CLINTON, Miss. – Reading bookends my days. I start the morning with newspapers, including this one (News Journal), and turn in for the night with a book.

Carolyn Bryant lied about Emmett Till. Did author Tim Tyson lie, too?

The Justice Department has closed the books on the lynching of Emmett Till, whose face — young and unblemished, then swollen and monstrous — has come to symbolize the unpunished killings of Black Americans.

Whatever hope there was for justice was dashed this week when the department pinned the blame on its inability to confirm a book’s explosive 2017 claim that the White woman at the center of the case recanted her story about Till’s actions that fateful day in Money, Mississippi.

The journalist who concealed the lynchers in the Emmett Till case got away with his crime

Books, documentaries and an FBI investigation detail the abduction, torture and murder of Emmett Till 66 years ago, but one person who should have been charged in the case has never been fingered.

PerspectiveKatherine MitchellAugust 27, 2021Emmett Till, FBI, Emmett Till killing, William Bradford Huie, killers, Mississippi, Tallahatchie River

A Clergyman Who Spoke the Words ’Domestic Violence’ Publicly

On the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Stacey Riley is CEO of the Gulf Coast Center for NonViolence Inc. The nonprofit center is the largest program for victims of domestic violence in Mississippi: It runs a shelter in Biloxi, which houses up to 44, and another in Pascagoula with 16 beds.

Perspective, Story Behind The StoryKatherine MitchellDecember 15, 2020Black women, black victims, sexual assault, Gulf Coast Center for NonViolence, domestic violence, Stacey Riley, covid-19, Violence against women act, shelters, Iman Abdul-Mu'Min, Biloxi Islamic Center, clergy, Mississippi

Mississippi: Legally Dry but Soaking Wet and Often Violent

The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, led by members like Carrie Nation, Mississippi’s first female state senator, ushered in prohibition in the state before the nation because heads of families were spending their pay on liquor and returning home drunk to beat their wives and children.

Perspective, Domestic ViolenceGuest UserNovember 10, 2020Domestic Violence, Prohibition, Mississippi, Two Mississippi Museums

Going Hungry and Getting Fat During the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has lefted jagged tears in America’s social fabric, including losses of jobs and health insurance, and the disparities between infection rate, access to health care, and deaths among whites as opposed to those of people of color and poorer communities.

Perspective, Story Behind The StoryKatherine MitchellSeptember 29, 2020food insecurity, hunger, hungry Americans, food banks, Stewpot, New York Times, Marion Wright, Robert F. Kennedy, Delta Epiphany, Jackson, Mississippi

When Will the Tide Turn?

Last week brought more grim news of domestic violence-related murder/suicide in Florida, where a mother of four was shot by her estranged boyfriend, who killed himself.

Perspective, Story Behind The StoryKatherine MitchellSeptember 22, 2020domestic violence, Ann Marie Cunningham, murder/suicide, Florida, Minnesota, Georgia, Colorado, Domestic Violence and Child Welfare, Task Group, Colorado Department of Human Service, Mike Hurst, Mississippi, Phoenecia Ratliff, Operation Phoenecia, Office on violence against women