New York Times reporter Shaila Dewan blogged yesterday that the Justice Department has declined to reopen the Malcolm X murder case. “Although the Justice Department recognizes that the murder of Malcolm X was a tragedy, both for his family and for the community he served, we have determined that at this time, the matter does [...]
Tag Archives: ku klux klan
Thomas Moore, phone interview by Ben Greenberg, June 22, 2010 [7:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Frank Morris Murder Suspect Confronted by Local Reporter and Cold Case Film Crew
On Wednesday, after Stanley Nelson published information implicating Rayville, La. truck driver Leonard Spencer in the 1964 murder of Black shoe shop owner Frank Morris in Ferriday, La., local reporter Samantha Boatman from KNOE News confronted Spencer at a Rayville machine shop where he works. With her was a Civil Rights Cold Case Project film [...]
Investigations Force Feds to Revisit Murders of Civil Rights Era
I’m covering the developments in the Stanley Nelson’s Frank Morris murder investigation at Colorlines today: On Dec. 10, 1964, a 51-year-old, black shoe-shop owner named Frank Morris was burned alive inside his store in Ferriday, La. Morris miraculously survived severe burns to all of the skin on his body, was hospitalized and lived four more [...]
Living Suspect Identified in 1964 Murder of Frank Morris
Today my colleague Stanley Nelson has published a remarkable article implicating a truck driver living in Rayville, Louisiana in the 1964 arson murder of Frank Morris, a Black shoe shop owner in Ferriday, Louisiana. Two people say a Richland Parish truck driver who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan told them he participated [...]
Why DDoS Attacks for Wikileaks Are Not Civil Disobedience
In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust. [...]
A Little More Justice in Mississippi
Settlement Reached in Civil Suit Charging Franklin County, MS Role in 1964 KKK Murders On Monday, June 21, Franklin County, Mississippi agreed to a settlement in an historic civil suit with the families of Charles Moore and Henry Dee, two 19-year-old Black men who were kidnapped, tortured and murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan [...]
Thomas Moore, phone interview by Ben Greenberg, June 22, 2010 [7:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadEdgar Ray Killen Says God Will Get You (If You Helped Put Him Away)
[I'm honored to have collaborated with Jerry Mitchell on this article appearing on page 1 of today's Jackson Clarion-Ledger. —BG] Killen claims God is on his side Lawsuit filed last week alleges civil rights violations Jerry Mitchell and Ben Greenberg The Clarion-Ledger March 1, 2010 Convicted Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen says there wasn’t enough [...]
Lines of Accountability
One of the themes of this blog is the pressing need to look not only at who pulled the trigger in decades old Civil Rights Era murders but also to look more broadly at how institutions, people in positions of power and others in the broader society enabled or encouraged the countless crimes against African [...]
In Death Posey Dodges Murder Charges Once and for All
The Clarion Ledger reports: Billy Wayne Posey, a key suspect in the Ku Klux Klan’s killings of three civil rights workers in 1964 in Mississippi, has died, but Justice Department officials say they’re continuing their investigation of the remaining suspects. The 73-year-old Posey died Thursday of natural causes, according to friends. That leaves four living [...]
July 4, 1964
July 4, 1964 was the last time Julia Dobbins saw her brother, JoEd Edwards. Eight days later, he went missing. Rumors were that the Klan took away the 21-year-old Black man and murdered him. His mother died in 1990 never having learned what truly happened to her son. July 4, 1964 was the thirteenth day [...]
Possible Government Accountability for 1964 Racial Murders
Jerry Mitchell reports that US District Judge Tom Lee will allow a lawsuit to go forward that could break new ground on holding Mississippi government accountable for the murders of Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore. The lawsuit has been filed against Franklin County, MS, by Moore’s brother Thomas and Dee’s sister Thelma Collins. [...]
Edging towards Justice in Concordia Parish, LA
Stanley Nelson of the Concordia Sentinel reports major developments in the investigation of the 1964 murder of a Black man, named Frank Morris in Ferriday, Louisiana. Federal and parish prosecutors are combining forces in the investigation of the 1964 murder of black Ferriday shoe shop owner Frank Morris and the case may go before the [...]
Cold Case Justice Initiative
In doing my work on racial violence in Southwest Mississippi in the 1950s and 1960s, it is exciting to get to know some of the other people doing similar work. Syracuse University College of Law Professors Janice McDonald and Paula C. Johnson direct the Cold Case Justice Initiative, which has been playing a role in [...]
What Is This You Bring My America?
Last Sunday, the New York Times reported that among hundreds of recently declassified intelligence documents from the 1950s was a 1950 proposal by former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty…. Hoover wanted President Harry S. Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to [...]
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- St. Petersburg Police Bind Hands And Feet Of 5-Year-Old African-American Girl
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- “Uppity,” That’s Racist for “Kill”
