View source for James Chaney

{{Short description|American activist and KKK murder victim (1943–1964)}}
{{Other people}}
{{use mdy dates |date=February 2020}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = James Chaney
| image              = James Chaney (3x4 cropped).jpg
| image_size         = 
| caption            = Portrait of Chaney
| birth_name         = James Earl Chaney
| birth_date         = {{birth date|1943|5|30|mf=y}}
| birth_place        = [[Meridian, Mississippi]], U.S.
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1964|6|21|1943|5|30|mf=y}}
| death_place        = [[Philadelphia, Mississippi]], U.S.
| death_cause        = Murder
| awards             = [[Presidential Medal of Freedom]] (posthumous, 2014)
}}
'''James Earl Chaney''' (May 30, 1943 – June 21, 1964) was an American civil rights activist. He was one of three [[Congress of Racial Equality]] (CORE) civil rights workers [[Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner|murdered]] in [[Philadelphia, Mississippi]], by members of the [[Ku Klux Klan]] on June 21, 1964. The others were [[Andrew Goodman (activist)|Andrew Goodman]] and [[Michael Schwerner]] from [[New York City]].

==Biography==
===Early life and education===
James Earl Chaney was born on May 30, 1943, in [[Meridian, Mississippi]], the eldest son of [[Fannie Lee Chaney|Fannie Lee]] and Ben Chaney Sr. His brother Ben was nine years younger, born in 1952. He also had three sisters, Barbara, Janice, and Julia.<ref name="Hank">{{cite news|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-lasting-impact-of-a-civil-rights-icons-murder-92172099/ |archive-url=https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20130419154026/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Indelible-Images-Moment-of-Reckoning-200812.html |archive-date=2013-04-19 |url-status=live |last=Klibanoff |first=Hank|title=The Lasting Impact of a Civil Rights Icon's Murder|work=Smithsonian|date=December 2008|access-date=15 October 2011}}</ref> His parents separated for a time when James was young.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mitchell |first1=Don |title=The Freedom Summer Murders |date=April 29, 2014 |publisher=Scholastic Inc. |isbn=978-0-545-63393-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FI1cAgAAQBAJ&q=James+Chaney+parents+separated&pg=PT79 |language=ca}}</ref>

James attended [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] school for the first nine grades, and was a member of St Joseph Catholic Church in [[Meridian, Mississippi]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=In Memorium James E. Chaney · Queens College Civil Rights Archives|url=https://archives.qc.cuny.edu/civilrights/items/show/263|access-date=2020-12-05|website=archives.qc.cuny.edu}}</ref>

At the age of 15 as a high school student, he and some of his classmates began wearing paper badges reading "[[NAACP]]", to mark their support for the national civil rights organization, the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]], founded in 1909. They were suspended for a week from the [[Racial segregation|segregated]] high school, because the principal feared the reaction of the all-white school board.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.jecf.org/wordpress-site/history/james-earl-chaney/|title=James Earl Chaney {{!}} James Earl Chaney Foundation|website=www.jecf.org|language=en-US|access-date=March 24, 2020|archive-date=June 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200617023216/http://www.jecf.org/wordpress-site/history/james-earl-chaney/|url-status=dead}}</ref>

After high school, Chaney started as a plasterer's apprentice in a trade union.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lytle |first1=Mark Hamilton |title=America's Uncivil Wars: The Sixties Era from Elvis to the Fall of Richard Nixon |date=September 2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-803901-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gXX4Ozz7_nsC&q=James+Chaney+apprentice&pg=PA159 |language=en}}</ref>

===Civil rights work===
In 1962, Chaney participated in a [[Freedom Riders|Freedom Ride]] from Tennessee to [[Greenville, Mississippi]], and in another from Greenville to Meridian. He and his younger brother participated in other [[nonviolent]] demonstrations, as well. James Chaney started volunteering in late 1963, and joined the [[Congress of Racial Equality]] (CORE) in Meridian.<ref>{{Cite web|title = James Chaney fought for civil rights |work=African American Registry |url=https://aaregistry.org/story/james-chaney-fought-for-civil-rights/ |access-date = 2015-05-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150518081623/http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/james-chaney-fought-civil-rights|archive-date = 2015-05-18|url-status = live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Inc |first1=The Crisis Publishing Company |title=The Crisis |publisher=The Crisis Publishing Company, Inc. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-kIEAAAAMBAJ&q=James+Chaney+1962+freedom+ride&pg=PA38 |language=en}}</ref> He organized voter education classes, introduced CORE workers to local church leaders, and helped CORE workers get around the counties,

In 1964, he met with leaders of the Mt. Nebo Baptist Church to gain their support for letting [[Michael Schwerner]], CORE's local leader, come to address the church members, to encourage them to use the church for voter education and registration.<ref>{{Cite web|title = The Philadelphia Coalition: Uniting for Justice|url = http://www.neshobajustice.com/pages/history.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080828121353/http://www.neshobajustice.com/pages/history.htm |website = www.neshobajustice.com|access-date = 2015-05-13|first = April|last = Grayson|archive-date = August 28, 2008 }}</ref> Chaney also acted as a liaison with other CORE members.<ref>{{Cite book|title = We are Not Afraid: The Story of Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney and the Civil Rights Campaign for Mississippi|last = Cagin|first = Seth|publisher = Nation Books|year = 2006|isbn = 9781560258643|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4gFatAEACAAJ |pages = 207}}</ref>

==Murder==
[[File:FBI Poster of Missing Civil Rights Workers.jpg|thumb|left|[[Missing persons]] poster created by the [[FBI]] in 1964, shows the photographs of [[Andrew Goodman (activist)|Andrew Goodman]], James Chaney, and [[Michael Schwerner]].]]

{{main|Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner}}

On June 21, 1964, Chaney and fellow civil rights workers [[Michael Schwerner]] and [[Andrew Goodman (activist)|Andrew Goodman]] were killed near the town of [[Philadelphia, Mississippi]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bray |first1=Philip |title=Back on the Bus |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N-cDAAAAMBAJ&q=James+Chaney+june+1964&pg=PA37 |website=Mother Jones |language=en |date=November 1989}}</ref> They were investigating the burning of Mt. Zion Methodist Church, which had been a site for a CORE Freedom School. In the wake of Schwerner and Chaney's voter registration rallies, parishioners had been beaten by [[Ku Klux Klan]] members. They accused the sheriff's deputy, [[Cecil Price]], of stopping their caravan and forcing the deacons to kneel in the headlights of their own cars, while white men beat them with rifle butts. The same klansmen who beat them were also identified as having burned the church.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://jonathanturley.org/2014/06/22/mississippi-burning-50th-anniversary-of-a-crime-that-nearly-went-unpunished/|title=Mississippi Burning 50th Anniversary of a Crime That Nearly Went Unpunished|date=June 22, 2014|website=jonathanturley.org}}</ref>

Price arrested Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner for an alleged traffic violation and took them to the Neshoba County jail. They were released that evening, without being allowed to telephone anyone. On the way back to Meridian, they were stopped by patrol lights and two carloads of Ku Klux Klan members on Highway 19, then taken in Price's car to another remote rural road. The men approached then shot and killed Schwerner, then Goodman, both with one shot in the heart and finally Chaney with three shots, after severely beating him. They buried the young men in an earthen dam nearby.

The men's bodies remained undiscovered for 44 days. The [[FBI]] was brought into the case by John Doar, the [[U.S. Department of Justice|Department of Justice]] representative in Mississippi monitoring the situation during Freedom Summer. The missing civil rights workers became a major national story, especially coming on top of other events as civil rights workers were active across Mississippi in a voter registration drive.

Schwerner's widow Rita, who also worked for CORE in Meridian, expressed indignation that the press had ignored previous murders and disappearances of blacks in the area, but had highlighted this case because two white men from New York had gone missing. She said she believed that if only Chaney were missing, the case would not have received nearly as much attention.<ref>{{cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgSitIXiP5Y&t=25m36s |via=YouTube | title=Eyes on the Prize: Mississippi: Is This America?}}{{cbignore}}{{Dead YouTube link|date=February 2022}}</ref>

==Aftermath for family==
After the funeral of their older son, the Chaneys left Mississippi because of death threats.<ref>{{cite web |title=Jet |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JrYDAAAAMBAJ&q=James+Chaney+death+threats+new+york&pg=PA13 |publisher=Johnson Publishing Company |language=en |date=31 January 2005}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Glaude |first1=Eddie S. Jr. |title=Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own |date=June 30, 2020 |publisher=Crown |isbn=978-0-525-57534-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F9uXDwAAQBAJ&q=James+Chaney+death+threats+family&pg=PA160 |language=en}}</ref> Helped by the Goodman and Schwerner families, and other supporters, they moved to New York City, where Chaney's younger brother Ben attended a private, majority-white high school.

[[File:Dedication Of Freedom Place, New York, New York. Photos by Bill Andrews. Nov 1967 Slide 17 Edit.png|thumb|right|Chaney's brother Ben at the dedication of Freedom Place in [[Manhattan]], named for Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, November 25, 1967]]

In 1969, Ben joined the [[Black Panther Party]] and [[Black Liberation Army]]. In 1970, he went to Florida with two friends to buy guns; the two friends killed three white men in South Carolina and Florida. Chaney was acquitted of murder in South Carolina, but found guilty of three counts of first degree murder in Florida under the felony murder rule.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Since Mississippi Burned|url=https://people.com/archive/since-mississippi-burned-vol-31-no-1/|access-date=2020-06-06|website=PEOPLE.com|language=EN}}</ref> Chaney served 13 years and, after gaining parole, founded the James Earl Chaney Foundation in his brother's honor. Starting in 1985, he worked "as a legal clerk for the [late] former [[U.S. Attorney General]] [[Ramsey Clark]], the lawyer who secured his parole".<ref name="Hank"/>

==Federal trial==
In 1967, the US government went to trial, charging ten men with conspiracy to deprive the three murdered men of their civil rights under the [[Enforcement Act of 1870]], the only federal law then applying to the case. The jury convicted seven men, including Deputy Sheriff Price, and three were acquitted, including [[Edgar Ray Killen]], the former Ku Klux Klan organizer who had planned and directed the murders.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2018-01-12 |title=Edgar Ray Killen, the KKK leader convicted in the 'Mississippi Burning' killings, dies in prison |url=https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-edgar-ray-killen-20180112-story.html |access-date=2022-05-22 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}</ref>

==State investigation==
[[File:GoodmanSchwernerChaneyMemorial.JPG|thumb|left|A memorial to [[Andrew Goodman (activist)|Andrew Goodman]], James Earl Chaney, and [[Michael H. Schwerner]] at Mt. Nebo Missionary Baptist Church in [[Philadelphia, Mississippi]].]]

Over the years, activists had called for the state to prosecute the murderers. The journalist [[Jerry Mitchell (investigative reporter)|Jerry Mitchell]], an award-winning investigative reporter for the ''[[Jackson Clarion-Ledger]]'', had discovered new evidence and written extensively about the case for six years.<ref name="Hank"/> Mitchell had earned renown for helping secure convictions in several other high-profile Civil Rights Era murder cases, including the assassination of [[Medgar Evers]] in Jackson, Mississippi, the [[16th Street Baptist Church bombing]] in Birmingham, Alabama, and the murder of [[Vernon Dahmer]] in his Mississippi home. He developed new evidence about the civil rights murders, found new witnesses, and pressured the State to prosecute. It began an investigation in the early years of the 2000s.

[[Image:James Chaney et al marker in New York City IMG 1644.JPG|thumb|Marker near [[Riverside Drive (New York)|70th Street/Freedom Place near Riverside Boulevard]] in [[New York City]] commemorating the three [[civil rights]] activists murdered in [[Mississippi]] in 1964]]
In 2004, Barry Bradford, an [[Illinois]] high school teacher, and his three students, Allison Nichols, Sarah Siegel, and Brittany Saltiel, joined Mitchell's efforts in a special project. They conducted additional research and created a documentary about their work. Their documentary, produced for the [[National History Day]] contest, presented important new evidence and compelling reasons for reopening the case. They obtained a taped interview with [[Edgar Ray Killen]], who had been acquitted in the first trial. He had been an outspoken [[white supremacist]] nicknamed the "Preacher". The interview helped convince the State to reopen an investigation into the murders.

In 2005, the state charged Killen in the murders of the three activists; he was the only one of six living suspects to be charged.<ref name="Hank"/> When the trial opened on January 7, 2005, Killen pleaded "[[Not guilty (plea)|Not guilty]]". Evidence was presented that he had supervised the murders. Not sure that Killen intended in advance for the activists to be killed by the Klan, the jury found him guilty of three counts of [[manslaughter]] on June 20, 2005, and he was sentenced to 60 years in prison—20 years for each count, to be served consecutively.

Believing there are other men involved in his brother's death who should be charged as accomplices to murder, as Killen was, Ben Chaney has said: "I'm not as sad as I was. But I'm still angry".<ref name="Hank"/>

==Legacy and honors==
{{Further|Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner#Legacy and honors}}
[[File:Goodman Cheney and Schwerner Murder Site Marker.jpg|thumb|right|300px|State of Mississippi roadside marker denoting the location where the 1964 murders of American civil rights workers Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner took place]]
* In 1998, Ben Chaney established the James Earl Chaney Foundation in his older brother's honor, to promote the work of civil rights and social justice.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.jecf.org/wordpress-site/history/ben-chaney/|title=Ben Chaney {{!}} James Earl Chaney Foundation|website=www.jecf.org|language=en-US|access-date=2017-02-07|archive-date=May 2, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150502074552/http://www.jecf.org/wordpress-site/history/ben-chaney/|url-status=dead}}</ref>
* Chaney, along with Goodman and Schwerner, received a posthumous [[Presidential Medal of Freedom]] from President [[Barack Obama]] in 2014.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/10/president-obama-names-recipients-presidential-medal-freedom |title=President Obama Names Recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom|date=10 November 2014}}</ref>
* James Chaney Drive in Meridian, MS is named in his honor.

==Cultural references==
{{Further|Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner#In culture}}
The murders of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi, being pivotal to the events of the Freedom Summer and the Civil Rights Movement as a whole, is referred to in Alice Walker's ''Meridian,'' which was published in 1976. It is referred to as being a deciding factor for not just the SNICK movement within the state of Mississippi, but for main characters Truman and Lynne to settle on going to Mississippi to further advocate for the movement. It was considered "the worst place in America for black people" (Walker, 136) at this time, and as such required extensive effort to improve. Alice Walker's Meridian, while following fictional characters, refers to key moments of the Civil Rights protests such as this for context and clarity.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Walker |first=Alice |title=Meridian |publisher=HarcourtBooks |year=1976 |isbn=978-0-15-602834-9 |pages=136}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-12m646qz "Long, Hot Summer '64; Episode 9,"] 1964-08-06, WGBH, [[American Archive of Public Broadcasting]] (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed June 7, 2021.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20100619184616/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price%26bowers/Chaney.htm Douglas O. Linder, "Biography of James Chaney"], ''The Mississippi Burning Trial: 'US v. Price' (1967)'', University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School
* [http://jecf.org/ James Earl Chaney Foundation]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20181021044657/http://www.mississippiburning.org/ Barry Bradford, ''The Mississippi Burning Case''] Website
* [http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/07/mississippi.rights/index.html Killen plea], CNN 7 January 2005
* {{Find a Grave|6442194}}
* "Neshoba: The Price of Freedom," www.neshonafilm.net

{{Lynching in the United States}}
{{Civil Rights Memorial}}
{{Civil rights movement|state=collapsed}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chaney, James}}
[[Category:1943 births]]
[[Category:1964 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century Roman Catholics]]
[[Category:Activists for African-American civil rights]]
[[Category:African-American activists]]
[[Category:African-American Catholics]]
[[Category:American murder victims]]
[[Category:American Roman Catholics]]
[[Category:Assassinated American civil rights activists]]
[[Category:American torture victims]]
[[Category:Catholics from Mississippi]]
[[Category:Deaths by firearm in Mississippi]]
[[Category:Lynching deaths in Mississippi]]
[[Category:Murdered African-American people]]
[[Category:Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner|-]]
[[Category:Neshoba County, Mississippi]]
[[Category:People from Meridian, Mississippi]]
[[Category:People murdered by law enforcement officers in the United States]]
[[Category:People murdered in 1964]]
[[Category:People murdered in Mississippi]]
[[Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients]]
[[Category:Roman Catholic activists]]
[[Category:Victims of the Ku Klux Klan]]
[[Category:African-American lynching victims]]
[[Category:20th-century American people]]