Jerry Mitchell, Investigative Reporter for the Clarion-Ledger, Jackson, Mississippi
"Klan Buster" Portrayed in THE GHOSTS OF MISSISSIPPI
Author of The Preacher and the Klansman

Tuesday, October 23, 2007
1:00 p.m. Campus Presentation – Room 1305
7:00 p.m. Public Presentation – College Activities Center
Hosted by West Virginia University at Parkersburg, Co-Sponsored by The Parkersburg News and Sentinel

Jerry Mitchell Biography

He has been called "a loose cannon," "a pain in the a--" and "a white traitor." Whatever he’s been called, Jerry Mitchell, 48, 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 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 five 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; Edgar Ray Killen, for helping orchestrate the June 21, 1964, killings of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman; and James Ford Seale for his role in the abductions and killings of two black teenagers, Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore.

For his work leading to Killen’s imprisonment, the Pulitzer Board in 2006 named Mitchell a Pulitzer Prize finalist, praising him “for his relentless and masterly stories on the successful prosecution of a man accused of orchestrating the killing of three civil rights workers in 1964.”

Also in 2006, his work led a judge to throw out the wrongful conviction of Clyde Kennard, who was fraudulently convicted in 1960 of stealing chicken feed after he tried to enroll at an all-white university in Mississippi.

And this year he received the John Peter and Anna Catherine Zenger Award for Freedom of the Press for his persistence in exposing these injustices.

His efforts have hardly been popular. Some have complained bitterly in letters to the editor. Others have cancelled their subscriptions. One angry missive suggested that Mitchell be “tarred, feathered” and run out of the state of Mississippi: “If your paper cannot begin to represent the majority population of this state more civilly, then we do not need you.”

Over the past 18 years, Mitchell has endured his share of threats from Klansmen, one of whom told him recently he expected to hear soon of the reporter’s slaying: “That would be the best f---ing thing to ever happen in this damn state for your sorry f---ing throat to be cut, mother f---er.”

Another Klansman told Mitchell he had pictures of the reporter and his family and knew where they lived before saying, “Did you think we were going to let you go unscathed?”

For his work, Mitchell has received more than 20 national awards, including the George Polk Award for Justice Reporting. Other national awards include the Vernon Jarrett Award for Investigative Reporting, and the Elijah Lovejoy Award, named after the nation’s first martyr to freedom of the press.

Two awards he’s received recognize his work over the past 18 years, including the Toni House Journalism Award and the Tom Renner Award for Crime Reporting from Investigative Reporters and Editors, where the judges said, “Mitchell's crusading work is even more heroic because the cases he's investigated were decades old but the threats against him were modern.”

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting recognized Mitchell’s two decades of dedication, selecting his collection of work as one of 20 national stories that have made a difference over the past two decades.

In 2005, Mitchell received another career award, becoming the youngest recipient ever of Columbia University’s John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism.

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.”

Halberstam described Mitchell as “the most distinguished reporter in the entire country, an ornament to the profession and a model for any young person who ponders whether or not to enter our business, a reflection of what one reporter with a conscience can do. I simply marvel at him and what he has 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.

His work inspired others. Since 1989, authorities in Mississippi and six other states have reexamined 29 killings from the civil rights era and made 30 arrests, leading to 23 convictions. The Justice Department is now reexamining more than 100 slayings from the era.

“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.

On Jan. 25, 2007, the same day Seale appeared before a federal judge on kidnapping charges, Mitchell was interviewed on all three major networks.

In 2005, Newsweek featured Mitchell as one of “America’s Best,” and CNN nominated him as a “Person of the Day.” The day of Killen’s conviction, ABC Evening News featured Mitchell in its “First Person” segment.

Nightline, USA TODAY, The New York Times, American Journalism Review, Mother Jones and others have profiled Mitchell, who joined The Clarion-Ledger in 1986. He has appeared as an expert on all the major networks, the Lehrer News Hour, CNN, National Public Radio and others.

In 1996, he was portrayed in the Rob Reiner film, Ghosts of Mississippi. He was featured in the Learning Channel documentary, Civil Rights Martyrs, that aired in February 2000 and was a consultant for the Discovery Channel documentary, Killed by the Klan, which aired in 1999.

For his investigative work, Mitchell received the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service. "The rules of this contest require that a winner be chosen based on the significance of the reporting; enterprise, including courage in the face of opposing forces, and results," wrote Jerry Ceppos, executive editor of the San Jose-Mercury News. "By every measure, Jerry Mitchell should win the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service in journalism — and should win the admiration of every citizen of Mississippi and of journalists everywhere."

In addition to the Sigma Delta Chi award, Mitchell has received the Heywood Broun Award, the Sidney Hillman Award, the American Legion's Fourth Estate Award, the National Association of Black Journalists' Award for Enterprise Reporting, the Abraham Lincoln Marovitz Award and the Inland Press Association Award.

In 1999, Gannett honored him with the Outstanding Achievement by an Individual Award, the Best Investigative Reporting Award, the Best In-Depth Reporting Award and its highest honor — the William Ringle Outstanding Achievement Career Award — making him the youngest recipient ever to receive it. Two years later, he received the Best Beat Reporting Award from Gannett for his continued work to shine light on these dark crimes of the past, and in 2002, Gannett honored Mitchell as one of its top 10 journalists in the company over the past quarter century. In 2006, Mitchell received the Outstanding Achievement by an Individual Award a second time, this time for work leading to Killen’s conviction. The judges called his stories “the work of a generation. People said to let it go. But Jerry Mitchell never gave up.”

Peers have recognized Mitchell’s work. In 2000, he received the Silver Em Award from the University of Mississippi, where he was called "a true hero of contemporary American journalism." In 2002, editors Judith and William Serrin featured his work in their anthology of the nation’s best journalism over the past three centuries, Muckraking! The Journalism That Changed America.

In October 1998, Mitchell was recognized along with three other journalists at the Kennedy Center in Washington. ABC's Chris Wallace told those gathered for the Anti-Defamation League event, "Jerry Mitchell isn't comfortable being called a hero, or being portrayed as one in the film, Ghosts of Mississippi. It is difficult, however, to find a better word than 'hero' to describe Jerry Mitchell. Today, justice — long delayed — has been served, and Sam Bowers and Byron De La Beckwith grow old in jail."

But there's more to Mitchell than just hard-hitting reporting. His 10-chapter narrative, “Genetic Disaster,” described his family’s often losing battle against a rare genetic ailment and his journey to find out if he had the deadly disease. He received the Associated Press' Outstanding Writing Award for his 13-chapter narrative, The Preacher and the Klansman, which also received a Columbia Journalism School Citation for Coverage of Race & Ethnicity. Thousands have been touched by this story of how a preacher-turned-civil-rights-activist became friends with a former Ku Klux Klan terrorist, a true story of reconciliation. One reader wrote: "What a wonderful series, not only because of the heroic reporting and beautiful writing, but because it is at its core, the embodiment of hope."

In addition to his writing, Mitchell is an inspiring speaker. In 2003, he was a featured speaker at the Ford Foundation’s conference in New York City on “Journalism and Justice.” In June 2005, he served as the commencement speaker for more than 10,000 graduates at Queens College, where Andy Goodman once attended. And in October 2005, he spoke at the dedication of the National Civil Rights Memorial Center in Montgomery, Alabama — an event attended by thousands. He regularly speaks about his stories and race relations at universities across the United States, from the sunny hills of Malibu to the snow belt of Syracuse.

In 1997, Mitchell received his master’s in journalism from Ohio State University, and in 2006, he received an honorary doctorate from Colby College in Waterville, Maine. He lives in Mississippi with his wife. They have two children.