Freedom Summer 1964 Cold Case Files
As part of commemorative activities around the 60th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, Natchez National Historical Park and the Historic Natchez Foundation have partnered to offer a special talk about an unsolved local Civil Rights murder. The lecture by former Concordia Sentinel editor Stanley Nelson on Thursday, August 29th, will be held at the Historic Natchez Foundation, 108 South Commerce Street, Natchez, at 6:00 pm.
In July of 1964, 24-year-old Joseph “Joe-Ed” Edwards disappeared, his car found abandoned along a Concordia Parish highway. For the last 60 years, details have emerged indicating that Edwards was targeted and abducted by Ku Klux Klansmen and their police allies, including deputies and a police chief.
Edwards spent the final weeks of his life as an employee at the Shamrock Motel in Vidalia, Louisiana, just across the Mississippi River from Natchez. There, during late spring, a secret Klan cell known as the Silver Dollar Group was founded by coffee-drinking Klansmen in the café. Although Edwards was not an activist, he told friends and relatives around the time of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that he believed the world was changing and he planned to live his life his own way.
Allegations surrounding the drowning of a white child and a white woman’s claim that Edwards kissed her against her will at the motel placed him in the crosshairs of the Klan and police. During the middle of the night in July 1964, a witness saw a Buick, which was later identified as Edwards’, being pursued and stopped by what appeared to be an unmarked white police car with a flashing light on the dash. Edwards hasn’t been seen since. His body is believed to have been discarded somewhere in Concordia Parish.
More than 100-plus unsolved Civil Rights-era murders were reinvestigated by the FBI and Justice Department beginning in 2007, including the disappearance of Edwards and the murders of Black men from Concordia Parish, LA, and Adams, Franklin and Wilkinson counties in Mississippi. Edwards’ case is the only one in which the body has never been found.
Nelson spent years before he retired in 2021 as editor of the Concordia Sentinel searching for details on the disappearance and the location of Edwards’ body. In recent years, student reporters with the LSU Cold Case Project have worked with him on the case. During his talk, Nelson will provide new details on the final weeks of Edwards’ life. He’ll also share the stories of the people he tracked down who were directly or indirectly impacted by the events at the Shamrock leading up to the abduction and murder of Edwards.
The National Park Service is also currently displaying a special exhibit about 1964 Civil Rights activities in the center room of the Melrose South Slave Cabin. It will remain on view through September 2024. The Melrose grounds and outbuildings are open free of charge from 8:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. For more information about park sites and activities, visit www.nps.gov/natc or call 601-446-5790.
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