Race Against Time

December 15, 2019
Fast-paced account of the slow path to justice in a series of racially motivated murder cases. Mitchell, a former reporter for the Jackson Clarion-Ledger who recently founded the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, arrived in 1986 to a city "bursting with New South pride and Old South prejudice," one that, just a few years later, would be discomfited by the revival of interest in the "Mississippi Burning" case and like crimes of the 1950s and 1960s thanks to a movie by that name. Looking into that cold case, writes the author, "I had heard of people getting away with murder before, but I had never heard of twenty people getting away with murder at the same time"--those 20 people had carried out the killings of civil rights activists in the name of white supremacy. In a Mississippi where Emmett Till's killers confessed to the crime but still walked free, an all-white jury had acquitted a notorious racist, Byron Beckwith, in the murder of Medgar Evers--and Beckwith didn't pay a cent for his defense, the bill having been picked up by an eager "White Citizens' Council." Through dogged investigation, sifting through reams of evidence and interviewing those who were on the ground at the time, Mitchell helped inspire law enforcement officials decades after those events occurred to secure sufficient proof to convict killers who had been at liberty for most of their adult lives. Even though many of the civil rights killings have still gone unpunished, often because the perpetrators are dead, others were reckoned for, including the Birmingham church bombing that killed four little girls, one perpetrator having long publicly bragged of having helped "blow up a bunch of niggers back in Birmingham." That might have flown in the last days of Jim Crow, but, writes Mitchell, times have changed even in the segregationist stronghold of Philadelphia, Mississippi: "The town that had once protected these killers now wanted to see them prosecuted." A fine work of investigative journalism and an essential addition to the history of the civil rights movement.

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Starred review from December 23, 2019
In 1989, investigative reporter Mitchell, as he mentions at the start of his superb first book, covered the premier of Mississippi Burning in Jackson, Miss. The film, about the murder of three civil rights workers in 1964, inspired him to write articles about those and three other civil rights murder cases. In the case of three civil rights workers depicted in the movie, Mitchell found that evidence was destroyed and state records sealed for 50 years. Still, he was able to provide new facts that finally put killer Edgar Ray Killen in prison four decades after the murders. He was also responsible for getting the cases of Medgar Evers, Vernon Dahmer, and the four African-American girls who died in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., reopened. All ended in convictions of Ku Klux Klan members. Under death threats, he raced against time to interview witnesses before they died and bring justice to families who had been denied it. As Mitchell points out in the epilogue, the fight for the truth continues with the recent rise of hate crimes in this country. This thrilling true crime account deserves a wide audience. Agent: David Black, David Black Agency.

Starred review from January 1, 2020
Award-winning journalist Mitchell began working for Mississippi's statewide newspaper The Clarion-Ledger in 1986 as the lowliest of reporters." After a screening of Mississippi Burning, the 1988 film about the murders of three civil rights workers, he gets a tip that there was more to the story and that many of the responsible parties were free, living in Mississippi, and likely still active in the KKK. This starts Mitchell down a road of looking into some of the highest-profile crimes of the Civil Rights era. Starting with his own investigative work, he helps to reopen the murder cases of Medgar Evers and Vernon Dahmer; the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in which four girls died; and, 20 years later, the Mississippi Burning case. Mitchell's straightforward style suits the stories perfectly: neither the families' continued heartache nor the hate of those on trial need be embellished to be affecting. While the cases themselves are drawn out over many years, the reading, especially the extensive courtroom scenes, is riveting. A great readalike for Kevin Boyle's Arc of Justice (2004), this is both an important Civil Rights document and a timely read in the wake of the recent rise of hate crimes.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2020

As reporter for the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, MS, from the 1980s through the 2010s, Mitchell's investigative reporting led to the reopening of some of the most notorious murder cases of the civil rights era, including new trials in Mississippi for the murders of Medgar Evers and Vernon Dahmer, and in Alabama for the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. This memoir, with Mitchell often at the center of the story, covers the cases he investigated, each one ultimately leading to the long overdue conviction of the murderers. Mitchell is skilled at interviewing suspects and their accomplices, and the book includes chilling profiles of unrepentant Ku Klux Klan members. In looking back at each case, Michell demonstrates the ways that politicians and judges influenced the outcome of the original trials, and reminds us that the pursuit of justice has always been a political act. VERDICT While there are many other books that discuss these cases, Mitchell's active participation in the investigations provides a unique perspective. Recommended for readers interested in civil rights-era American history and legal nonfiction.--Nicholas Graham, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2019

Founder of the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, multi-award-winning journalist Mitchell was crucial to the closure of the Mississippi Burning case, helping bring to justice the instigator in the June 1964 murder of three civil rights workers four-plus decades after the event. Here he chronicles his success in reopening that case, and three others in "a race against time": the assassination of Medgar Evers, the firebombing of Vernon Dahmer, and the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham. With a 150,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.