Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were murdered 41 years ago today, June 21, 1964, late at night on a gravel road just outside Philadelphia, Mississippi. Their bodies were not found until August 4. On August 3rd, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, the state's leading newspaper, editorialized:

If they were murdered, it is by no means the first case of such disposition of Communists of their dupes to insure their silence. . . . However, the careful absence of clues makes it seem likely that they are quartered in Cuba or another Communist area awaiting their next task. . . . There is no reason to believe them seriously harmed by citizens of the most law-abiding state of the union.

Source of the quote: The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission: Civil Rights and States' Rights, by Yashuro Katagari.

Today, the Clarion-Ledger's web site has several good pages on the case:

• How the killings happened
• Basic timeline of the murders and the aftermath
• More detailed narrative of events