Part of Florida Gulf Coast University’s Black History Month programing will bring multi-award-winning investigative reporter and author Jerry Mitchell to Southwest Florida for a free presentation that will be open to the public this Wednesday evening.
Mitchell’s investigative reporting has led to justice being served in nearly two-dozen cold cases. Perhaps most notably, his work helped put four KKK members behind bars including Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 assassination of NAACP leader Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, Klan Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers for ordering the fatal firebombing of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer in 1966, Bobby Cherry, for the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, which killed four young black girls, and Edgar Ray Killen for helping to organize the 1964 killings of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner during the Freedom Summer of 1964.
In 2019, Mitchell founded the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting through which he continues to expose injustices and investigate cold cases, while also helping to guide the next generation of investigative reporters.
Mitchell details stories of his investigative work in the memoir, “Race Against Time.” Ahead of his visit to FGCU, we talk with Mitchell about his investigative work, it’s impacts and his ongoing work with the MCIR.
If you go:
Investigative Reporter Jerry Mitchell speaks at FGCU
Cohen Student Union room 201
Wednesday, Feb. 16 at 6:30 p.m.
The presentation is free and open to the public. Register here:
