Fighting for Civil Rights: FBI in Mississippi

The FBI has a long history of taking down the bad guys and stopping crime with agents all over the country. But it wasn't always that way. In a special two-part series, Newscenter 11 takes a look at how the FBI in Mississippi tackles civil rights crimes. The Jackson bureau has an interesting history, tied to one of the most infamous civil rights cases that happened 50 years ago in Neshoba County.

In June of 1964, these three civil rights workers set out to help blacks register to vote in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Soon after their arrival, the three were arrested, released and then disappeared.

"We knew within our hearts that they had been killed," Flonzie Brown-Wright says. "We knew that because the climate in Mississippi at that time was so turbulent. We knew that they would not be found alive."

At a time when racial tensions were high, the FBI was called in for assistance.

"So this office is unique in that it is the only office that is presidentially directed," Donald Alway, special agent in charge of the Jackson division, says.

The FBI's Jackson office had been closed since 1946, but in the wake of what appeared to be terrible tragedy, already surrounded by more civil unrest and violence around the state, President Lyndon B. Johnson asked J. Edgar Hoover to re-open the bureau.

"We ought to have intelligence on that state because that's going to be the most dangerous thing we have this year," Johnson said to Hoover in a taped phone conversation from 1964.

But with Jim Crow laws still in effect, the FBI wasn't always allowed to take action. Many times, you could see FBI agents standing by, simply taking notes.

"They could even see people being beaten and being mistreated. They really couldn't do anything at that time," Brown-Wright says. "But they could certainly bear witness to what was going on."

A lot of the notes that were taken were used in later prosecutions once Jim Crow laws were lifted.

"They sent agents out in the field to us, testimony from us," Brown-Wright says. "But then there again little by little, their role had to be strengthened, as well."

Those three civil rights workers were discovered, their station wagon burned, their bodies buried.

"Horrible incidents like what happened, not only in Mississippi, but in other parts in the country, are then a prelude to Congress enacting new laws, giving the FBI new authorities," Alway says.

In this way, a terrible tragedy became the start of something new.

In part two of this series Wednesday, officials talk about how FBI agents are continuing to fight against civil rights injustices.