A conversation with Jerry Mitchell

Monday, February 24, 2020 11:30 AM-12:30 PM

Faculty Club 1891 Room of Bennett Campus Center

The Department of Communication and Journalism, along with the Office of Intercultural Development, will welcome award-winning investigative journalist and author Jerry Mitchell Feb. 24 at 11:30 a.m. Mitchell’s book “Race Against Time” takes readers on the twisting, pulse-racing road that led to the reopening of four of the most infamous killings from the days of the civil rights movement, decades after the fact.

Mitchell’s work played a central role in bringing killers to justice for the assassination of Medgar Evers, the firebombing of Vernon Dahmer, the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham and the Mississippi Burning case. He reveals how he unearthed secret documents, found long-lost suspects and witnesses, and accumulated evidence strong enough to take on the Klan. 

In “Race Against Time,” Mitchell takes readers into every harrowing scene along the way, including when he goes into the lion’s den, meeting one-on-one with the very murderers he was seeking to catch. His efforts have put four leading Klansmen behind bars, years after they thought they had gotten away with murder.

Jerry Mitchell has been a reporter in Mississippi since 1986. To date, there have been 24 convictions as a result of his reporting. Mitchell has convinced authorities to reopen more than 100 cold murder cases from the Civil Rights Era. A winner of more than 30 national awards, he is the founder of the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting. The nonprofit is continuing his work of exposing injustices and raising up a new generation of investigative reporters.