Philadelphia, Mississippi is best known for the killings of three civil rights workers in 1964. This time around the town of 8,000 is making news for a good reason.

This week, the town elected its first black mayor, despite a 55% white majority.

James Young still remember the Ku Klux Klan tormenting his neighborhood. Blatant racism and hostility was the norm for his generation in the South.

So traumatic was his childhood that Young broke down in tears when discussing what it means to be elected the town's first black mayor.

When you've been treated the way we've been treated," he told CNN, choking up and then pausing to wipe the tears from his face. "That's why it's so overwhelming to be a part of this history."

Philadelphia was the site of one of the most notorious slayings of the civil rights era. On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers -- James Chaney, 21, Andrew Goodman, 20, and Michael Schwerner, 24 -- were shot to death at the edge of town. The killings inspired the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning."

A resident of the town said Young's win symbolized the scab finally falling off this town's wound.