A&M-Texarkana Brings Acclaimed Investigative Journalist Jerry Mitchell

Texas A&M University-Texarkana’s department of Literature, Composition, and Mass Communications and the Program for Learning And Community Engagement (PLACE) are sponsoring a lecture and book signing by investigative journalist and Texarkana native Jerry Mitchell on Thursday, February 27th. The event begins at 7:00 p.m. in Eagle Hall inside the University Center building. The program is free and open to the public and light refreshments will be served.

According to a press release, Jerry Mitchell worked as an investigative reporter for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi, for more than three decades. His stories have helped put four Klansmen and a serial killer behind bars. Mitchell is the winner of more than thirty national awards, including a MacArthur “Genius Grant,” the George Polk Award, Columbia’s John Chancellor Award, and the Sidney Hillman Prize. He is also a Pulitzer Prize finalist and a longtime member of Investigative Reporters & Editors. In 2019, Mitchell left The Clarion-Ledger and founded the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting. Race Against Time is his first book.

Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era documents the work that led to the re-openings and re-prosecutions of some of the nation’s most notorious murders, including the 1963 assassination of NAACP leader Medgar Evers, the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist church in Birmingham that killed four girls, the 1966 firebombing of Vernon Dahmer, and the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers (commonly known as the “Mississippi Burning” case). These four cases were landmarks in the civil rights movement.

"We're very happy to have a Texarkana native instrumental in securing justice for so many victims of Civil Rights Era violence include our campus on his national book tour to speak to our community and meet our mass communication students," said Kevin Ells, Associate Professor of Communication at A&M Texarkana. "It’s said that good stories happen to those who can tell them. That would be Jerry Mitchell, and with a couple extra parts of courage thrown in for good measure," added Del Doughty, Dean of the College of Arts, Sciences, and Education.