Another anniversary largely unmarked...

...by the major media. I missed it, too, but even belatedly it deserves mention. It was forty years ago on August 4, 1964 that it was reported that

[t]he bodies of three civil rights workers missing for six weeks have been found buried in a partially constructed dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi.

Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation found the three young men - two white and one black man - about six miles from the town in a wooded area near where they were last seen on the night of 21 June.

They were Michael Schwerner, aged 24, Andrew Goodman, 20, both from New York and James Chaney, 22, from Meridian, Mississippi. All were members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) dedicated to non-violent direct action against racial discrimination.

Among those ultimately convicted of involvement in the crime were local Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price, Ku Klux Klan leader Sam Bowers, and KKK member Wayne Roberts.

Maybe it would do those of us who are expressing fear about going to NYC for the Republican convention demonstrations to remember how not so very long ago in this country speaking up for justice literally could be, and for some was, at the risk of your life.