On June 19, 1964, the United States Senate -- after a lengthy filibuster and vote of cloture -- passed the landmark Civil Rights Act (see below). Three days later, it was reported that three civil rights workers, conducting a voter registration drive in
Nashoba county Mississippi, were missing. The workers were Andrew Goodman and Michael Shwerner of New York and James Chaney, a young local black man helping the two in the registration drive. 

President Lyndon Johnson, as transcripts of his telephone conversations reveal, followed and actively oversaw the investigation.  LBJ first talked to Senator James Eastland from Mississippi where the theme of a "hoax" was repeated:

LBJ: Jim, we got three kids missing down there. What can I do about it?
        EASTLAND: I don't know. I don't believe there's three missing. I believe its
        a publicity stunt. [see Michael Beschloss, Taking Charge, p. 432]

In October,  the FBI "broke" the case when a Ku Klux Klan member, James Jordon, revealed that he was a witness to the murders. It was discovered that the three were initially arrested by Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price for an alleged traffic violation and taken to the jail in Neshoba Country. They were released that evening and on the way back to Meridian, Mississippi were stopped by two carloads of white men on a remote rural road. The men approached their car and then shot and killed Schwermer, then Goodman, and finally Chaney.