October 4th at 12:20p: Jim Campbell Presents “The Gospel According to the Klan: The Rev. Edgar Ray Killen and the 1964 Mississippi Burning Murders.”

The BU American Political history seminar series continues October 4th with our next presenter:

Jim Campbell (Stanford) will present an article in progress titled: “The Gospel According to the Klan: The Rev. Edgar Ray Killen and the 1964 Mississippi Burning Murders.”

On June 21, 1964, three Civil Rights workers – James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman – traveled to Philadelphia, Mississippi, to investigate the burning of a black church. Arrested on trumped-up speeding charges, they were held in the local jail while members of the Ku Klux Klan set in motion a pre-conceived “elimination” plan. Apprehended on the drive home, they were taken to a remote crossroads, shot, and buried in an earthen dam, from which their bodies were recovered after a forty-four day search. The Philadelphia murders and their long afterlife mark the starting point for Campbell’s current book project. Tentatively entitled Freedom Now, the book is intended not only as a study of the history and legacy of the Civil Rights Movement but also as an exploration of the politics of memory, of the processes of collective remembering and forgetting at the heart of American identity. This chapter examines the involvement of Klan Kleagle Rev. Edgar Ray Killen in the killings.

The seminar will be held in Room 504, 226 Bay State Road, at 12:20p on October 4th. Please RSVP for lunch at aphi@bu.edu.