Town honors civil rights slay victims

[JoFerret]

....the town in question being one of Reagan's stops to shore up the base!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4226620,00.html

PHILADELPHIA, Miss. (AP) - Gov. Haley Barbour and other politicians joined hundreds of people Sunday to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the slayings of three civil rights workers and support the reopening of an investigation into their deaths.

The memorial service brought about 1,500 blacks and whites together to honor James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, and to focus on what former Mississippi Gov. William Winter called ``the unending work of racial reconciliation.'' .....

HOWEVER.....

Ben Chaney, the younger brother of James Chaney, boycotted Sunday's event, saying organizers were circumventing the efforts of church leaders, who have been memorializing the civil rights workers for decades.

Chaney, who is leading a caravan of 29 volunteers on a two-week voter registration drive to teach about the civil rights movement, told reporters he wanted nothing to do with the Philadelphia Coalition - and even requested that it stop using his slain brother's name.

``They have perpetrated a fraud and desecrated the history of my brother,'' Chaney said.

....

Link to the Time Mag story of Trent Lott urging Reagan to make a campaign stop: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,399921,00.html?cnn=yes

[struggle4progress]

1. One of the defining events for a generation ...

:cry: