DOWN IN MISSISSIPPI

Today we learned that justice may finally be reached in a case dating back to 1964 – the death squad killing in Mississippi of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan. Much credit goes to the State of Mississippi for finally making an arrest in one of the worst crimes of the civil rights era. But let us also pay tribute to a great local newspaper, the Clarion-Ledger, that broke the story that led to the indictment of the leader of the death squad, Edgar Ray Killen. As the paper reported today,

In 1999, the attorney general's office reopened the case after The
Clarion-Ledger published excerpts from a secret interview given by Sam Bowers, a
one-time Imperial Wizard who headed the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the
nation's most violent white supremacist organization in the 1960s. The paper
obtained a copy of the interview, which was for an oral history that was not to
be published before Bowers' death.

Read the Clarion-Ledger’s coverage and its special report, “44 days that changed Mississippi,” here:
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050107/NEWS01/50107015

And lest we forget, there’s been some great songs about those terrible days in the South, and one of the best is J.B. Lenoir’s "Down in Mississippi." J.B. Lenoir was a gifted southern bluesman who made his career in Chicago and died tragically after a car wreck in 1967. You can’t help but be moved by these words:

They have a hunting season on the rabbit

If you shoot him, boy, you go to jail

But the season is always open on men

Don't nobody need no bail

Down in Mississippi

Down in Mississippi where I come from

Down in Mississippi where I belong...

Listen to a few bars of the song by clicking the link on the title, above (when you get there, click the Real Player link on Cut #2).

You can buy one of his J.B. Lenoir's finest recordings (which contains the amazing “Vietnam Blues,” “Korea Blues,” and “Eisenhower Blues”) at this link:
http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/1044108/a/Vietnam+Blues.htm

And you can read some of his lyrics here:
http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Delta/2541/bljlenoi.htm

Jim Dickinson, the great Memphis producer, piano and guitar player and blues artist, has also cut some amazing versions of J.B. Lenoir’s song, and the best one is available on this live recording:
http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,271077,00.html

Dickinson’s sons, who make up half of the North Mississippi All Stars, recently released their own live version of the song, with their father singing, on their live album “Hill Country Revue,” available here:
http://stores.musictoday.com/store/product.asp?dept%5Fid=1232&pf%5Fid=NMCD08&band%5Fid=473&sfid=2

Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman, presente!