History Casts Long Shadow On Trial Of Murders Of Civil Rights Workers

MERIDIAN, MS - JUNE 8: The headstone of black civil rights worker James Chaney is held in place with metal supports along a rural road more than forty years after his murder June 8, 2005 in Meridian, Mississppi. Vandals continue to desecrate Chaney's gravesite: beams now support the headstone and a photo of Chaney that once adorned the top of the stone has been shot out. Chaney's body was discovered in 1964 with two other voting activists, who were white, in an earthen dam in nearby Neshoba County. The case, which came to be known as Mississippi Burning, was said to have paved the way for the U.S. civil rights movement. The man accused in Chaney's death, Edgar Ray Killen, 80, is due to stand trial June 13, 2005 in the nearby city of Philadelphia. (Photo by Marianne Todd/Getty Images)