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- NATION, Page 23American NotesMISSISSIPPILiving Down The Past
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- Though eight members of the Ku Klux Klan served prison
- sentences on federal charges of conspiring to deny the civil
- rights of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, no
- state charges were ever filed against the killers of the three
- civil rights workers, who were slain near Philadelphia, Miss.,
- during the Freedom Summer of 1964. That may now change. Two
- weeks ago, Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore announced
- that he is considering reopening the case.
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- Philadelphia has been trying to live down its reputation for
- racial violence, which was revived by the movie Mississippi
- Burning, loosely based on the case. Last week several hundred
- people gathered to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the
- crime. Relatives of the slain workers then journeyed to
- Washington for another commemoration and a White House meeting
- with President Bush, who described the young men as heroes. But
- when the families implored Bush to promise that he would
- support attempts to reverse a recent Supreme Court ruling
- widely considered to be a setback for civil rights, the
- President declined.
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