Justice

Reputed Klansman, 71, convicted in 1964 civil rights crime The Associated Press JACKSON, Miss. -- A jury on Thursday convicted reputed Ku Klux Klansman James Seale of kidnapping and conspiracy in the 1964 deaths of two black teenagers in southwestern Mississippi. Seale, 71, faces life in prison in the deaths of Charles Moore and Henry Dee. The 19-year-olds disappeared from Franklin County on May 2, 1964, and their bodies were found later in the Mississippi River. "I thank the Lord that we got justice," Dee's older sister, Thelma Collins, of Springfield, La., said outside the courthouse. Seale sat stone-faced as the verdict was read and showed no emotion as marshals led him out. Federal prosecutors indicted Seale in January almost 43 years after the slayings. He is to be sentenced Aug. 24 on two counts of kidnapping and one count of conspiracy. Fuck him. I remember a story my father told me when I was a boy. It didn't take long and he never mentioned it again but I'll never forget it. My father told me about a wooded area where he and his friends used to play until a black man was lynched there a few nights ago. The tree that they used to climb and play hide and seek was used for a terrible purpose and they never went there again after they learned what happened. It was the first time I can recall seeing my father vulnerable. I hated seeing the pain on his face and I hated the white men who put it there. Generations of black men and women shared these horrible memories and fears for centuries. White men like James Ford Seale was an obedient cog in the White Killing Machine that murdered innocent people of color for entertainment. So now I'm supposed to feel for Seale because he's a sick old man who's going to die in jail? I feel sorry for Charles Moore and Henry Dee, two young black men who never lived past their nineteenth birthday.