Mississippi Eyewitness
the three civil rights workers -- and how they were murdered
Updated: 20 September 2013
Site updated: 20 September 2013
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This site represents an effort to put into web form (HTML and PDF) the 1964 Supplement published by Ramparts magazine in which six writers and a photographer document different aspects of the Mississippi 1964 civil-rights summer that infamously killed a trio of civil rights workers (James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner) -- and many others.

Mississippi Eyewitness cover: flowers on James Chaney's grave


Contents

Mississippi Eyewitness -- whole document
    (PDF)   with illustrations   (PDF=12MB; v. 9/15/13)
(PDF)   without illustrations   (PDF=344K; v. 9/15/13)

Individual articles   (PDFs primarily without illustrations)
    (PDF)   The Road to Mississippi   (Louis Lomax)
    A detailed, tense story of the backgrounds and slaying of Schwerner, Chany and Goodman
(PDF)   Mississippi Violence and Federal Power   (William Kunstler)
    The famous lawyer discusses the emptiness of federal "legal" excuses for not acting.
(PDF)   The Faces of Philadelphia   (James Marshall)
    A porfolio of portraits
(PDF)   Interview   (Dick Gregory)
    On Gregory's visit to Mississippi, the failure of law enforcement, and arranging for a reward for the killers
(PDF)   The Tip-Off   (John Howard Griffin)
    The author of Black Like Me risks his life to get word to COFO staff on the "Judas" in the triple-murder
(PDF)   Mississippi Autopsy   (Dr. David Spain)
    A New York pathologist experiences Mississippi danger while going to review James Chaney's battered body
(PDF)   Valley of Fear   (David Welsh)
    A catalog of present (1964) and past horrors committed by whites on blacks in Mississippi


The People Involved

LOUIS E. LOMAX, who wrote "The Road to Mississippi," is a noted Negro author and lecturer. His books include The Negro Revolt, and The Reluctant African. He is an Associate Editor of Ramparts magazine.

WILLIAM M. KUNSTLER, the author of "Mississippi Violence and Federal Power," is a New York attorney specializing in civil rights. He is a frequent magazine contributor and a detective story writer.

DAVID M. SPAIN, the author of "Mississippi Autopsy," is a widely respected pathologist who is clinical professor of pathology at New York Downstate Medical Center.

JOHN HOWARD GRIFFIN, who wrote "The Tip-off," is the author of the best-selling, Black Like Me. A novelist and musicologist, Mr. Griffin is also an Associate Editor of Ramparts magazine.

EDWARD M. KEATING is editor-in-chief and publisher of Ramparts magazine and the author of the forthcoming book, Scandal of Silence, to be published in February by Random House.

MAXWELL GEISMAR, the distinguished American critic, is an Associate Editor of Ramparts. Mr. Geismar's most recent book is Henry James and the Jacobites.

DICK GREGORY, who is interviewed on the Mississippi situation, is a comedian, author and civil rights leader. His autobiography, Nigger!, has recently been published.

DAVID WELSH, the author of "Valley of Fear," is. a reporter for the Detroit News. He spent many months in Mississippi this summer researching his report on Mississippi violence and terror.

Ramparts self-description