What do you think?
Rate this book
Witness in Philadelphia
On June 21, 1964, three young civil rights workers―James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner―were murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi. Florence Mars, a native of Philadelphia, recounts the grim circumstances of the killings and describes what happened to a community confronted by a challenge to long-held beliefs.
- GenresNonfictionRaceHistory
320 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1977
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 9, 2016
It's shameful that this book was written.
Shameful, in that it did not need to be written. Had a few men stood up and said "It is wrong to kill someone because they want to exercise their civil rights to vote, to live, to worship, to work wherever they want," this book would not have been written, Florence Mars would have retired a wealthy entrepreneur and artist, and James Chaney. 19. Andrew Goodman, 19, and Michael Schwerner, 23, would have been telling their grandchildren the wild times in the Freedom Summer of 1964.
Instead, an incredible conspiracy of white Southern males, most of them members of the Ku Klux Klan, as well as upstanding businessmen, church leaders, hard-working men with good reputations, including police officers and other elected officials, did detain and brutally murder these three young men, then hauled them off to a nearly completed dam to bury them under 20 feet of good Mississippi clay.
Ms Mars' tale of the unraveling of their conspiracy and the results of their hateful acts is well-told. It is a somewhat chatty but lucid and direct telling of what happened before and after. She has amassed a wealth of detail from original sources, including events she directly witnessed, and has assembled a story the explains from beginning to end how hate and fear destroyed not just the lives of these three men who sought to do what was right, but destroyed the lives of the participants, their families, their businesses, and their reputations.
It is an interesting coincidence to read this book almost 50 years exactly from the events, and to view a related documentary "Neshoba: the Price of Freedom" & to see familiar faces and names. It is also with a great sense of relief to see that one of the masterminds behind these murders, the preacher Killen, finally receive justice for his hateful acts and his leadership of killings.
Shameful, in that it did not need to be written. Had a few men stood up and said "It is wrong to kill someone because they want to exercise their civil rights to vote, to live, to worship, to work wherever they want," this book would not have been written, Florence Mars would have retired a wealthy entrepreneur and artist, and James Chaney. 19. Andrew Goodman, 19, and Michael Schwerner, 23, would have been telling their grandchildren the wild times in the Freedom Summer of 1964.
Instead, an incredible conspiracy of white Southern males, most of them members of the Ku Klux Klan, as well as upstanding businessmen, church leaders, hard-working men with good reputations, including police officers and other elected officials, did detain and brutally murder these three young men, then hauled them off to a nearly completed dam to bury them under 20 feet of good Mississippi clay.
Ms Mars' tale of the unraveling of their conspiracy and the results of their hateful acts is well-told. It is a somewhat chatty but lucid and direct telling of what happened before and after. She has amassed a wealth of detail from original sources, including events she directly witnessed, and has assembled a story the explains from beginning to end how hate and fear destroyed not just the lives of these three men who sought to do what was right, but destroyed the lives of the participants, their families, their businesses, and their reputations.
It is an interesting coincidence to read this book almost 50 years exactly from the events, and to view a related documentary "Neshoba: the Price of Freedom" & to see familiar faces and names. It is also with a great sense of relief to see that one of the masterminds behind these murders, the preacher Killen, finally receive justice for his hateful acts and his leadership of killings.
December 21, 2018
A must read for those who believe this never happened.
March 28, 2015
Witness in Philadelphia (Mississippi) is an important book that I think has been sadly overlooked. It was published in 1977, 13 years after the murder of three civil rights workers who had come to Neshoba County to encourage blacks to register to vote. In later years the movie "Mississippi Burning" was released and the role that won Frances McDormand a best supporting actress role was based on the real-life experiences of the author, Florence Mars.
When the FBI came in to the county to investigate these murders, the South was embroiled in racial tension and violence. As the investigators sought to gain information into who had committed these crimes, they found the white population to be less than cooperative as they closed ranks to protect members of the KKK and other white supremacists. With the help of Florence Mars and her Aunt (Ellen), the FBI was able to hear information they might otherwise have missed, as Ms. Mars and her Aunt were trusted in the black community and both later testified in court. Few other whites would even speak to the FBI. Ms. Mars was threatened with violence, ostracized at her church, forced to sell her business and had her barn burned down all because she believed in justice for all. She could not believe that the community that she was born into could turn their backs on these murders and let them go unpunished.
Mars takes you briefly back into the history of the settling of Mississippi and into the years leading up to the murders. These memories are a personal recounting of family lineage, and the seemingly simple life of small-town America as experienced from a white woman whose family was well-liked and known in the community. This book is very special to me as I found out that my 2nd cousin was the author and yet I had never read it before.
I am giving this book five stars because of the information that it imparts, not because of any family relation or stellar writing. This author tells a very personal story, and sometimes the reader may get a little bogged down in keeping the details straight. The writing style could be grounds for giving it only 3 stars. However, it does not change my feeling that this is a story that should be read by every child in school as it is a valuable lesson in how one group having power over another can lead to an unjust and even cruel society. You will likely be shocked and saddened by the words and deeds of this era....
While many things in our society have changed and people of other races have for the most part been able to break down many barriers, both economically and socially, there are still corners and pockets of discrimination practiced in America. Hatred still has a mouthpiece. Forty nine years is a long time in the life of a human, but not a long time historically. Racial prejudice still exists today in America-we just don't hear it in direct ways. Florence Mars' story will resonate from the decades of the 50s and 60s as powerful white leaders threatened to close down the public school system in Mississippi, wrote laws that kept blacks from being able to cast their vote in elections, and used Christianity as an excuse for their actions.
When the FBI came in to the county to investigate these murders, the South was embroiled in racial tension and violence. As the investigators sought to gain information into who had committed these crimes, they found the white population to be less than cooperative as they closed ranks to protect members of the KKK and other white supremacists. With the help of Florence Mars and her Aunt (Ellen), the FBI was able to hear information they might otherwise have missed, as Ms. Mars and her Aunt were trusted in the black community and both later testified in court. Few other whites would even speak to the FBI. Ms. Mars was threatened with violence, ostracized at her church, forced to sell her business and had her barn burned down all because she believed in justice for all. She could not believe that the community that she was born into could turn their backs on these murders and let them go unpunished.
Mars takes you briefly back into the history of the settling of Mississippi and into the years leading up to the murders. These memories are a personal recounting of family lineage, and the seemingly simple life of small-town America as experienced from a white woman whose family was well-liked and known in the community. This book is very special to me as I found out that my 2nd cousin was the author and yet I had never read it before.
I am giving this book five stars because of the information that it imparts, not because of any family relation or stellar writing. This author tells a very personal story, and sometimes the reader may get a little bogged down in keeping the details straight. The writing style could be grounds for giving it only 3 stars. However, it does not change my feeling that this is a story that should be read by every child in school as it is a valuable lesson in how one group having power over another can lead to an unjust and even cruel society. You will likely be shocked and saddened by the words and deeds of this era....
While many things in our society have changed and people of other races have for the most part been able to break down many barriers, both economically and socially, there are still corners and pockets of discrimination practiced in America. Hatred still has a mouthpiece. Forty nine years is a long time in the life of a human, but not a long time historically. Racial prejudice still exists today in America-we just don't hear it in direct ways. Florence Mars' story will resonate from the decades of the 50s and 60s as powerful white leaders threatened to close down the public school system in Mississippi, wrote laws that kept blacks from being able to cast their vote in elections, and used Christianity as an excuse for their actions.
July 11, 2009
Nice evocation of the climate in which the events of 1964 unfolded. Not so much a "true crime" or "courtroom drama" as an illumination of the history and culture of Neshoba County, which shaped the attitudes of the citizenry and their responses to the horrendous crime committed in their midst.
September 1, 2015
Florence Mars...WOW.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews