He was a longtime Mississippi newspaper publisher and editor, whose writing sparked awareness of the three civil rights workers who disappeared in the summer of 1964.
Stanley Dearman published the Neshoba County Democrat and wrote about the slaying of those activists whose bodies were found almost seven weeks after they vanished. Dearman’s authorship is believed to have fueled justice in gaining conviction of a former Klansman convicted of those killings.
Dearman had retired to Florida after a Mississippi news career spanning more than three decades. He died this past weekend in the town of Gulf Breeze at the age of 84.
Dearman’s funeral and burial takes place today in Philadelphia, where much of his newspaper career took place.
