1964 was the date of the original trial of several men accused in the murder of 3 civil rights workers: Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney. All young men, and most certainly murdered in Neshoba County Mississippi by people who wished to deny voting rights to other American citizens. They got in the way of oppression, so they were removed. Violently. The cause went on without them, however, didn't it? Every Mississippi citizen now has the right (and responsibility) to vote and they are not in any way hindered in this process.

Let's talk for a moment about what voting actually means. It's more than marking an X by the candidate of your choice (or as is often the case, the lesser of two evils, or the devil you know...). It's being allowed to have a say in your own future. I know sometimes, especially in this too big country, that it seems like it's a very small thing. Particularly with the whole stupid electoral college deal, it seems like it's a drop of water in the Atlantic. One grain of sand on the beach. But it's still something.

If you don't believe me, ask an Iraqi citizen. Did you see how proud they were to show off their inky thumb prints on their first real election day in ... how many decades? They smiled as they brazenly showed their smudged fingers to the whole world. See? I voted! I actually voted! Their smiles said. Think also about the courage it took for each of them to even be in the vicinity of a polling place with the violence promised from insurgents. Their thumb on display was a thumbing of their noses at all who would turn back the clock and have a vile dictator telling them how to live, how to earn, how to raise their children, how to think, and not leastly, how to suffer if they didn't agree with Saddam.

Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner were just such people. I sometimes wonder if the two yankees Goodman and Schwerner truly knew what they were getting into when they drove South to register black voters. But Mr. Cheney, the one I admire most of the three? He knew exactly what he was getting into. He'd seen crosses burn, and knew precisely the statement that it made when one was aflame in your own yard. It meant your neighbors distanced themselves from you in fear of being too near a target. It meant from that moment on looking over your shoulder. It meant never going out alone again.

Let me say this in defense of my state and my region today. While it's outrage that justice has been delayed (and much I hope that justice delayed here is not justice denied), Mississippi is a different place than it was in 1964. I polled some of my coworkers at work today, and they feel just nearly as I do, with little to no sympathy for the 80 year old accused. There is some disagreement as to whether it will mean anything to convict him (after all, he has lived now to the ripe old age of 80, and the young men who he allegedly shot down never even saw middle age), but he has no one taking up for him or making excuses for him as in '64. No one I know cares that he was just recently discharged from Neshoba County Hospital after a breif stay in that Intensive Care Unit. None are the least bit displeased that he was back in court today, facing his accusors.

The prosecution wrapped up their case today, Saturday June 18, 2005, about 41 years after the deaths of the three. If they weren't burning to see justice done then, most Mississippians are burning to see it now. Let us show the rest of the country and the rest of the world too, that murder does not go unpunished. More importantly, let's be reminded that voting rights are worth fighting for. That those that fight for the rights of others do not die in vain with no justice sought.

Burn, Mississippi. Burn!