Ben Chaney is founder and president of the James Earl Chaney
Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to advocating
for Civil Rights, Human Rights, and Social Justice. Born
in Meridian, Mississippi in 1952, Ben grew up in the Civil
rights Movement and was arrested in nonviolent demonstrations
more than 21 times before he was 12 years old.
Ben was supposed to accompany his brother, James Earl Chaney,
when he was murdered in 1964 in Mississippi by the Ku Klux
Klan, along with Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, for
trying to register African Americans at voting polls.
The bodies of the Civil Rights martyrs were recovered after 44
days in an earthen dam. The tragic events surrounding
this case are the subject of the movies Murder In
Mississippi and Mississippi Burning.
From that incident, Ben gained a burning desire to fight for
the rights of oppressed people. He established the James
Earl Chaney Foundation in 1998 in order to honor the
sacrifices of the Civil Rights activists by helping to
creation the next generation of Civil Rights Leadership!