James Earl "J.E." Chaney (May 30, 1943 – June 21, 1964) was an American civil rights worker who was murdered (along with Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman) by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

Chaney was born in the town of Meridian, Mississippi. He had joined the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1963, and was age 21 when he was killed. Chaney's murder occurred near the town of Philadelphia, where Chaney was undertaking field work for CORE.

The three (Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman) were initially arrested by Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price for an alleged traffic violation and taken to the jail in Neshoba County. They were released that evening and on the way back to Meridian were stopped by two carloads of KKK members on a remote rural road. The men approached their car and then shot and killed Schwerner, then Goodman, and finally Chaney.

The circumstances surrounding the death of the activists were the subject of the 1990 TV movie Murder in Mississippi, which featured Blair Underwood as Chaney. The 1988 film, Mississippi Burning, was loosely based upon these events.

Journalist Jerry Mitchell, an award winning investigative reporter for the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, had written extensively about the case for many years. Mitchell, who had already earned fame for helping secure convictions in several other high profile Civil Rights Era murder cases, including the assassination of Medgar Evers, the Birmingham church bombings and the murder of Vernon Dahmer, developed new evidence, found new witnesses, and pressured the State to take action. Barry Bradford, an Illinois high school teacher, later famous for helping clear the name of Clyde Kennard, and three students, Allison Nichols, Sarah Siegel, and Brittany Saltiel, joined Mitchell's efforts.

Their documentary, produced for the National History Day contest presented important new evidence and compelling reasons for reopening the case. They also obtained an interview with Edgar Ray Killen which helped convince the State to reinvestigate. Mitchell was able to determine the identity of "Mr. X" the mystery informer who had helped the FBI discover the bodies and smash the conspiracy of the Klan in 1964, in part using evidence developed by Bradford and the students.

On January 7 2005 Edgar Ray Killen, once an outspoken white supremacist nicknamed the "Preacher," pleaded "Not Guilty" to Chaney's murder, but was found guilty of manslaughter on June 20 2005, and sentenced to 60 years in prison. Goodman's mother, Carolyn Goodman and Chaney's mother Fannie Lee Chaney, were the last witnesses for the prosecution.

See also

• Mississippi Civil Rights Workers Murders

James Chaney has one brother by the name of Ben Chaney and a recently deceased (May 2007) mother: Fannie Lee Chaney.

External links

• The Movement That Reopened The Case
• Biography
• James Earl Chaney Foundation
• CNN article on Killen plea
• James Chaney's Gravesite