A hard fact to acknowledge

I have been debating with myself rather or not to post about the current trial invovling Edgar Killen. Killen is accused or murdering three civil rights activists in 1964. The names of Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney should never be forgotten. They were brave men who were brutally murdered during the "Freedom Summer" 1964 campaign in which civil rights activists were registering black voters. Reuters News

In 1994, another murderer was tried and convicted. Byrin De La Beckwith was convicted of murder in the death of Medgar Evers. Mr. Evers was a leader with the NACCP and to his credit, ten years after his death, Mississippi had a total of 145 elected black officials. When he was murdered in 1963, there were only 28,000 registered black voters. By 1971, there 250,000 and by 1982 over 500,000. Ole Miss

The legacies of men such as Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, Medgar Evers, and the countless others who strived to ensure that all in America would have equal rights will live on. The names of those that killed them will forever be associated with shame, ignorance, hatred, and just down right stupidity.

Martin Luther King Jr's words resonate across my mind,

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

National Civil Rights Museum

I think Martin Luther King Jr., will be glad that Mississippi is no longer sweltering in the heat of injustice. It has taken 40 years to bring Killen to justice, but he is being tried. The attitudes of the 1960's are no longer true today. Members of that vile group the Ku Klux Klan are seen for what they really are, murdering thugs.

One by one, we in Mississippi are trying to right the wrongs of the past.