MERIDIAN - The prosecution and conviction of Edgar Ray Killen in the 1964 deaths of three civil rights workers has been hailed as a significant leap forward for race relations in Mississippi.
Perhaps.
The symbolism of white prosecutors, a white judge and a majority-white jury meting out the justice their predecessors failed to deliver four decades ago is powerful - especially for a black citizenry that remains skeptical about the white majority's willingness to do the right thing on matters of race. I don't discount the importance of Killen's imprisonment to a society haunted for 41 years by his freedom.
That said, the worthy cause of racial reconciliation won't be achieved in a courtroom, no matter how noble the intentions of prosecutors, judges and juries. Prosecutions of unsolved crimes from the civil rights era, which I fully support, are better viewed and appreciated as individual triumphs of justice for the victims' families, rather than societal acts of redemption.
Reconciliation is a more personal matter. It will happen - indeed, is happening - one heart at a time, and in settings more private than the Neshoba County Courthouse.
Such as St. James Episcopal Church in Greenville, where a small but diverse group of Deltans gathered last month to explore the possibility of a more harmonious future.
Or the fellowship hall of Meridian's Eighth Avenue Church of God.
That's where some 50 of us gathered Friday night for a Mission Meridian banquet in memory of the Rev. Charlie J. Miller and other victims of the Lockheed Martin shootings two years to the day earlier.
Unlike last month in Philadelphia, where reporters from around the world descended to document the historic Killen trial, no national or international media were on hand Friday night. Just as well, because, in the wise words of Miller's widow, Jinnell Fox Miller, reconciliation is an intensely personal and spiritual experience.
Mrs. Miller should know.
Despite every right to be embittered by her husband's senseless death at the hands of a hate-filled co-worker, she preaches the same message of love and hope that her soulmate espoused during a lifetime of ministry. "He lived a life of reconciliation," Mrs. Miller told us. "He was especially concerned about the least, the lost and the last."
Another speaker, the Rev. William Harper, reflected on the aftermath of the Lockheed Martin tragedy - the days after the national media had left town, a tale of hatred and violence well-documented. Harper spoke movingly of a community's healing - outside the glare of the media spotlight.
"When I saw black and white not afraid to touch each other, to hug each other, I saw God," Harper said.
Mission Mississippi President Dolphus Weary, who experienced racism firsthand as a young black man in 1960s Mississippi, cautioned against quick-fix artists in the reconciliation movement.
"They want to run into the room and fix it in one swoop," he said.
Such might be the expectations for the Killen trial and verdict - a cure-all for lingering racial hatred in Mississippi.
"I'm sorry," Weary said, referring to quick fixes generally and not the Killen trial specifically, "but it's not gonna happen. The movement of reconciliation is a movement of faith."
Killen's imprisonment has value - as a boost for Mississippi's image, as a delayed measure of justice for his victims' families. But as an instrument of racial reconciliation? Probably only for the people of Neshoba County and others directly involved in the case, I suspect.
The broader work of reconciliation in Mississippi continues outside the courtroom - in living rooms, in churches, in the hearts of those who heed the legacy of Charlie J. Miller.
- Stewart, a onetime managing editor of the Commonwealth, is the executive editor of the Meridian Star.
