Neshoba is the name of a county in Mississippi where three men were arrested in 1964 and later found murdered. Those men were two white Jewish men (Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner) and a black man (James Chaney). They were political activists in the American Civil Rights Movement working to increase black voter registration. If you take voting lightly, particularly if you are a person of color, then watching this 2008 documentary, “Neshoba: The Price of Freedom,” you’ll be reminded of just how precious that right is.

The 20-year-old Goodman was an anthropology student from New York and the 24-year-old Schwerner, also from New York, was a social worker. Chaney was a 21-year-old black man from Meridian, Mississippi.  Evidence, now lost, pointed to special brutality toward Chaney before his murder.

Goodman was a classmate of Paul Simon and a friend of Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon. They dedicated the song “He Was My Brother” to Goodman. Several movies told this story such as the 1974 TV movie “Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan” and the 1988 feature film  “Mississippi Burning.”

What drew attention to these murders were two of the victims were white. At that time in that place the disappearance and death of a black person was commonplace, something underlined by the discovery of seven bodies unrelated to the case found when investigators dragged a local river.

The documentary, produced, directed and edited by Micki Dickoff and Tony Pagano, includes interviews with the victims and the man who would be found guilty over 40 years later, Edgar Ray Killen, and his family. Most of the narrative is organized around his 2005 indictment. Killen was then 80 years old.

What is most moving is the interviews with the victims’ family and parents contrasted with the man-on-the-street opinions. Should one leave well enough alone or should justice be served, even years later. Should we let sleeping dogs lie or should we hunt down domestic terrorists?

Sometimes we don’t cherish the freedoms we have because we don’t recall the high cost people paid. “Neshoba: The Price of Freedom” reminds us that those sacrifices weren’t so long ago.