Ex-KKK Member Convicted in 1964 Killings By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press Writer
15 minutes ago
http://news.yahoo.com


Forty-one years to the day after three civil rights workers were beaten and shot to death, an 80-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman was found guilty of manslaughter Tuesday in a trial that marked Mississippi's latest attempt to atone for its bloodstained, racist past.

The jury of nine whites and three blacks took nearly six hours to clear Edgar Ray Killen of murder but convict him of the lesser charges in the 1964 killings that galvanized the struggle for equality and helped bring about passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Killen, a bald figure with owlish bifocals, sat impassively in his wheelchair, an oxygen tube up his nose, as he listened to the verdict.

"Forty-one years after the tragic murders ... justice finally arrives in Philadelphia, Miss," said Rep. Bennie Thompson (news, bio, voting record), Mississippi's only black congressman. "Yet, the state of Mississippi must see to it that the wrongs of yesterday do not become the albatrosses of today."

The murder charge carried up to life in prison. But Killen could still spend the rest of his life behind bars; each of the three manslaughter charges is punishable by up to 20 years. Judge Marcus Gordon scheduled sentencing for Thursday.

Civil rights volunteers [color=orange]Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner â€â€