Edgar Ray Killen was convicted in Mississippi for manslaughter related to the murders of civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner in 1964. This conviction was significant as it came 41 years after the original events, which were part of a broader context of racial violence during the Civil Rights Movement. Killen, who had previously held leadership within the Ku Klux Klan, was implicated in orchestrating the deaths of the three men who were investigating the burning of a black church in Neshoba County. Initially tried and acquitted in 1967, the case remained cold until a renewed investigation in 2004 due to a combination of renewed public interest and pressure from civil rights advocates and families of the victims.

The trial in 2005 was marked by the examination of old evidence, new witnesses, and a jury that was significantly different from the all-white juries of the 1960s. The trial lasted several weeks, but the jury took less than an hour to reach their decision. The conviction of Killen was a pivotal moment that resonated deeply with the families of the victims and the civil rights community. It represented a small measure of justice and acknowledgment of the longstanding impact of racial violence in the United States.