Today is Monday, June 22nd, 2020.

On this day in 1964, FBI officers were called to Mississippi to investigate the disappearance of three civil rights

workers. What they uncovered would shock the nation. Welcome to today in True Crime, a parcast original.

Today we're covering the infamous Mississippi burning case from the height of the civil

rights movement. Let's go back to the early morning of June 22nd, 1964 in the city of Philadelphia, Mississippi.

It was supposed to be the Freedom Summer, a massive push across Mississippi to encourage

black Americans to register to vote.

At the time, fewer than 7% of those eligible were enrolled. The campaign assembled

civil rights workers from across the state and around the country and prepared

them for the harassment they would face,

the worst of which they expected would come from the Ku Klux Klan.

Clan membership numbers were soaring across the state.

In April of that year, they had demonstrated their commitment to fighting the simultaneous cross-burnings throughout Mississippi.

The young volunteers were undeterred.

They believed in the cause and were willing to fight for what was right, but they were

constantly on the alert for violence too.

When three volunteers had gone missing yesterday on June 21st, the rest of the civil rights activists immediately got worried.

Andrew Goodman, a white 20-year-old, Michael Schwerner, a white 24-year-old, and James Cheney, a black 21-year-old, had arrived in Philadelphia, but they hadn't

made it to their hotel.

Organizers alerted local authorities to the disappearance,

but the ramifications of the Freedom Summer Voting Drive

would reach much further than Mississippi's borders.

...