Neshoba, the name of a county in Mississippi, will for many baby boomers forever be linked with one of the most brutal events in the history of the American Civil Rights movement: the 1964 murder of Andrew Goodman, James Earl Chaney and Michael Schwerner. However, for younger people or those who never took much of an interest in politics, the name may carry no association at all.

 

It’s for the second group that the film Neshoba is most valuable. This is a straightforward documentary assembled from archival materials, talking heads interviews and re-enactments that does a reasonable job of telling the story and would work well as part of a high school history lesson on the Civil Rights Movement. It also brings the story into the 21^st century, examining the attitudes of county residents toward racial issues in general and the Goodman/Chaney/Schwerner case in particular.

 

The basic facts are not in question. Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner were in Mississippi to help register African Americans to vote as part of the Freedom Summer. On the night of their disappearance they were arrested (for allegedly driving 35 mph over the speed limit) and were held in the Neshoba County jail while members of the Ku Klux Klan planned their murder. After release they were ambushed by the Klan, murdered, and their bodies hidden in a mud dam. Because two of the three victims were white their disappearance caused an uproar (a roll call of murdered civil rights workers, most of whom you have never heard of, at the end of the film offers evidence that such “disappearances” were common). After Mississippi officials declined to investigate, the FBI got involved and in 1967 15 individuals were tried in federal court (before an all-white jury). Seven were convicted and served 2-6 years each.

 

One who was tried but acquitted (with a jury hung 11-1, the lone holdout being a woman who said “she could never convict a preacher”) was the Reverend Edgar Ray Killen. In 2004, after years of effort by the journalist Jerry Mitchell and others, Killen’s case was reopened. In June 2005 he was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 60 years in prison, effectively a life sentence as Killen was by that time 80 years old and wheelchair bound. It’s a glass half full/half empty result, in one sense a victory providing some closure for the victim’s families, in another sense a defeat because 1) Killen got to live most of his life in freedom and 2) numerous other individuals also implicated in the murders were not even brought to trial.

 

Directors Micki Dickoff and Tony Pagano use Killen’s trial as their film’s organizing feature, interspersing historical information and present-day interviews around its progress. They present a collage of opinions regarding the trial, not surprisingly finding some who welcome a second chance to call Killen to account and others who would prefer to let the past remain in the past. Similarly, they find some residents of Neshoba County who are making an active effort to break down racial barriers while others are content with things as they are.

 

The real coup in Neshoba was convincing Killen to be interviewed. It’s remarkable how much he seems to live in a time capsule where it’s still 1964; he feels free to express his racist opinions openly rather than couching them in coded language. Archival clips provide evidence that such speech was once common. Ross Barnett, governor of Mississippi 1960-1964, tells a crowd that, “I’m a Mississippi segregationist and I am proud of it,” while a Columbia University professor states that, “The great majority of Negroes, in terms of mental ability, simply can’t do college work.” It’s always worthwhile to be reminded that in the not-to-distant past people in positions of power and respect in our country could freely express such attitudes. Today, while I would never claim that racism has been eradicated, at least it has become more subtle.

 

Neshoba also documents the fact that the 1964 killing was not the work of a few isolated individuals, but was instead a highly organized effort with the involvement of many people including those entrusted with enforcing the law. Finally, it provides a reminder that the 1960s were not just about smoking pot and wearing beads. Many young people were seriously involved in political movements and some sacrificed their lives trying to bring freedom to others. In the end it’s not a bad film, just a rather ordinary one that buries its most interesting material beneath a slew of unremarkable interviews and repeats points were clear the first time.

 

Extras on the DVD include several extended sections of courtroom testimony from the 1967 trial, a 15-minute short film “Get on Board: Freedom Ride 2004” by Micki Dickoff documenting the efforts of Ben Chaney (brother of James) to educate new generations about Civil Rights, notes from Dickoff about the film and biographies of Dickoff and Pagano. | Sarah Boslaugh