Bush? Rummy? This guy thought he'd never be called to account, either

I see the tin-built shanties where my people live
(Those three are on my mind)
And the burned-out churches where they said, "We forgive"
(Those three are on my mind)
While on the backwood roads ride the hooded bands
Posioning the air throughout the Southern land
So I ask the killers, can you ever wash your hands?
(Those three are on my mind)
                                  - Frances Taylor/Pete Seeger, "Those Three Are on My Mind"

The state of Mississippi just brought charges against Klan leader (and Christian minister!) Edgar Ray Killen in the 1964 killings of Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney, a multiple assassination that became a decisve factor in convincing the rest of the country that the federal government had to step in and restore the rule of law in the segregated South, especially in Mississippi.

Grand jury indicts Killen in '64 killings by Jerry Mitchell Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger 01/07/05
Killen pleads not guilty in civil rights killings by Jerry Mitchell Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger 01/08/05

I'm inclined to agree we this reaction from Reputed KKK leader arrested in 40-year-old murder by Leesha Faulkner Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal 01/07/05.

News resounded throughout America about Thursday's one-day session of the grand jury to consider indictments in those murders, made obvious by Attorney General Jim Hood's appearance at the Neshoba County Courthouse.

"Praise Jesus," exclaimed Susan Glisson, director of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi. "I'm incredibly proud of Jim Hood and the state of Mississippi."

Bush? Rummy? You know how your lawyers said they could get you off on torture charges? Maybe you should pay attention to cases like this instead of listening to your yes-men.

The Jackson Clarion-Ledger, which in 1964 was owned by the Hederman family and was notorious for its irresponsible reporting on civil rights issues, has been all over this story, it seems. (It's not the best paper in the world today, but it's far from being the Klan rag that it was in 1964.)

Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger 01/07/05 articles:

Timeline of the case
Special Report: 44 Days That Changed Mississippi

Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger 01/08/05 articles:

Arrest applauded nationally by Ana Radalot
Justice delayed, not denied by Jerry Mitchell
White residents hope for healing by Billy Watkins
Area blacks want Killen to do time by Riva Brown
Ramsay Marshall cartoon
Editorial: Neshoba Justice? The editorial says, in part:

Testimony in the 1967 federal trial identified Killen as the one who got the orders from [Sam] Bowers to kill Schwerner. Testimony also accused Killen of coordinating the Klan activities the night the three workers werekidnapped and killed.

Why prosecute a 40-year-old murder case against an octogenarian suspect? Simple. There is no statute of limitation on murder and in this last the major unsolved Mississippi civil rights atrocities, there can be no peace without justice.

While confronting the ugly truth of Mississippi's past might prove uncomfortable for some, it is without question a confrontation demanded by 40 years of justice denied.

It is a reckoning of blood and justice that is long overdue.

The theology of murder

Sam Bowers, who was convicted on federal charges of civil rights violations in the murders of the three in 1964 and who is currently serving a life sentence on state charges in another civil rights murder, was the Imperial Wizardof the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in 1964. Charles Marsh in God's Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights (1997), calls Bowers "was the animating force behind white Mississippi's journey into the heart of militant rage."

And Bowers was animated by a Christian vision, one which he evidently saw as his main inspiration. To show you how perverted the KKK version of Christianity can be, here is an excerpt from Marsh's book describing Bowers' theological ideas:

Was Jesus a Jew? No, for Bowers, Jesus was "a Galilean," not a Jew. The appelation invokes the ideas of the influential racist historian and theologian Houston Stewart Chamberlain, whom Bowers admired. [Chamberlain was a major source of Nazi racial ideas.] In Chamberlain's landmark book, The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (1899), he argued that Jesus , as a Galilean rather than a Jew, was a descendent of Aryan colonists in ancient Galilee. ...

... [H]ow does this theological commitment shape Bowers's perception of the civil rights movement as the invidious purveyor of idolatry and impiety? It is tempting here to appeal to popular fears about communism and all its godless, anti-republican consequences. Certainly there is much truth to the description of Bowers as a staunch anti-communist. ... [H]e tirelessly fulminated against the "red menace" in his numerous Klan publications of the period. Undoubtedly, the cry of "communism" would have sufficed to rally most Mississippi klansmen to militant action against outside agitators. And Bowers deftly exploited this fear in his role as master strategist of the White Knights. Nonetheless, Bowers interpreted the civil rights movement in decidedly more complex detail, thanks to his ambitious architectonic design of America's sacred history, named "The Five Tiered Crystallized Logos of Western Civilization," which he conceptualized in rudimentary terms in his crudely published "encyclicals" of the 1960s. Taken as a whole, Bowers's grand narrative offers a way of envisioning an "American national political orthodoxy" that is based on the "Empirical Fact of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ."

Despite the Klan's notoriety,the KKK was not the most important private segregationist group in Mississippi. That was the White Citizens Council, which relied more on economic threats but had the same goals as the Klan. Their current incarnation is as the Council of Conservative Citizens, but it's the same bunch. The CCC openly promoted the victorious gubernatorial candidacy of former Republican National Committe chairman Haley Barbour, and Barbour refused to repudiate their support or to demand they remove his picture from their Web site. The Democratic Party of 1964 in Mississippi has become the Republican Party of 2005.

Check out their FAQ on race, where you can find such gems of airhead-white-guy wisdom as:

The word racism was concocted by a communist ideologue in the 1920's. The purpose of racism was to instill guilt and shame in the minds of white people and to inflame racial hostility among blacks. This word play succeeded beyond all expectations. Of course, the word racism has no meaning unless whites react to it. Because racism defines nothing, but instead generates dubious connotations, the C of CC refuses to be held hostage by what the word implies at any given moment. It is normal for white people to be proud of their race and heritage. Is that racist?

I notice they aren't yet featuring any articles praising the indictment of Killen. I'm sure we'll have a long wait to see that.