Why is what happened then considered news today? Why stir up memories of events that were long ago put to rest? Hank Klibanoff, author of “The Race Beat” and managing editor of the Civil Rights Cold Case Project, leads off our collection of stories by writing about how people want to know what compels journalists to dig into racial crimes from a distant era. Others involved with this project—and two reporters who covered the civil rights movement—write about the importance of not forgetting. Read more
Before Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, she had already been fighting for racial equality for more than a decade. She strategized with other activists, organized protests, and in 1948 gave an impassioned speech … Read more
‘Our dual approaches keep steady attention fixed on the [Frank] Morris case and they pressure local and federal law enforcement to thoroughly investigate it, with a spillover effect of bringing renewed attention to other cold cases …’ Read more
When Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and The Washington Post Company CEO Donald Graham launched The Root in 2008, their ambitions were anything but modest. “We wanted to create a daily black national—indeed, international—magazine, a medium on … Read more
‘I continue to pore through 40,000 pages of FBI records, the entire FBI case file in the Klan’s 1964 killings of [James] Chaney, [Andrew] Goodman and [Michael] Schwerner. Two suspects are still alive …’ Read more
‘… I realize that the way forward is through doing what we do best. We tell stories. We are journalists. And if we, as journalists, don’t tell these forgotten stories, who will?’ Read more
Charles Moore’s photographs shocked a nation by pricking its conscience. In the early 1960’s, Life magazine carried into millions of American homes his unforgettable images of white lawmen wielding clubs over black demonstrators. His … Read more
Simeon Booker, center, covers the Emmett Till murder trial for Jet magazine. He is seated in the Negro press section with, from left, Clotye Murdock of Ebony magazine, L. Alex Wilson of The … Read more
