If you’ve seen the film “Mississippi Burning” you’re familiar with
the murders of James Chaney (black), Michael Schwerner, and
Andrew Goodman (both white, Jewish). The White Knights of the
KKK shot them dead and buried them in an earthen dam in 1964.
The outrage in the northern half or so of the United States was
immediate and fierce, as it should have been.
But there was no public outcry of any kind in the South. Very few
black people, especially in Mississippi, had anything to say about the crime, as they didn’t dare incur the wrath of the white authorities. But the truly astonishing aspect is the absence of an outcry by many white people, if any, as they either agreed with the crime, or just didn’t care about the plight of blacks (and Jews, and anyone other than “WASPs”) in the South.
Racial hatred had become so rampant and impudent that the Judges who presided over the various criminals of this sort of case rarely convicted them, and then imposed the lightest sentences. The culprits of the three 1964 murders, 17 of them, were tried, and only 7 were convicted, not of murder, but of “civil rights violations,” because the prosecution didn’t believe they could be convicted, in Mississippi, of murder, which was probably true. The harshest sentences were 10 years each to two culprits. Others received 7 years, or 3 years. No one served more than 6
This was not a single incident, but all the
major crimes against the Indians were
perpetrated for the same reason.
European settlers and their descendants
wanted more land. They thus drove the
Indians westward, killing hundreds of
thousands over the centuries, in order to
make way for themselves. Unfortunately,
no land is ever enough land. They
wanted more, and the Indians continued
being deprived of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The most astonishing aspect of this crime is that many notable Americans, especially Andrew Jackson, considered it righteous, as the Indians did not have the military strength to defend themselves, and thus deserved to lose their rights. Survival of the fittest, so to speak. Jackson is the man most directly responsible for the “Trail of Tears” relocation of the Cherokee. Later, the Navajo and Sioux, to name just two large tribes, were slaughtered in outright warfare.
Very few Europeans or their descendants, from 1585 with the Lost Colony, to the turn of the 20th Century, ever raised much of a fuss, if any at all, over this disgustingly awesome mistreatment of an entire race of humans.
4 Murders of Three Civil Rights Workers
3 Kitty Genovese
The most infamous example of the bystander effect took place on March 13, 1964, in Kew Gardens, Queens, NY, when Catherine Genovese was entering her apartment building at about 3:15 AM, from work. She was stabbed twice in the back by Winston Moseley, a heavy machine operator, who later explained that he simply “wanted to kill a woman.”
Genovese screamed, “Oh, my God! He stabbed me! Help me!” and collapsed. Several neighbors in surrounding buildings reported hearing her voice, but decided it was probably just a drunken brawl or lovers’ spat. One man shouted from his window, “Let that girl alone!” which scared Moseley away.
This neighbor was sure to have seen Genovese crawling across the street,