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By Root 1837 0

site of the three murders, they set stones on the sacred ground. And they ask “Why only Killen?” Five men convicted of civil rights violations in 1967 are still living. In 1969 a federal appeals court found these men complicit “in a calculated, cold-blooded and merciless plot to murder the three men,” so why not try them for murder? Further prosecution, however, remains elusive. In 2008, the federal Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act was passed to fund investigations into such “cold cases.” Yet Jerry Mitchell thinks more than money will be needed. The Clarion-Ledger reporter sees enough evidence for another “Mississippi Burning” trial, but wonders whether the state has the will. “Other cold cases are not very viable,” Mitchell said. “This one, on the other hand, you’ve got 40,000 pages of documents, living witnesses, trial transcripts—the real basis of a case. It should be investigated again, and I don’t know why it hasn’t been.”

The legacy of Freedom Summer remains embattled. Was it a catalyst for change or an unnecessary provocation that instilled new venom in a dying culture? Interviewed in the mid-1980s, Citizens’ Council president William Simmons remained defiant. “That was the time of the hippies just coming in,” he said, missing the date by three years. “Many had on hippie uniforms and conducted themselves in hippie ways. . . . The arrogance that they showed in wanting to reform a whole state in the way they thought it should be created resentment.” SNCC staffer Charlie Cobb concedes that the summer “changed Mississippi forever,” but believes the changes were inevitable. “You were going to get these federal laws—the Civil Rights Bill in ’64, and the Voting Rights Act in ’65. And eventually you were going to get some slowing of the violence.” Given the loss of momentum among locals, Cobb concluded, “It would have been better to go the other way.”

But many others cannot praise Freedom Summer highly enough. Aaron Henry called it “the greatest sociological experiment the nation has ever pulled off.” The summer changed Mississippi and “the minds of blacks . . . [who] began to look upon themselves as somebody.” Fannie Lou Hamer all but sanctified the “Christ-like” volunteers. “They were the best friends we ever met,” she said. “ . . . We had wondered if there was anybody human enough to see us as human beings instead of animals.” And Georgia congressman John Lewis, interviewed during the 2008 presidential campaign, saw a longer legacy. “Freedom Summer injected a new spirit into the very vein of life in Mississippi and the country,” the former SNCC chair said. “It literally brought the country to Mississippi. People were able to see the horror and evil of blatant racial discrimination. If it hadn’t been for the veterans of Freedom Summer, there would be no Barack Obama.”

Tuesday, January 20, 2009, was clear and chilly in Mississippi. Light snow fell in Oxford. Even the Gulf Coast awoke to freezing temperatures. For most of the morning, Mississippians went about their business. In small diners near courthouse squares, waitresses served biscuits and gravy, eggs and grits. Light trucks rolled off the assembly line at the Nissan factory outside Canton. Cars zipped along Interstate 55—north toward Memphis, south toward the Louisiana line. But then toward 11:00 a.m., time seemed to stop as Mississippi bore witness to Freedom Summer’s final fruit.

Barack Obama handily won Mississippi’s Democratic primary, but come November, he did not win the state that has voted Republican in all but one election (Jimmy Carter’s) since 1964. Yet throughout the 2008 campaign, Mississippi’s reconciliation was on display. The Jackson Clarion-Ledger and other papers endorsed Obama. On election day, a white plantation owner in Panola County, though not an Obama supporter, loaded black workers in his pickup and drove them to the polls. Voter turnout hit record highs, and, as in the rest of America, voting for a black presidential candidate brought tears and celebration. But when the votes were tallied, some had a hard time getting