Justice

The Day That Emmett Died

Twelve-year-old Simeon Wright lay in his bed in his family's small house near Money, Miss., in the Mississippi Delta. It was Saturday night, Aug. 27, 1955, and Simeon was tired from a busy week. Wright was looking up at the raindrop ceiling, gray with the casts of traces of moonlight. For the last eight days, he had been hanging out with his older cousin Emmett Louis Till, and other cousins and friends, all teens—or, like Simeon, almost-teens.

JFP Interview: Keith Beauchamp

Telling The Untold Story

Keith Beauchamp, 34, has spent the last 10 years of his life investigating the brutal murder of Emmett Louis Till in Money, Miss., in 1955. Till, 14, was visiting relatives in Mississippi when he was reported to have whistled at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, and was subsequently tortured, beaten and shot in the head.

Twin Failures

Film Review: "The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till"

We live in a culture so driven by visual images that our eyes can't take them all in. From pop-up Internet ads to quick-cut TV commercials to high-tech billboards, we witness far more than we can comprehend, wiping most of what we see from our mental hard drives. Some images, though, aren't so easily erased. On rare occasions, the mind becomes like a photographer's darkroom, in which an image doesn't fade but resolves to such clarity that it becomes an indelible memory.

Jackson Less ‘Dangerous' In 2004

Ironically, a murder binge in the city—nine fatal shootings in 10 days—comes just as a national crime-rating outfit released good news for the city of Jackson, at least about its reputation in 2004. For the first time in a decade of reporting, Jackson's 2004 FBI crime figures knocked the city out of the top 25 most dangerous cities, according to Morgan-Quitno, the Kansas-based book publisher.

[Greggs] All In The Single Girl's Family

In honor of the holidays I was going to write an endearing column listing all the wonderful things in my life for which I have to be thankful. I scrapped that after realizing it would probably end up sounding trite and, well, endearing. So I've decided to write a column traversing the sticky rainforest-like scape of my family's deep-seated personality disorders and their relation to my oft-pointed-out single status. That sounded like a lot more fun, and one way that I might actually get excluded from the family festivities this year.

Sensational ‘Suburban Legends'

Perhaps the biggest single flaw that The Clarion-Ledger has in its recent addition to its "Changing Face of Jackson" series is the fact that it doesn't include itself in the litany of problems that the newspaper claims are holding back the city of Jackson.

Melton's Honeymoon, Part III: Crime and Punishment, Melton Style

Frank Melton carried the May 2 mayoral primary in part because of a surly, take-no-prisoners attitude on crime. Melton used his 14-month tenure as head of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics to forge a local image as a hard-nosed delivery system for justice, despite being involuntarily relieved of his MBN duties by incoming Gov. Haley Barbour due to low drug arrest numbers.

You Can Do That

I hadn't planned to write about the death, or the life, of Rosa Parks. I know she was an amazing hero, but I didn't think I had anything else to say that everybody and his brother aren't already falling over each other to say.

[Greggs] One Tiny Little Pink Line

On some rather innocuous Sunday eight years ago, I was a 21-year-old recent college graduate just back from a camping trip. I sat on the edge of a bathtub and anxiously awaited the results of a pregnancy test. It wasn't mine. The test belonged to my last official college roommate. She forced me to take the second test in the two-pack just to make her feel better. She then forced me to watch two white plastic sticks for the longest 300 seconds in my life and tell her the results. When she finally screamed "What does it say?", I could only answer, "Well, one of 'em ain't good, but it ain't mine."

Franklin Advocate Editorial and Thomas Moore Response

Franklin Advocate, July 28, 2005

This letter appeared in The Franklin Advocate, the weekly newspaper in Meadville, Miss, the week after Thomas Moore's story appeared in the Jackson Free Press. It is reprinted verbatim; below it you can read Thomas Moore's letter to the editor in response, which the Franklin Advocate has never printed.

Damned If We Don't

The weekend Katrina hit, Kate Medley and I were in the Natchez area finishing research and art for the package of stories that you'll read in this issue. This time in Adams and Franklin counties, as Kate and I got to know people like Burl Jones, a Klan victim who had never been interviewed about the experience, and then watched burly Wharlest Jackson Jr. bawl like a baby describing his daddy's murder that has gotten so little attention over the years, I was still seething about a little ditty in The New York Times that belittled Southerners who are trying to confront our past.

Evolution Of A Man: Lifting The Hood In South Mississippi

Read the JFP's full "Road to Meadville" blog/archive here

Daddy, Get Up: This Son of Natchez Wants Justice, Too

Photo of Wharlest Jackson Jr. by Kate Medley

When Wharlest Jackson Sr., 36, left his job at the Armstrong Rubber Co. in North Natchez the evening of Feb. 27, 1967, life was looking pretty good for him.

Dear Meadville: Thomas Moore Tries To Wake Up His Hometown

Photo of Mac Littleton by Kate Medley

On his July pilgrimage back to his native Mississippi, Thomas Moore got his hopes up. With the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and the Jackson Free Press documenting his effort, Moore went back to his native Franklin County, and over to Natchez, and up to Jackson and Neshoba County, to ask the good people of Mississippi to support his efforts to finally see justice for the murder of his brother, Charles Eddie Moore, and his friend, Henry Hezekiah Dee, by local white men on May 2, 1964.

[Greggs] I Am Mississippi

I love this place. This state, I mean. I love the fact my neighbors showed up the day after Katrina with chainsaws in hand because they noticed a tree blocking my car in the driveway. I love my mamaw, and I love her cooking. I love the orange blossoms that are still blooming outside my friend's apartment in October.

Ellington