Keynote Speaker Jerry Mitchell: “Chasing after the Real Ghosts of Mississippi”
Lafayette College will celebrate Black Heritage Month with guest speakers, film screenings, an art exhibit, and community discussions. All events are free and open to the public.
The month’s keynote talk will be presented by Jerry Mitchell, an investigative reporter with the Jackson, Mississippi, Clarion-Ledger, whose courageous efforts helped bring to trial the assassin of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, at 7 p.m. Feb. 2 in Lafayette’s Kirby Hall of Civil Rights room 104.
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In 1989 Mitchell undertook a meticulous review of the 1963 assassination of NAACP leader Medgar Evers. His efforts led to the conviction and life sentence of Ku Klux Klan member Byron de la Beckwith. He has since worked to help solve the murders of several other activists from the Civil Rights Era. In 1996, he was portrayed by Jerry Levine in the Rob Reiner film, Ghosts of Mississippi, about the Evers case. He was also featured in The Learning Channel documentary Civil Rights Martyrs (2000) and served as consultant for the Discovery Channel documentary Killed by the Klan(1999). Mitchell is a 2009 MacArthur Fellow. Read more: http://bit.ly/1C8nJBx.
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