page_title: United States Post Office and Courthouse (Meridian, Mississippi)
section_title: Notable cases
hierarchical_section_title: United States Post Office and Courthouse (Meridian, Mississippi) / Notable cases
caption_attribution_description: English: Missing persons poster created by the FBI in 1964, signed by the Director J. Edgar Hoover. Shows the photographs of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner.
context_page_description: The United States Post Office and Courthouse in Meridian, Mississippi was built in 1933. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. It is a three-story limestone building built in a classical Art Deco style which was home to Meridian's main post office and a federal courthouse from its construction in 1933 until 2012 when the federal courthouse was closed due to budget cuts. The building itself is still open and still houses the post office.
context_section_description: The courthouse housed in the building was the setting of many notable cases, especially during the Civil Rights Movement. On May 31, 1961, James Meredith filed a lawsuit in the Meridian court against the University of Mississippi, and the initial trial was held in the courthouse. The suit would eventually go to the Supreme Court, which ruled in Meredith's favor. The Meridian courthouse was also the site of the United States v. Price case, in which 19 men where charged with the murders of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman, in October 1967. The trial resulted in the conviction of 7 people and was the first time an all-white jury in Mississippi convicted a white person on civil rights charges.
  Usage of the court declined (as it did in all federal courts) since the Civil Rights era, averaging only six to eight trials per year during the 1980s and 1990s, and even fewer in more recent years. No federal judges have been stationed in the courthouse since the '90s. Most filings since then have been made online, and judges are brought in from larger cities if needed for business.
caption: Missing Persons poster depicting (from left to right) Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner the victims in United States v. Price, which was held at the Meridian courthouse.
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