not that I'm not proud of what I did, but I was 19 and from Brooklyn and it was hard to know what it meant to be 60 and from Mississippi and black. That was Robby Osmond another volunteer that we talked with who also is living in San Francisco is a Woman by the name of chewed Pam Parker Allen. She went to Mississippi from Carleton College. Actually Carlton sent about 10 students down that summer and she chewed has some important impressions of Mississippi as well Well before I went to Mississippi, I believe that Mississippi was an aberration that the kinds of exploitation oppression degradation the the violence the harassment the terrorism, I believed all this didn't exist in the rest of the United States and that this was like an accident and that all we had to do was go down and bring our presents into Mississippi and change it. Of course later. I began to be aware that what was happening in Mississippi still in 1964 more reflected the history of this country and more reflected the involvement of the United States in the rest of the world where violence was used to make profits for a few and where people were kept down to terrorism and were severely and are severely exploited for the you know sake of profits that was going on in Mississippi and at the time I thought it was unique now, I know that it was not It just was very bold. And for the most part in the United States is kept under cover. To add Pam Parker Allen, Pennsylvania to be active in the in the women's movement primarily but a number of social movements after Freedom Summer. She also was one of the few people who talk of course every we had all these stories that people told us of violence and threats of violence and describing it as a war zone and so on but she had an Insight that was unusual and that is that that seems to make a lot of sense and that is the people coming out of that kind of experience would have the kinds of experiences of people have in when they go through in a war for example, post-traumatic stress disorder kinds of things most of the Civil Rights workers in the more experienced. They were in the more they had been beaten up and jailed and and shots fired in through their cars and so on the less they talked about that kind of thing in the more they seem to sort of brush it off and say well it was I had to do and then they were just signs that they know of the pain and so on that they that they are still coping with after all these years but you talked about the trauma and the threat of violence in the effect that had in Holly Springs. One of the workers was killed in a car accident. It was never quite clear what happened the person who was riding with him who was a local person. Both of these were African American men. The person riding with him was quite severely injured and was not allowed to be treated at the local hospital. The police were not going to let him be taken to Memphis because they were going to charge him with the word murder of Wayne Yancey the man who'd been killed. Our nurse said that he would die if he didn't get treatment the local ambulance the white ambulance would not take him and when the police finally said he could go it was the black Undertaker who took him in the Hurst to Memphis, Tennessee. This happened in the middle of the summer and then next week we found out that the bodies of the three who were missing had been found. So this kind of trauma this kind of of her it's very hard what you do with the time when you're in those kinds of conditions as you go right on and you just bury it somewhere and I think especially for the men where they were working on the road and being chased a great deal and having times of being stopped and harassed and intimidated put in jail. I think that one just kept on and kept on and you never deal with these things and the leader in our project he had migraine headaches which we didn't know about at the time. I read about that later. What we knew was he had a terrible temper and what I can see now is that that was you know, a result of his coping coping with all the tensions and all the the pressure and it was no I mean it was his temper was a real Pro. But I think now I mean now I read about him. I know that one points want somebody played Russian roulette with him and had a loaded gun in his head. I know that or threatened to kill him with a loaded gun in his head. I know that he was beaten and kept in jail incommunicado with broken ribs. I know these things that I didn't know then but that kind of tension, you know, when people are are under such severe stress does take its toll I think and I think some of us have realized that that many of us left the the movement with some form of post-traumatic stress. Some more than others, you know and I think in some ways probably if you had less happen to you probably are more aware of what it did because you didn't, you know, you didn't have more Barry put it pushing it down even further. Jude Allen It cake was talking about how this was a moral movement. And then that it wasn't just about you know, getting things for black people that they were deprived of it was it was certainly that and it was about using leverage and trying to engage the the powers of the government in the media and so on but it was it was one of the books that's been written about Freedom. Summer was was titled like a moral Crusade because that's that was kind of the flavor that it had and it was based on the idea that that if the society saw what Mississippi Society was like that that people would do things to change it and some of the people ended up being disillusioned because that didn't happen as quickly or as dramatically and then still hasn't as as some people hoped but that's what that was kind of the flavor that it had was that this was not just about using leverage it was about It was about morality and the courage that people displayed in doing that. It is occurred to me. And that's one of the things that really is interesting about this story. I think is that it's a sort of it's a it's a it's a good vs Evil kind of story that that we don't let in some ways. We don't see a lot of these days Bob Zellner was on the staff of snake for several years. He had joined Snick as a young white Alabama native after he was after he was expelled or almost expelled from his college for trying to interview on Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy for a for a paper that he was going to write on the race issue. They just wanted him to interview the clan or something like that and you thought well, he should maybe go down the road. He was going to college in Montgomery and go down the road and talk to Martin Luther King and they expelled him for from school. He and five others who who actually went down there and did that and he describes it. Being in a society in which you had to choose either to completely so come you don't conform to the to the racist ideology or become a total radical. He chose the latter & Joint snack and went around the South being beaten in jail too long side that black civil rights workers and he talks about the courage that that he and especially black civil rights workers displayed during those years. Will I didn't I didn't I never talk back to the police as much and it's but bodaciously as some of our black staff, I mean I have heard stories and I have actually seen cases where friends and Stokely Carmichael Kwame ture. Woodbury rate Sheriff's you know, I would just absolutely break them in public as a coldly calculated exercise and number one revolutionary suicide because if you do that, you know, if you challenge someone's manhood like that and it one of these racist Southerners that it's tantamount to risking your life, but that was done many times as a way of saying to the people that We don't respect this kind of law. We don't respect you. And we won't give you respect and people were literally beaten within an inch of their lives sometimes and many times black women just by refusing to say yes, sir, and no sir. For that very reason, so it was a revolutionary. An active revolutionary cultural Readjustment, I think in order to do that. And also you could generally tell your your antenna became so finely tuned that you walked that that line between absolute certain death and the possibility of surviving and you you made those decisions as they happen and so forth and you just made them automatically in many cases of James Forman. I've seen him leap into the breach in the face of of white terrorism in the face of Tremendously brutal police brutality and stopped riots stop the police riots. I want to make that clear the police right? Stop them in their tracks. Just simply by saying I will give my life in this situation and facing tanks. I mean, even you know, and the the courage was not then it was much Beyond just a real physical courage it was A revolutionary courage that normal Ordinary People had under the circumstances because it was what was required he can the people that we interviewed particularly the people that have been involved in the movement for quite a while. He has returned to go to college is a PhD candidate at Tulane and I think because of his studies looking at being his story and he's in a lot of examining of himself and of the movement and is willing to talk about the courage that they had most of the Corn snake staff which is kind of sad to decide and say, well you just you did it, you know, he doesn't like you wash the dishes you did it because you had to do it Bob was willing to talk about the courage another one of those are the people that we met that has shown much courage over the years and was an adventure for John and I we went down to Mary Washington College. Virginia home around the east coast and interview James Farmer. Mr. Farmer was the head of core the Congress of racial equality and he had formed this organization in 1947 and in Mississippi and feed him some of the Toledo organizations worst neck and core. It's almost a farmer was not in Mississippi the whole summer because he was working in many states. He 74 years old. He teaches a class on the Civil Rights Movement at Mary Washington University and he was he was intent on telling us the story that began 30 years ago today, June 21st. Michael schwerner and James Chaney who work or staff and Andrew Goodman who was a volunteer just arriving in Mississippi which killed 30 years ago today and mr. Farmer is a wonderful Storyteller and enthralled John and I with with his storytelling and his his participation and what had happened to these these three three civil rights workers organization that divided the state up into the 5 congressional district and and core was in charge of the 4th congressional district in eastern, Mississippi. The people who were working there was a young social worker from New York named Michael schwerner Mickey schwerner and James Chaney. They were members of the corestaff. Smyrna had been a social worker from New York and join the Corps staff, maybe a year prior to Freedom Summer and had requested that we send him where the action was and his choice of places to go laws, Mississippi. He had been sent to Meridian where he hooked up with James Chaney was a young black who I was born and reared in Meridian, Mississippi and there they were conducting voter education classes in Philadelphia. A third member of the trio, which is now become famous. Why was Andrew Goodman? Who was a student volunteer from Queens College in New York who had been selected as one of the Thousand volunteers who went to Mississippi for Freedom Summer and Randy Goodman. Had to spend one night in, Mississippi. At the home of Aaron Henry the state chairman of the NAACP. Have before being sent over to Region 4 to hook up with the schwerner and Chaney when those two were preparing to go over to Philadelphia and Neshoba County and look at the ashes of the Methodist Church black Methodist Church, which I've been burned to the ground earlier. And they were going over there to kick through the ashes and also to begin investigating the burning of the church. Now Goodman was sent over there by kofo the Council of Federated organizations. What show was a snake Corps in ACP and Southern Christian leadership conference. So he joined with the other two in Meridian and they went over together that incidentally was the beginning of a long long and sad story or the three of them disappeared after going to a Philadelphia. I got a call from Corps Chief of Staff in region for George Raymond now deceased He called me about 3 in the morning, Nova, June 22nd. And woke me up told me that the three of us persons had. We're missing that they had gone over to Philadelphia to look at the ruins of the church that had been burned out. They would be back in Meridian by Sundown 21st of June and here it was 3 a.m. The next day and they had not been heard from so clearly there had been Foul Play. I knew that that must be the case because after all this was Mississippi as Mississippi was then whenever people went someplace people in the movement that is and we're expected back by a certain time. If they were not going to be back by that time. They always called to let folk know why they were not going to be back by that time and when they would be back in where they were in the meantime. No one had heard from this tree gold. So there had been Foul Play. I told George that that I would come down by the first flight that could get out of New York City. And he would meet me at the airport. I didn't call Dick Gregory. Dick Gregory was and those years a stand-up comic not the social philosopher that he is now. He had just returned from a tour of Europe. He was tired and jet-lagged, and I woke him up, and he was very Gruff from the other. Hello dick. This is Jim Palmer, and I told him that three of you guys were missing in, Mississippi. And that does send them and sober them up. He said hoo. What part? I told him he said well, when are you going down? About 7 a.m. I had a flight. He asked me to give him names and phone numbers of persons to contact to have himself met when he got there and he would join me down there, but you did. when I got down to Meridian Which is the destination to which I flew? there was a large number of city policeman from Meridian there at the airport. To protect me presumably and I'm sure they were there honestly to seek to protect me. Meridian was a kind of island of Sanity or at least semi sanity in Sea of bigotry. And I'm sure that the police and the authorities are in Meridian. Did not want anything to happen to me in Meridian. If you're going to get killed. I'm sure they would have wanted me to go outside the city limits but not in their jurisdiction. They would have been embarrassed. So the police were there to protect me and they were armed with rifles and shotguns. I went to the small block hotel. Where are they corestaff? I was living on using as headquarters. I met with Rita schwerner. the Widow of Mickey schwerner one of the three Well, of course, we didn't know then that she was widowed while I guess we did know and she know it too. Then she went down there with make it her husband. They went as a calculated risk. They knew that anything might happen. And they were prepared for it. Sarita was dry. I'd now. and then we talked indeed about where we might look in the effort to locate the bodies and she use the word the body. She suggested that we might shift through the ashes at the County incinerator. And look for buttons from clothing. Fillings from teeth, which could be of an aid in identifying the bodies. I thought that a good idea but we never got around to it. There were many other things and more urgent things to take care of incidentally. Shortly after I landed in Meridian, I called the FBI. And urge him to come in. I do not remember who I spoke to. But whoever it was said no, you can't come in. How do you know there's been any crime committed. You don't have anybody's where the Corpus delicti and even if there has been a crime committed. How do you know it's our jurisdiction. Did anyone cross the state line and committing the crime which you don't know has been committed know we have no right to go in there and we're not coming in. That was the answer I got from the FBI. This is true in spite of the impression given by that very popular movie, Mississippi Burning with Chad. The FBI is the hero coming in on a white Steed to see the Justice was done truth is we had to drag them in kicking and screaming In order to get them into that area and they didn't come in at the outside. Well Dick Gregory and I decided that we were going over to Philadelphia in the Shobha County. to talk with Sheriff Ronnie and Deputy price about the three men in their disappearance. Members of our staff the core staff wanted to go with us. So we went in a caravan of cars. Dick and I were in the lead car and I was driving and the core staff and task force members were in cars behind us. When you got to the Neshoba County Line. That was a roadblock. Two Sheriff cars are blocking the road. Standing outside the cars where I'm two men and Sheriff uniforms. sheriff and the deputy the deputy of the sheriff brother I walked I guess watered would be a better more accurate Durham. He was heavy set round bottle over to me the lead car and asked my name and I told him and I told him this is Dick Gregory. Where y'all think y'all going? Told him that we were going over to Philadelphia. What are y'all going to do over there? We're going to talk to. Sheriff Rainey and Deputy price What y'all can talk to them about? We're going to talk to them about The Disappearance of three men. Coroner Chaney and Goodman. He whispered something to the deputy. then turn back to me and said I I'm Sheriff rainy share for this York County. And this here is my Deputy Deputy price. Y'all want to talk to us here. I said no. in your office All right, follow us. Several I have to tell them my men in the cars behind us to follow us know they can't come. Charania said they got to stay right here and wait for you to come back. I love him. I said do I have to tell them that so I did? Honey Gregory and I Then followed the rainy and price and their two cars. into Philadelphia Up to the building, which I guess was a city hall on the courthouse or combination thereof. Outside that the building across the street was a huge mob of men all white. all in shirt sleeves all with weapons in hand chains clubs baseball bats guns Admob appeared to extend around the block. Are there something else? There are two that will shape police there. on the building side of the block Standing almost shoulder to shoulder. With air rifles pointed toward the mob holding the mob at Bay. The director of the State Police of Mississippi at that time was a man named the Snodgrass Colonel Snodgrass. I think he's now retired, but probably still living I'd like to meet him sometime because I always had the feeling he was a decent human being. When we were demonstrating in the state of Mississippi, and if Colonel Snodgrass was there. We were given good protection. He was in seem to be an honest cop. And sometimes he would even give me a smile. If no one is looking if anyone is looking that smile with quickly disappear while he had learned that we were going over to Philadelphia and he had gotten his troop and stare. at this company tell Gregory and I followed rainy and rice up the sidewalk toward the building. Between lines of state troopers and up the steps and into the building and into an elevator. and the doors of the elevator close behind this we thought the same thing the same time and looked at each other. We never should have gotten And that closed elevator with those two men. I have the Eerie feeling is I looked at them if they knew a lot about The Disappearance of the three men trying to Goodman and Chaney now and that those elevator they could claim that we had jumped them. And they had to shoot us in self-defense. They be no Witnesses. Well, I breathe to gain when they Elevator stopped on the third floor in the door open Gregory and I followed them out of the elevator down the Colorado to the office at the end raney's office. There were three men there who mom raining introduced? When was the city of Boerne second County attorney? The third was Colonel Snodgrass the state police. He gave me a quick smile, which just as quickly disappear. We were not invited to sit down beside anyway. The tradition in Mississippi and the South generally in those years. It blacks were not have to sit out invited to sit down in the presence of Whites Whites with blacks and stand WeChat and rainy cleared his throat and I can talk so good. I got laryngitis this year man will talk for me. 4230 County attorney. The County Attorney looked at me and said well. I said we want to know from Deputy price what really happened? He's given conflicting stories. 2 The Crush first he said He never saw that man. And he told the press that he not only saw them, but he arrested them. So Deputy price what did happen? He cleared his throat and says. I'll tell you the God's truth. I did see them boys. They were speeding they're going about 80 miles an hour in a 30-mile Zone. I had to arrest them. That's my job. What time is it at 12 or 1 after noon? I took him to jail. Hyundai captain that you're close to sundown. Why'd you keep them in jail that long for speeding? The one I had to call the JP justice of peace, and he wasn't at home. So I had to wait for him to get back home. I wanted to find out how much he was going to find them. I need to find them $15. But the Niger I mean the Dakota boy training was driving didn't have no $15. But of course were no one of them two boys had $15. And he paid the fine. So I then took them out of jail close to sundown. And took them out to the outskirts of town on the Meridian side of town. Where the car was waiting and put them in that car. I think it was a blue station wagon Ford. And I watch them until I couldn't see their tail lights no more. They were headed toward Meridian. Then I turned around and came back into town. That's the last I seen it in boys. That's the God's truth. But I then told them that they're I had some guys young guys waiting at the County Line and they wanted to join in the search for their friends. Search where the where are you going to look? I said any place that bodies might be hidden in the swamps. The bushes the woods we can't let y'all do that is private property around here people shoot you for trespassing. I know there rattlesnakes in water moccasins in the swamps and they bite you they poisonous to kill you. We don't want nothing to happen to you informal while you're down here. The informant was an attempt to save mr. Obama, by the way. But that is as close as I could come to it. Tradition the etiquette for the blacks are not to be called mister of mesh message Uncle Sam or something. But then I never missed her 6 weeks later. The FBI called me the man who called was a cartha, DeLoach. Who I think was the number three man at the FBI. I had the title of associate director. He called and said Mr. Farm we want you to be the first to know because they were your guys we found the bodies. Had a paid informant told us if we looked under a fake down damn where there was no water. We would find something we pulled in a bulldozer. And the first shovelful of dirt uncovered the three bodies badly decomposed, but it was plain to see that the Cheney the black youth had suffered the most fearful beating. Imagine about it. That every bone in his body was broken and then he was shot The two white men were shot once each in the heart. And they did the FBI did remain in the area investigating and they arrested to get what was a 19 persons and charge them with conspiracy to violate the civil rights of the Three Men. And the man of the persons arrested were tried and convicted and sentenced and they serve time few years. And then they were released and their free Mississippi never charged them in with murders several years ago State authorities were considering filing murder charges against the men. But for reasons, which I'm not aware, they did not file such charges. Incidentally remind me add this footnote important for no butter. in 1989 we had to 25th anniversary anniversary commemoration of the murders down in Mississippi in Neshoba County. In fact in front of the rebuilt Methodist Church must have been ten thousand people there among the speakers were the governor then governor of Mississippi Mavis and the secretary of state of, Mississippi. They both made great speeches. tune in to Z Astic audience the Secretary of State said I was born and reared in Neshoba County. I was born and reared in the town of Philadelphia. And I am dreadfully sorry about what happened here 25 years ago. And I know that the decent people love this city and this County join with me and saying that they are sorry. and that they wish that we could bring those three young men back to life again, but we can't we wish that we could undo that dastardly deed. But we can't. I know there can be no real consolation. but maybe this will help a little late and he looked at the families of the three men over there and he said Please know that your son's deaths help to change this state. There are now more black elected officials in the state of Mississippi than in any state in the country. Are blacks holding offices from the top all the way down in the state of Mississippi? We're not perfect. They're still evil people in our state, but there are good people to the good people are speaking out more and more. That was not a dry eye and that's huge crowd. That day in my opinion Mississippi has changed and the blood of schwerner Goodman and Chaney help to change it. It was James Farmer. Interesting material when you get a lot more of a 200. Yeah, that's why we've been able to put together some of these things to their airing on other programs all week. And so there's a lot of stuff out there a lot of people with with a lot of significant stories and in a lot of soul they've they've risked a lot to change the country.

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