Journalist Seeks Justice for Civil Rights Era Crimes

Memphis, Tennessee- On May 3, 2006, Facing History and Ourselves and The Allstate Foundation sponsored a Community Conversation with award-winning journalist Jerry Mitchell to explore the role of the media in a democracy.

Mitchell, an investigative reporter for the Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi, has spent his career investigating long-unsolved crimes committed during the Civil Rights era. Mitchell's stories helped convict Klansman Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of NAACP leader Medgar Evers and former Klansman Bobby Cherry for the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham church that killed four girls. During the time these crimes occurred, there was often a conspiracy of silence against speaking up-motivated by either a desire to protect the perpetrators, or from fear of retaliation. Mitchell's work has gained him national recognition including being a 2006 Pulitzer finalist and the winner of the 2005 John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism.

A panel of media experts joined Mitchell to discuss the critical role an independent media plays in protecting democracy. The panelists were Otis Sanford, managing editor of The Commercial Appeal; Jim Turpin, news director of Eyewitness News, ABC 24 and UPN 30, and Dr. Jin Yang, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Journalism, University of Memphis.

The event was the third in a series of Community Conversations offered in Memphis during 2005-2006 in which nearly 2000 students, community members and teachers participated in dialogues about civic responsibility and tolerance in ways that inspired people to think about what they can do to strengthen their communities-both locally and globally.

Community Conversations is a national speaker series offered by Facing History and The Allstate Foundation that examines issues of civic responsibility.