NYT – ‘Genius Grant’ Allows Jerry Mitchell to Chase More Crime

NYT – ‘Genius Grant’ Allows Jerry Mitchell to Chase More Crime

Arsonists burned several black churches in Jerry Mitchell’s hometown, Texarkana, Tex., back when he was in grade school, but so cloistered was the life of a young white boy in those days that he did not even learn about the attacks for more than 30 years. Even as a college-educated young man, he said, he had no more than general impressions of the civil rights movement or the violence that plagued it.

Jerry Mitchell plans to further investigate the 1964 murders of three men who had tried to register black voters in Mississippi.
“It’s almost like, for the most part, it took place in an alternate universe. That’s how much effect on my life it had, and I feel stupid now that I didn’t know more about it,” he said.

To listen to him, Mr. Mitchell, 50, is just getting started, once again training his sights on what may be the most notorious offense of that era, the 1964 murders of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, who had set out to register black voters in Mississippi. Mr. Mitchell’s work has already contributed to the only homicide prosecution and conviction to come out of that case.

“I’m going to take a leave from the paper and work on that,” he said. “I’ve got rabbit trails I still want to run down on that and some other cases. And I want to finish up a book on the various cases.”

L. Richard Cohen, president and chief executive of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said: “Jerry is a one-man justice machine. He has done what armies of prosecutors over the years either couldn’t or refused to do. He comes across as a regular, good-natured guy, but boy, is he dogged.”

Jim Hood, the Mississippi attorney general, who has handled some of the cold cases, said most of them would have been prosecuted eventually, even without Mr. Mitchell’s contributions, “but he’s kept the issue on the front burner out there for a lot of years now.”

New York Times
9/27/9