LAT: Trial Testimony About Klan Leaves Town Divided (Philadelphia, Miss.)

[DeepModem Mom]

Trial Testimony About Klan Leaves Town Divided
A former mayor's comments expose cracks in a tightknit Mississippi community.
By Ellen Barry
Times Staff Writer

June 23, 2005


....By Wednesday, the media had begun to withdraw, leaving the people of Philadelphia alone with one another. The trial of Edgar Ray Killen, who was found guilty of manslaughter Tuesday in the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers, has brought out divisions that are rarely visible in this interconnected community.

Few were more conscious of that fact than (Harlan) Majure, a two-term mayor who angered many of his neighbors Monday by saying during cross-examination that, "as far as I know, the Klan was a peaceful organization."

In her cool, book-lined home, Carolyn Dearman was watching her brother's testimony on television with her husband. Stanley Dearman, former editor of the Neshoba Democrat, has spent decades crusading against the Ku Klux Klan and was one of the strongest voices calling for the state to reopen the case. After watching Majure testify, Dearman recalled, he turned to his wife and said, "He has demolished everything I've been trying to do with this community."...

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In Neshoba County, an isolated place with a static population, it seems nearly everyone is related, either by blood or by proximity. Judge Marcus Gordon, who is scheduled to sentence Killen today, grew up down the road from him, and his parents attended the church where Killen preached....When Majure's comments about the Klan were broadcast to the world, his friends and neighbors had three options: to support him, condemn him or avoid the subject....

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"That element is fossilized," said (Jim Prince III, editor of the Neshoba Democrat), who has been close to Majure's family since he was born. "I put them into the category of 'We just need a few more good funerals.' When those people are dead and gone, hallelujah. Let them die and answer to their maker."...


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-killen23jun23,0,6165413,print.story