- 1964
| Jan 15 | (Mississippi Burning) (day unspecified) Bob Moses and COFO (Council of Federated Organizations) announces the Mississippi Summer Project to register blacks to vote. | Ref: 87 |
| Feb 15 | (Mississippi Burning) Founding meeting of the White Knights of the Klu Klux Klan of Mississippi. | Ref: 87 |
| Apr 24 | (Mississippi Burning) KKK burns crosses at 61 separate locations across Mississippi. | Ref: 87 |
| May 30 | (Mississippi Burning) (Memorial Day) Michael Schwerner and James Chaney speak at Mt. Zion Methodist Church in Neshoba County and urge its all-black congregation to register. | Ref: 87 |
| Jun 14 | (Mississippi Burning) Andy Goodman and other student volunteers attend training session for Summer Project volunteers in Oxford, Ohio. Also in attendence are CORE members Schwerner and Chaney. | Ref: 87 |
| Jun 16 | (Mississippi Burning) Armed KKK members assault leaders of Mt. Zion Church. | Ref: 87 |
| Jun 17 | (Mississippi Burning) Klan burns Mt. Zion Church to the ground. It is one of twenty black churches in Mississippi to be firebombed in the summer of 1964. FBI begins investigation into church bombing codenamed "MIBURN", for "Mississippi burning." | Ref: 87 |
| Jun 20 | (Mississippi Burning) Michael Schwerner and James Chaney and Andy Goodman drive from Ohio to the CORE office in Meridian, Mississippi. | Ref: 87 |
| Jun 21 | (Mississippi Burning) Mickey Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney drive to site of burned church in Neshoba County. On their way back to Meridian, they are arrested by Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price and taken to the county jail in Philadelphia, Miss. In a conspiracy with at local members of the Klan, Price releases the three from jail at 10 pm. The civil rights workers' station wagon is overtaken on a rural road, the three are beaten and shot and their bodies buried in an earthen dam. (XDG, p. 4A, 6/21/2000) | Ref: 83 |
| Jun 22 | (Mississippi Burning) The FBI begins its investigation into the disappearance of the three civil rights workers. Joseph Sullivan is appointed to head the investigation. | Ref: 87 |
| Jun 23 | (Mississippi Burning) President Johnson meets with Attorney General Robert Kennedy and others to discuss an Administration response to the crisis in Mississippi. | Ref: 87 |
| Jun 24 | (Mississippi Burning) Prominent black leaders including James Farmer, John Lewis, and Dick Gregory meet with Neshoba County officials in Philadelphia. | Ref: 87 |
| Jul 10 | (Mississippi Burning) J. Edgar Hoover arrives in Jackson to open a Mississippi office of the FBI. | Ref: 87 |
| Jul 31 | (Mississippi Burning) The FBI learns the probable location of the bodies. By this time the FBI had interviewed about 1000 Mississippians, including an estimated 500 members of the KKK. | Ref: 87 |
| Aug 03 | (Mississippi Burning) A search warrant is obtained to look for bodies in an earthen dam at the Old Jolly Farm. | Ref: 87 |
| Aug 04 | (Mississippi Burning) The murdered bodies of three civil rights workers (Michael H. Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James E. Chaney) are found buried in an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi. James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner had disappeared June 21, not long after they had been held for six hours in the Neshoba County, MS jail on charges of speeding. Their burned car was discovered on June 23, prompting a search by the FBI for the three young men. (XDG, p 4A, 8/4/2000) | Ref: 83 |
| Oct 13 | (Mississippi Burning) Klan member James Jordan confesses his involvement in the conspiracy to the FBI and agrees to cooperate in its investigation. | Ref: 87 |
| Nov 19 | (Mississippi Burning) Klan member Horace Barnette confesses and describes actual shootings. | Ref: 87 |
| Dec 04 | (Mississippi Burning) Nineteen members of the conspiracy are arrested and charged with violating the civil rights of Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman. | Ref: 87 |
| Dec 10 | (Mississippi Burning) A U. S. Commissioner dismisses charges against the nineteen alleged conspirators. | Ref: 87 |
- 1965
| Jan 10 | (Mississippi Burning) (day unspecified) A federal grand jury in Jackson reindicts the nineteen conspirators. | Ref: 87 |
| Feb 24 | (Mississippi Burning) Judge William Cox dismisses the indictments (except as against Price and Sheriff Rainey) on grounds that the conspirators were not "acting under color of state law." | Ref: 87 |
- 1966
| Mar 10 | (Mississippi Burning) (day unspecified) The United States Supreme Court reinstates the original indictments against the conspirators, overruling Judge Cox. | Ref: 87 |
| Jun 21 | (Mississippi Burning) Civil rights workers James E. Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi. Following the FBI's MIBURN investigation, eight men, including Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price and Sam Holloway Bowers, Jr., the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the KKK of Mississippi, were convicted and sentenced to imprisonment under the federal civil rights statutes for the crime. | Ref: 14 |
- 1967
| Feb 28 | (Mississippi Burning) In Mississippi, 19 are indicted in the slayings of three civil rights workers. | Ref: 2 |
| Oct 07 | (Mississippi Burning) The trial of the Neshoba County conspirators begins. | Ref: 87 |
| Oct 18 | (Mississippi Burning) The case goes to the jury. | Ref: 87 |
| Oct 20 | (Mississippi Burning) The all-white jury returns verdicts of guilty against seven conspirators, nine are acquitted, and the jury is unable to reach a verdict on three of the men charged. (XDG, p 4A, 10/20/2001) | Ref: 83 |
| Dec 29 | (Mississippi Burning) The conspirators found guilty are sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to ten years. | Ref: 87 |
- 1970
| Mar 19 | (Mississippi Burning) After exhausting their appeals, the seven convicted men enter federal prisons. | Ref: 87 |
| Sep 08 | (Mississippi Burning) Two of the conspirators are badly beaten by black inmates in a federal prison in Texarkana. | Ref: 87 |
|
The Mississippi Burning Trial Chronology