Hungry BluesBen Greenberg's Weblog

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 Americans and their allies.

Jerry Mitchell’s journalism does both.

In the video above, Jerry discusses with Stephen Colbert some of the murderers his reporting has helped to put away. In their discussion, Jerry also touches on the corruption that he exposed in the handling of the two 1964 Byron De La Beckwith trials that ended in mistrials. Jerry  exposed that the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission was aiding Beckwith’s defense while the state was prosecuting him. The Sovereignty Commission was the spy agency established by the Mississippi State Legislature in 1956 to monitor and oppose civil rights activity. The Commission’s files were declassified in 1998 and are available online.

This week Jerry has published a remarkable article adding substantial new evidence that former US Senator James O. Eastland (D-MS) had strong ties with the Ku Klux Klan and played a significant role in helping Klansmen escape convictions for their alleged roles in the Neshoba County murders of the three civil rights workers, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman.

Informants told the FBI that Eastland met with Klan leaders and courted the Klan’s vote in his 1966 re-election race. The senator also talked with suspects in the Neshoba County case, including then-Sheriff Lawrence Rainey and defense lawyers, getting updates on the case.

In 1965, U.S. District Judge Harold Cox of Jackson – whose appointment to the bench Eastland engineered – threw out the indictments of all the suspects, except Rainey and his deputy, Cecil Price.

An FBI memo said Eastland, who was a college buddy of Cox, “has been taking credit for the federal government dropping charges against those indicted in the Neshoba County slayings.”

According to the FBI, Rainey penned a letter saying, “I know for a fact that James O. Eastland helped prevent the trial of 16 other men.”

On March 28, 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the indictments.

A “prominent local Klansman” in Meridian told the FBI that Eastland had appeared at a rally in Forest and invited Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers to speak with him: “Eastland stated that he would help the 17 defendants in the Neshoba County case and that he has been ‘pulling strings for them.’”

Jerry’s article also discusses soon to be published writings and statements by Killen, as well as other evidence, elaborating on the Klansman’s alleged ties to his US Senator.

Eastland grew up in Hillsboro and was buried in Eastern Cemetery in Forest.

Killen, who grew up in neighboring south Neshoba County, said he developed a relationship with Eastland after becoming friends with Leander Perez, an arch-segregationist in Louisiana.

Documents from the Eastland papers at the University of Mississippi show Eastland and Perez shared information on purported communists.

Ellis told the FBI that Killen said his work for Eastland was “to stop the communist Jews or their soldiers.”

(Read the rest.)

§ Posted by Benjamin T. Greenberg on October 21, 2009 at 12:12 am

§ Filed under breaking news, civil rights movement, mississippi, neshoba murders, race and racism and tagged andrew goodman, byron de la beckwith, cecil price, edgar ray killen, fbi, harold cox, hillsboro, james chaney, james o eastland, jerry mitchell, ku klux klan, lawrence rainey, meridian, michael schwerner, sam bowers, sovereignty commission, stephen colbert, university of mississippi

Comments

It’s Official: Jerry Mitchell is a (MacArthur) Genius

Congratulations to Jerry Mitchell!

Jerry Mitchell at the Crimes of the Civil Rights Era conference, Northeastern University Law School, April 28, 2007

A papermaker dedicated to preserving traditional Western and Japanese techniques; a scientist developing theories of global climate change; and a journalist who helps uncover details of unsolved murders from the civil rights era are among the 24 recipients of the $500,000 “genius awards,” to be announced on Tuesday by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation….

Jerry Mitchell, an investigative reporter at The Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Miss., who focuses on cold-case murders from the civil rights era, said he would use the money to help write a book on the subject. “I never in all my life expected this,” Mr. Mitchell, 50, said of his award.

I have been following Jerry’s work almost as long as I’ve had this blog and more recently have had the honor and pleasure of getting to know him professionally. Here’s a bit more about him for those unfamiliar:

He has been called “a loose cannon,” “a pain in the ass” and “a white traitor.” Whatever he’s been called, Jerry Mitchell has never given up in his quest to bring unpunished killers to justice, prompting one colleague to call him “the South’s Simon Wiesenthal.”

Since 1989, the 47-year-old investigative reporter for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., has unearthed documents, cajoled suspects and witnesses, and quietly pursued evidence in the nation’s notorious killings from the civil rights era.

His work so far has helped put four Klansmen behind bars: Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 assassination of NAACP leader Medgar Evers, Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers for ordering the fatal firebombing of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer in 1966, Bobby Cherry for the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham church that killed four girls and, most recently, Edgar Ray Killen, for helping orchestrate the June 21, 1964, killings of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman.

So far in 2006, Mitchell has been named a Pulitzer Prize finalist, the winner of the George Polk Award for Justice Reporting, the winner of the Vernon Jarrett Award for Investigative Reporting and the Tom Renner Award for Crime Reporting from Investigative Reporters and Editors. Last November, Mitchell became youngest recipient ever of Columbia University’s John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism for his 17 years of pursuing justice.

David Halberstam said in helping bestow the Chancellor award, “Mitchell pursued these stories after most people believed they belonged to history, and not to journalism. But they did belong to journalism, because the truth had never been told and justice had never been done.”

In 1989, Mitchell was a court reporter for The Clarion-Ledger when the film Mississippi Burning inspired him to look into old civil rights cases that many thought had long since turned cold. Through dogged reporting, which cut across the grain of his paper and many of its readers, he investigated leads long ignored or overlooked.

For example, Mitchell’s diligent attention to detail unraveled the alibi of Cherry, who claimed he was watching wrestling on television when the bomb was planted inside the Birmingham church. Mitchell had the newspaper’s librarian check the TV schedule in the old issues of the Birmingham News. There was no wrestling program on at the time.

His work inspired others. Since 1989, authorities in Mississippi and six other states have reexamined 29 killings from the civil rights era and made 27 arrests, leading to 22 convictions.

“It is fair to say that without Mitchell’s dogged and often courageous reporting … many murders from the civil rights era would have remained unvindicated, locked forever in the vaults of regional amnesia,” wrote Tribune syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker.

(Read more.)

§ Posted by Benjamin T. Greenberg on September 21, 2009 at 11:49 pm

§ Filed under breaking news, civil rights movement, mississippi, neshoba murders, race and racism and tagged andrew goodman, birmingham, bobby cherry, clarion ledger, david halberstam, edgar ray killen, jackson, james chaney, jerry mitchell, john d and catherine t macarthur foundation, kathleen parker, kkk, macarthur genius awards, medgar evers, michael schwerner, mississippi burning, sam bowers

Comments