A Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era

In 1989, investigative reporter Mitchell, as he mentions at the start of his superb first book, covered the premier of Mississippi Burning in Jackson, Miss. The film, about the murder of three civil rights workers in 1964, inspired him to write articles about those and three other civil rights murder cases. In the case of three civil rights workers depicted in the movie, Mitchell found that evidence was destroyed and state records sealed for 50 years. Still, he was able to provide new facts that finally put killer Edgar Ray Killen in prison four decades after the murders. He was also responsible for getting the cases of Medgar Evers, Vernon Dahmer, and the four African-American girls who died in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., reopened. All ended in convictions of Ku Klux Klan members. Under death threats, he raced against time to interview witnesses before they died and bring justice to families who had been denied it. As Mitchell points out in the epilogue, the fight for the truth continues with the recent rise of hate crimes in this country. This thrilling true crime account deserves a wide audience. Agent: David Black, David Black Agency. (Feb.)