About this Book

In 1964 college students and civil rights activists came to the South to join the struggle for racial justice. In Philadelphia, Mississippi, three young men paid for their convictions with their lives. This is the true account of the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner at the hands of Ku Klux Klansmen and local police. Described as "one of the best books on the civil rights movement," the murders it describes inspired the acclaimed film, Mississippi Burning. The events surrounding this seminal event re-entered public debate with the 2005 conviction of manslaughter by Klansman and Imperial Wizard, Edgar Ray Killen, for his part in orchestrating the murders.--From publisher description.