Lawyers prepared to wrap up their defense in the trial of a former Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen, seen here in court on 17 June 2005. Killen is accused of organizing the murders of three young civil rights activists 40 years ago. (AFP photo)

BEIJING, June 22 (Xinhuanet) -- Edgar Ray Killen, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, was convicted of manslaughter on Tuesday, on the 41st anniversary of the murders of three young civil rights workers, closing another chapter in the country's sordid past of racial violence that has hovered over generations.

    The 80-year-old had been tried in 1967 for the murder of Michael Schwerner, 24, Andy Goodman, 20, and James Chaney, 21, but the all-white jury was unable to reach a verdict after one member said she could not convict a preacher.

    The murders occurred during "Freedom Summer" on June 21, 1964, when thousands of young people, mostly white college students, descended on Mississippi and other southern states to organize voter education programs and register African Americans who were about to gain the right to vote.

    Three civil rights workers, Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney, were held at a police station on trumped-up charges, then released late at night and ambushed by members of the Klan and police.

    Their bodies, beaten and riddled with bullets, were dumped under an earthen dam and only found 44 days later, following an intense FBI search.

    The case gained worldwide attention because of the 1988 Hollywood movie Mississippi Burning.

    The latest trial opened June 13.

    (Agencies)