Looking Back

Fifty years ago today, October 21, 1967

Klansmen Convicted

An all-white federal court jury wrote a new page in Mississippi history Friday by convicting seven Ku Klux Klansmen, one a deputy sheriff, of conspiracy in the 1964 slayings of three young civil rights workers.

The 12-day-old trial ended on a sensational note with U.S. District Judge Harold Cox accusing two of those convicted, Deputy Cecil Price and Alton Wayne Roberts, of threatening to bomb him.

He ordered them jailed without bond, declaring, “I’m not going to let any wild man loose on civilized society.”

Ike Off to Augusta

Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower left Walter Reed Army Hospital Friday and caught a train south to Augusta. Eisenhower had been hospitalized Tuesday for what was later diagnosed as a non-cancerous enlargement of the prostate gland.

‘Blue Law’ Nixed

The state Supreme Court Friday struck down Georgia’s Sunday blue law and opened the way for business as usual on the Sabbath.

In a unanimous opinion, the court held that the Sunday closing statute violates the state constitution’s equal protection provision.

This story was originally published October 20, 2017 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Looking Back."