CRIME: A Senseless Killing

School integration had gone remarkably smoothly in the steamy cotton town of Drew in the Mississippi Delta. A majority of white parents, to be sure, had taken their children out of Drew High School. But those who remained got along well with their black classmates; there was not a single racial incident during the entire school year. Last week, graduation exercises brought a year of tranquillity to a fitting close. Garbed in caps and gowns, white and blacks mingled freely under the gaze of proud parents.

That night, as if in bitter mockery of the day's festivities, racial peace was...