Editor who pushed for justice in civil rights killings dies
GULF BREEZE, Fla. — Mississippi editor Stanley Dearman, who pushed for justice in the murders of three civil rights workers, died on Saturday in Florida. The death of the 84-year-old was announced by the newspaper in Philadelphia, Mississippi, that he once published.
Dearman wrote articles and editorials in The Neshoba Democrat that helped lead to conviction of a former Klansman in the 1964 killings. His funeral and burial will be Tuesday in Philadelphia.
The civil rights workers — Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael “Mickey” Schwerner — disappeared on June 21, 1964. A deputy sheriff in Philadelphia had arrested them on a traffic charge and released them, but not before alerting a mob. Their bodies were dug up 44 days later under a dam, after Mississippi’s then-governor claimed their disappearance was a hoax.
The murders inspired the 1988 film “Mississippi Burning.”