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Living Wage Protest at Clinton Wal-Mart

Several grass-roots organizations joined together on Tuesday in front of the Clinton Wal-Mart on Highway 80 to rally in support of a living wage. The group, comprised of members of the People's Freedom Caravan, protested against low wages and a lack of health coverage for Wal-Mart employees.

Cold Cases Bill Must Pass

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act. That legislation would authorize $10 million a year over the next decade to create a unit at the Department of Justice that would pursue unsolved civil rights cases.

[Grayson] Stand Up To Crime

Once again, crime has the Capitol City in disarray. Like so many others in Jackson, Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon was robbed outside her home on June 9. The robbery occurred in broad daylight, a bold move by another dumb criminal, who authorities say they have arrested.

We Are Family: A Klan Child Fans A Different Flame

Photos by Kate Medley

Little Shirley Seale was in her room at the back of her wood frame house when she saw flames through her window. The Natchez girl, who was 5 in 1968, stared out at the green cow pasture that opened up beyond the window. She could see dozens, maybe a hundred people, wearing mostly white—but some black and red—choir-like robes with pointy hoods covering their heads. A cross decorated the front of each robe.

Guarding White Christians

The first Seale on record was a bodyguard—at 6-foot-6 and 300 pounds, Solomon Seale guarded King Alfred the Great, who ruled as the "King of the Anglo-Saxons" from 871-899. According to a two-volume, bound genealogical history of the "Seale" name on the shelf in the Franklin County Library in Meadville, the name likely came from the Old English word "seolth," which meant the most important house, or hall, in the village.

A Journey of Bones

During her largely improvised closing argument, federal prosecutor Paige Fitzgerald stumbled upon one of the most poetic moments in the James Ford Seale federal kidnapping trial.

UPDATED: James Ford Seale Guilty On All Counts

After approximately two hours of deliberation, the jury in the federal kidnapping and conspiracy trial of James Ford Seale returned a unanimous verdict of guilty on all counts. The jury found Seale guilty of two counts of kidnapping and one count of conspiracy in the abduction and murder of Charles Moore and Henry Dee.

Breaking: Seale Convicted

From The Associated Press:

A federal jury on Thursday convicted reputed Klansman James Ford Seale of kidnapping and conspiracy in the 1964 deaths of two black teenagers in southwest Mississippi.

Inside the Journey for Justice

I find myself sitting at the end of a pew, tape recorder in hand, admiring how the light shone through the stained glass windows on a sweltering day in Mississippi. I look to my left and on the other side of the church sits Thomas Moore, hands folded, pondering the words he is about to deliver to the congregation. I am immersed in the soulful voices of the choir, as I wait in anticipation for Thomas to move purposefully to the front of the church.

Crime Plan: More of the Same

Mayor Frank Melton said he is responsible for the remarkable rise in violent crime in the city last Friday. "I am accountable for that, and the buck stops with me," Melton told reporters.

Day 9: Documentary Starts Court Firestorm

Defense attorneys started the morning off by raising objections to the testimony of Charles Marcus Edwards, the prosecution's star witness, based on footage shown on MSNBC this weekend of a Canadian Broadcasting Corp. television documentary about the case. In the afternoon, they used footage from the film to try to chip away at Edwards' credibility.

James Ford Seale: A Re-Birth, of a Fashion

Now that the trial is going on, a bit of new media background on the declaration that Seale was dead has been added to the record. I just read a post on the Hungry Blues blog. He quotes a new article by John Fleming in the Anniston Star about the false reporting about Seale's greatly exaggerated death.

Day 8: Franklin County Editors, Past and Present

This morning, Judge Henry Wingate agreed to allow the government to show the jury a racial epithet-filled letter that James Ford Seale allegedly wrote to the Franklin Advocate on July 23, 1964—two and a half months after he is accused of abducting and helping kill Henry Dee and Charles Moore, and six days after then-Franklin Advocate Editor and Publisher David Webb was announced as the publicity director of the Americans for the Preservation of the White Race, a Natchez-based front organization for the Ku Klux Klan, according to Mississippi Sovereignty Commission files.

The Truth Can Hurt

A reckoning happened last week in the James O. Eastland Federal Courthouse in Jackson. A lot of truth came out before anyone ever took the stand to testify in the James Ford Seale trial for the kidnapping of Charles Moore and Henry Dee.

Day 5: Of Guns and Freedom

By his own admission in court on Tuesday, it was Charles Marcus Edwards who first fingered Henry Dee. The young man who lived near him had come back to Chicago and was wearing a black bandana around Franklin County. That was a sign of trouble to the members of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Edwards' friends and adopted family.

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