"Murder in Mississippi (Southern Justice)"

Illustration for “Look,” June 29, 1965.

In the beginning of 1965, Rockwell began work on an illustration for "Look" about the June 21, 1964 murders of three young civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Michael Schwerner and his chief aide, James Chaney, were in Philadelphia to assist with training summer volunteers, one of whom was Andrew Goodman. Schwerner had been targeted by the Klan for his organization of a black boycott of white-owned businesses and for his attempts to register blacks in Meriden.

Hearing of a Klan attack against blacks and of arson at Mount Zion Church, the three men drove to the site. On their return to the Meriden office of Congress On Racial Equality (CORE), they were taken into custody by Deputy Sheriff Price, by some accounts for speeding and by others for supposedly setting the fire. After releasing them later that night, Price tailed them. Once outside of town, Klansmen intercepted them and hustled them into Price's car. They were driven to a remote location and shot point blank. Their bodies were then taken to a farm of one of the Klansmen, dumped into a dam site, and covered by tons of dirt pushed over them by tractor.

Rockwell conceived "Murder in Mississippi" as a horizontal composition to run across two pages. The young men would be pictured on the left page and Philadelphia Deputy Price and the posse of Klansmen wielding sticks (we later learned all were armed with rifles and shotguns) on the right. His next idea was to do two separate, vertical pictures-the first showing the civil rights workers and the second showing the Mount Zion Church. Rockwell hired local architect Tom Arienti to draft a church steeple, but later decided against including the church.