Mt. Zion memorial
Neshoba County District 5 Supervisor Obbie Riley, United Methodist Superintendent of the Meridian District Dayna Goff, the Rev. Eddie Hinton, pastor of Mt. Zion United Methodist Church, along with church member Jewel McDonald at the memorial June 18 for three young men murdered in Neshoba County on June 21, 1964, registering blacks to vote.
The men, Michael H. Schwerner, 24, Andrew Goodman, 20, and James E. Chaney, 21, were ambushed by a mob of men that included law enforcement and the Ku Klux Klan.
Their bodies were found buried in an earthen dam six weeks after being shot at point-blank range on Road 515 off Highway 19 south.
Forty-one years later, on June 21, 2005, after a call for justice was issued by local civic and business leaders, Edgar Ray Killen, an 80-year-old former ring leader in the Ku Klux Klan, was found guilty of manslaughter by a Neshoba County jury.
He was sentenced to 60 years in prison, where he died in January 2018.