Civil Rights
43 Years Later, KKK Killings Trial Begins
Posted May 30, 2007, 06:16 pm CST
By Martha Neil
Nearly five decades after two young black men were abducted, beaten and dumped, still alive, into the Mississippi River to drown, one of their alleged murderers is finally being tried.
Jury selection began today in the case of Ku Klux Klansman James Ford Seale, who was also charged shortly after the 1964 crimes, along with reputed fellow KKK member Charles Marcus Edwards, reports CNN. Seale faces federal kidnapping and conspiracy charges today, and Edwards, who has been given immunity, is expected to testify against him. Charges against the two were dismissed by local authorities in 1964, during the troubled civil rights era, after federal authorities got swamped with other prosecutions.
"We're at the doorstep of justice," says Thomas Moore. He is the brother of Charles Eddie Moore, one of the murder victims.