K K Konvincted

Although this blog is usually devoted to things New York, today we’re going down South to see a bit of delayed justice done.

There are few things in this world that warm the cockles of my heart more than when criminals, particularly homicidal white supremacists, are brought to justice. I was thrilled when in 1994 they finally convicted Byron de la Beckwith, the man who murdered the civil rights activist Medgar Evers (I had a chance to interview his wife Myrlie Evers about that and many others things; one day I’ll post an entry on her and her own remarkable life). The story of Mrs. Ever's decades-long fight for justice was recounted in the 1996 film Ghosts of Mississippi. De la Beckwith died in jail in 2001.

I was pleased when they put away Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas Blanton (both sentenced to life) for being part of the conspiracy to bomb the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, resulting in the deaths of four little girls (if you haven't already, see Spike Lee's excellent documentary titled 4 Little Girls). I danced a jig when Edgar Ray Killen, a klansman, was convicted in 2005 of killing the three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner, (told in the 1988 film Mississippi Burning). When Killen managed to get out on bond claiming health problems, and the judge found out he had been bamboozled, he rolled the wheel-chaired bound Killen right back into jail. The 80-something year old Killen is serving three consecutive 20-year sentences. At least Chaney's and Goodman’s mothers, who testified at Killen’s trial, ("J.E. never come back," Fannie Lee Chaney said, when asked about the last time she saw the boys alive) lived to see justice done. Mrs. Chaney died in May of this year. Carolyn Goodman died last Friday on August 17.

So today another nasty piece of business was put to rest when James Ford Seale, an alleged Ku Klux Klansman, was sentenced to three life terms for his role in the 1964 abduction and murder of two black teenagers in southwest Mississippi. Just like many of the white perpetrators back then, Seale was arrested—that's his mugshot from the Alabama Highway patrol up top of this entry—but he was never convicted. Seale is 72, an old guy now, just like most of those who thought they got away with murder.

Some people argue, why put frail, old men in jail? The way I see it, it’s not so much to take away their freedom—they got to enjoy their freedom during the best years of their lives—and don’t think for a minute these people were haunted or ashamed; if you read the many news accounts, they were and are just as unrepentant and defiant and racist as ever. Yes, they’ll die in jail, but they’ll do so believing until the end that they were martyrs for their causes.

What convicting them and making them serve out their punishment does do is mark their names down in the history books. They are no longer unknown to us.

Well, you say, all of this happened so long ago. One of these days I’m going to write about Morris Dees and Joseph J. Levin, Jr., and the Southern Poverty Law Center, because they are heroes of mine for what they have done for civil rights for half a century. But until then, I’d like to remind you that the type of person who would kill other people because of their race, culture, religion, or sexual orientation not only lives today, but can be found under the nearest rock in a town near you. Take a look here at what's called the "Hate Map".

Dees and Levin can report this kind of diseased behavior because people like us report it to them. We can be activists with very little effort. Like the signs in the New York City subways say: "If you see something, say something." I'm going to be riffing on that ubiquitous phrase in a later entry. Right now please just take it for what it's worth.