From Commemoration to Conviction
Prosecuting Edgar Ray Killen for the “Mississippi Burning” Murders
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2415394 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Claire Whitlinger (0000-0001-7342-2050) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 144-167 |
| Publication date | 2015-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Race and Justice (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2153-3687 • E-ISSN: 2153-3687 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/2153368715573366 |
| OpenAlex | W2142002275 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 39 |
Despite the growing number of civil rights era cold cases brought to trial over the past 20 years, surprisingly little social scientific research has examined how these cases emerged. This article examines one such case-the 2005 prosecution of Edgar Ray Killen for the 1964 murder of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. Using event structure analysis and drawing on archival sources, media accounts, and interview data, this study finds that the trial would not have occurred without the 40th anniversary commemoration in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Furthermore, this study suggests that commemorations can serve as mechanisms connecting collective memory with broader social change by catalyzing mnemonic entrepreneurship and cultivating organizational structures and resources necessary to achieve positive legal outcomes. Such outcomes, however, can only occur when political opportunities are favorable and potential jurors have been primed through the "memory of commemoration
Civil rights · Collective memory · Conviction · Criminology · Mnemonic · Political science · Politics · Social activism · Sociology · Law · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Oral History, Memory, Narrative Analysis · Psychology · Rhetoric and Communication Studies
Racial Reckoning
Time Maps
Plausible Worlds
Crimes of the Holocaust
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle
The Southern Past
The Elephant in the RoomSilence and Denial in Everyday Life
Power in Movement
Unpacking the Unspoken
New Directions in the Sociology of Collective Memory and Commemoration
Law and Collective Memory
Racial, Educational and Religious Endogamy in the United States
Justice in Mississippi
Mississippi Politics
Ghosts of Mississippi
Modeling event structures
Prisoners of the Japanese and the Politics of Apology
Cultural Movements and Collective Memory
Narrative, Event-Structure Analysis, and Causal Interpretation in Historical Sociology
Racial Justice as Transitional Justice
Justice and Transition in Mississippi
Vergangenheitsbewältigung in the USA
Commemorating a Difficult past
Movements and Memory
Genre Memories and Memory Genres
Hate Crime Reporting as a Successful Social Movement Outcome
The Unforgotten
Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970
The Social Context of Commemoration
Some Observations on Formal Methods of Qualitative Analysis
Social Memory Studies
Resurrection and Appropriation
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Transforming collective memory
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,11 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2017 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |