MacArthur "Genius Grant" recipient, Pulitzer Prize finalist and world famous investigative journalist Jerry Mitchell talks about how a relentless pursuit of the truth honors God and promotes God's desire for justice. In this episode, Mitchell talks about how he helped crack cold cases that brought to justice the murderers of five 1960s-era Civil Rights workers in Mississippi. He also makes a plea for Christians in society to renew and restore their collective and personal efforts to find and hold up truth, even when it hurts.
Link to the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today
Link to Jerry Mitchell's recent investigative work
Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
BT Irwin (00:03):
Family and friends, neighbors and, most of all,
strangers.
Welcome to the ChristianChronicle Podcast.
We're bringing you the storiesshaping Church of Christ
congregations and members aroundthe world.
I'm BT Earley.
May what you are about to hear.
Bless you and honor God.
Here in the United States, weoften say that freedom is not
free, and what we mean is thatthe freedom we enjoy as citizens
(00:25):
of this country is freedom thatcame at the cost of the men and
women who died on battlefieldsto support and defend the US
Constitution.
So the image that comes to mindfor many of us is that of
sailors and soldiers in battle,but for a few of us and it
really needs to be all of usother images may come to mind.
As many as 100 Americancitizens were murdered for their
(00:49):
peaceful advocacy and effortsto support and defend the US
Constitution during the civilrights movement of the 1950s and
1960s.
Those Americans laid down theirlives so that Black Americans
could enjoy the full freedomsand rights to which they are
entitled under the Constitutionand its amendments, and yet were
denied by local customs andlaws, particularly in the former
(01:12):
Confederate states.
We're releasing this episodethe week of the 60th anniversary
of the Voting Rights Act.
This federal legislation aimedto overcome local and state laws
that prevented Black Americansfrom exercising their right to
vote, as guaranteed under the15th Amendment of the US
Constitution.
The freedom that BlackAmericans accessed through the
(01:34):
Voting Rights Act was not free.
It came at the cost of thelives of those who died
advocating for it.
How did they die?
Many of them were murdered incold blood by those who opposed
equality for people of color.
In many cases, the murderersgot away with it.
How did they die?
Many of them were murdered incold blood by those who opposed
equality for people of color.
In many cases, the murderersgot away with it as governments
and law enforcement workedtogether to make sure that
convictions and punishmentsnever came in full.
(01:56):
Our guest today did thedangerous, exhausting and
painstaking work it took tobring many of those murderers to
eventual justice decades afterthey committed their crimes and
seemed to get away with it.
Jerry Mitchell is a PulitzerPrize finalist and winner of a
MacArthur Fellowship, also knownas the MacArthur Genius Grant.
As a reporter for theClarion-Ledger in Jackson,
(02:17):
mississippi, in the late 1980sand early 1990s, mitchell began
investigating the murders ofcivil rights workers in the
1960s.
His investigative reportingeventually led to cold cases
being reopened and four Ku KluxKlansmen being convicted and
sentenced for their roles in themurders of Medgar Evers in 1963
, michael Schwerner, jamesChaney and Andrew Goodman in
(02:38):
1964, and Vernon Dahmer in 1966.
In 2020, he released his firstbook, race Against Time, which
details the story of how heinvestigated the civil rights
murders.
It is one of the best booksI've ever read and I cannot
recommend it enough.
In 2023, he founded theMississippi Center for
Investigative Journalism, whichnow has the largest newsroom in
(03:00):
the state of Mississippi.
He's a Church of Christ kid, aHarding University alumnus, and
now he's one of the newestmembers of our board of trustees
at the Christian Chronicle.
Jerry, welcome to the show.
Great to be with you, bt.
Thanks.
I want to ask you what I call atrade question.
My wife and I read the bookRace Against Time together when
it came out in 2020, and thenrecently we picked it up again
(03:22):
and started reading it.
When we go on road trips,she'll drive and I'll read, and
so I was reading to her from thebook and she stopped me and
said how does he get thesepeople to talk to him?
Because a lot of the people youinterview are guilty and they
know they're guilty, they knowwhat they did, and yet they,
(03:43):
they talk to this stranger, thisreporter.
How, how does that happen?
Jerry Mitchell (03:50):
I.
I think you know there wereseveral factors in, you know, my
favor.
One was I'm pretty unassuming.
I mean I'm not, uh, I'm alwayssaying the opposite of Mike
Wallace for those that rememberthe old 60 minute show.
And so I don't, I don't come inthere gun guns blazing.
(04:11):
I just kind of come in thereand say, hey, you know, and I
had the Southern accent and youknow, and, and the upbringing
that made it such, in fact, withByron D D LeBeck asked me all
sorts of questions.
I was like what are yourparents' names?
Where did you grow up?
Where do you go to church?
Yeah, I could have refused toanswer, but I knew he'd love my
(04:35):
answer, so why not just answer?
He was like come on, I'll talkto you.
I was one of the only handfulof reporters who actually got to
talk to him before he, beforehe went out and got arrested
yeah, I one of the things thatmy wife and I talked about when
(04:56):
we were discussing how do these,why do these people talk?
BT Irwin (04:59):
to Jerry I said, well, the internet wasn't a thing.
Jerry Mitchell (05:03):
Like, yeah, and that's exactly right.
Yeah, the vast majority of thisrecording was free internet,
thank God, because otherwise I'd, you know, had my face
plastered everywhere.
You know all that kind of stuff, so I benefited from the lack
of social media.
BT Irwin (05:22):
Yeah, I reminded her I think it was early nineties
maybe.
Yeah, I, I.
I reminded her I think it wasearly nineties maybe.
Yeah, like to Byron DelaBeckwith, that was a early nine,
1990, 1990, 35 years ago thisyear.
Jerry Mitchell (05:34):
So I said to my wife I said I'm pretty sure he
wasn't reading the Clarionledger up in signal mountain
Tennessee, right, no, although Iinterviewed him before and he
liked what I wrote, these werejust like little, these were
just little snippets, yeah, kindof small bios, not even that
long, like what have thesepeople done since?
(05:58):
And so it was him, it was MerleEvers, it was, you know, the
prosecutor, you know those kindof things the original
prosecutor in the case anddifferent things like that.
And so it just kind of hadthese short bios and I just
quoted him accurately and heloved it was real racist, but he
(06:19):
loved what I had.
Yeah, because I quoted himaccurately, I didn't misquote
him or anything.
BT Irwin (06:28):
And so I think that probably helped me as well.
Let's just stick with Beckwithfor a second here, because the
chapter where you go to hishouse.
Jerry Mitchell (06:34):
That's kind of creepy, isn't it?
BT Irwin (06:38):
Here's what I want to say about the book to anybody
who hasn't read it yet RaceAgainst Time.
It is a page turner and thereare some really tense moments in
the book, like I read the wholething the first time, I think
in less than a week because Icouldn't put it down and like
the chapter where you go toBeckwith's house, which is on
(06:59):
Signal Mountain, tennessee.
So anybody who's ever beenaround Chattanooga you know you
drive up into the mountains andso you get this sense of you
going to this secluded place andhe is a he's a scary, scary man
, like the way he talks, and soone of the things that one of
the things I thought about as Ias I read that chapter in
(07:21):
particular and you even kind oftouched on this is is just the
kind of bile that he was spewingwhile you were sitting there
and you were drinking some weirddrink concoction.
Jerry Mitchell (07:32):
He was.
BT Irwin (07:33):
He was and his wife gave you this.
It was almost kind of like whatcould be in here, could it be
poison?
But my wife always tells me Ican't lie.
She said I can't play a joke onher because my face gives it
away.
Your face gives it away, right,and so you're sitting here.
I imagine looking this guy inthe eye while he's saying these
things and I'm like I have nopoker face and so how do you?
(07:59):
a lot of people might read thatchapter and just be kind of
repulsed by what he says.
People might read that chapterand just be kind of repulsed by
what he says and ask how canjerry sit there with a straight
face and look at this man whilehe's saying these things and not
give himself away?
Jerry Mitchell (08:12):
yeah, it's a great question.
I'm not sure how I didn't getmyself away, but he was
definitely of the.
I think as reporters we kind ofdeveloped this knack of more of
a poker face, you know, justasking questions.
We stay focused on thequestions and what we're asking
(08:34):
and what they have to say, and Iwas recording the whole
interview.
BT Irwin (08:38):
Yeah, so, yeah.
So the book again, highlyrecommend everybody to read it.
It's it's a very good read,very good read and it's all true
.
That's the crazy thing.
There were many times when Iwas reading the book where I'm
like this is not a like.
I think John Grishamrecommended your book.
He is on his.
I love John Grisham books andyou would think, reading the
(09:02):
book, that you're reading a JohnGrisham book because it's just
so, it's like a great story.
But it's just crazy that it'sall true and you lived it, man.
So I want to, I want to getdown into the reporting that you
did, that you write about in inrace against time and
everything that you've donesince.
Really, I feel like you've hadto overcome a lot of inertia,
(09:23):
and what I mean by that is thecases you covered in Race
Against Time were around 30years old.
Jerry Mitchell (09:30):
Yeah, they were.
BT Irwin (09:32):
Yeah, had moved way on .
It almost seemed like adifferent era by the time that
the late 80s, early 90s rolledaround.
I think there may be anotherkind of inertia, though, that
you're reporting us to overcome,and that's what I would call
evil on the people that we wantto admire and respect and trust
the most.
So the murderers in RaceAgainst Time you pointed out in
(09:55):
your book.
I mean these were like churchdeacons, sunday school teachers,
cops, upstanding citizens, youknow, smiling and waving at the
kids down on the town square.
And even now, with the case ofthe so-called goon squad in
Rankin County, mississippi,you've been investigating that
for a while.
People these days, christiansin particular, really hold up
(10:16):
law enforcement as almost holyor sacred.
So insofar as people criticizeor resist your investigating,
how much do you think it's notso much that because you're
going after individual badactors, but they feel like
you're going after their mostsacred institutions themselves,
you know, church, civilgovernment, law enforcement,
things like that.
Jerry Mitchell (10:35):
Yeah, well, I mean these, you know so-called
church goers no offense, theywere Klansmen, you know.
Yeah, but I mean, like beckwithwas christian identity, which I
don't know that your listenershave heard of, but it's, it's
basically a white supremacistreligion.
(10:56):
I remember so distinctly askingbeckwith about it.
You know it's like because Iknew nothing about it.
I, I mean that was the otherthing going in to talk to
Beckwith is.
I mean he just told me aboutthis whole world I knew nothing
about.
So I was learning from himabout white supremacy and what
(11:19):
was going on at that point intime.
But yeah, I mean prettyreprehensible.
I mean like they believe thingslike Adam and Eve were white
people and you know anyone whodoesn't have white skin, that
these were made by God on thesixth day with the animals and
(11:40):
therefore don't have souls, andjust, you know things that none
of us would, as christians,would support.
I mean it's just ludicrous.
You know teaching and belief.
So I have to say that, eventhough, even though you had some
that were the quote-unquotetaught sunday school, which the
(12:01):
heather clan sandbowers did,some of these other guys, they
were out there in terms of theirreligious beliefs.
But yeah, in terms of lawenforcement.
Yeah, it's a great question andI think you know we have to be
careful, and it's whether we'retalking about investigative
(12:25):
reporting or not.
Talking about investigativereporting, I think there's we're
unfortunately in a period oftime right now where it's kind
of a come on us versus themsituation and where it's like
you're, here's my team for lackof better terms and I'm talking
about politically or notpolitically, and so anybody on
(12:49):
my team I'm going to back andsay they're wonderful, and
anybody who's on the oppositeside, well, they're just of the
devil or whatever people sayabout it, and so I have to be
very careful about that.
And so I have to be verycareful about that, because in
my mind and that's why I thinkwhat I do and why investigative
(13:09):
reporting and journalism is soimportant, because it's about
trying to find the truth, and Ithink that's a Christian cause
as well we should be about thetruth, not about whether our
side wins or doesn't win, and Idon't mean that in Christian
terms, I just mean politically,socially, whatever box you want
(13:34):
to put that in.
We've still got to be about thetruth, because it's not.
We've got to have truth inorder to have justice, and if
you don't have truth, you can'tget justice, and that's what I
see a lot of right now.
There's just a lot of muddyingof the water, lots of lies told
(14:03):
not just by politicians but byplenty of others, and it just
really muddies the water andmakes it difficult for people to
sort out.
I'll give a simple examplethese, so these so-called news
shows right now, and I I justthink they all ought to be
labeled opinion, because allthey are is there's some talking
(14:25):
head, whether you're talkingabout msnbc or fox or cnn, I
pick your channel, I don't carewhat channel and it's they're
purporting to share the news,but what it really is is them
pontificating about the news.
It's their opinion, and I justthink the show should all be
(14:47):
labeled opinion because they'renot news and and I think that
leads to a lot of confusion forpeople, and and people think
that's true.
You know well, it's theiropinion about something may not
be true at all, and so that'swhy I think what we do is so
important.
We're trying to get it true andit's not about who's on what
(15:12):
team or politically I'm about asapolitical a person as you can
get it to, because I just thinkthat I think that confuses
things Again.
It gets into this team thing.
And the other thing I'd say as aChristian is Jesus didn't sink
(15:33):
away much into politics.
In fact, he had opportunitiesover and over again.
They kept trying to, almost tryto bait him into making
political statements and he keptrefusing to.
You know, you know, renderunder season, go to Caesars and
under God, what's God?
So he just would resist it.
(15:55):
And I think we've got to becareful of getting sucked into
those dramas about whatpoliticians said today.
This politician said today orthis one didn't, or whatever.
It's just.
I just think it's endless andI'm not sure it benefits God's
kingdom.
BT Irwin (16:20):
Just thinking about when you started out in this
world and right up to the time,do you feel like people?
I don't want to say people havegiven up on the truth.
Jerry Mitchell (16:29):
People have given up on figuring.
BT Irwin (16:30):
Well, I think it's real difficult for the average
person to figure out what truthis yes, so in other words,
people aren't less interested inthe truth, it's just that will
no longer feel like they canfind the truth.
I think that's accurate givingup.
Jerry Mitchell (16:43):
Yeah, and I think you and I'm not blaming
social media for this, butpeople today get most of their
find the truth.
I think that's accurate andthey're giving up.
Yeah, and I think you know andI'm not blaming social media for
this but people today get mostof their news from social media.
It comes through their Facebookfeed or whatever.
Whatever feed they have, that'show they get it.
Maybe they get a newsletter,maybe they get something else
like that, and that's what, howthey get their news, which is
(17:06):
unfortunate, and I'm glad to seepeople like Christian Chronicle
kind of stick to hey, we'regoing to report on what's
happening.
I think that's a good thing.
I mean, I think sometimes, yeah, you know, I always want to
kill the messenger.
I mean that's age old, themessenger is always the first
(17:28):
one to go.
But yeah, but I think it'simportant.
We need to know these thingsBecause here's the downside If
you don't know, you can't makewise decisions.
If you don't know what thetruth is, how can you you know,
how can you act wisely, how canyou do what's right?
(17:52):
You've got to know, you've gotto know what the truth is, or at
least, again, as close as wecan get to the truth.
BT Irwin (18:01):
Yeah, going back to that question about inertia, and
when you, when you did theinvestigative reporting which,
by the way, that was all on yourown initiative at first it was
almost like a hobby for you,because your your day job was
court reporting.
Jerry Mitchell (18:24):
Yeah, yeah, I was, I was doing court reporting
and I was kind of sticking this.
BT Irwin (18:27):
In addition, you were the person who actually did
something and started followingthe leads and you did it on your
own time and eventually itworked its way into your
full-time work.
But no one else was doing thatinvestigation.
No one else was looking intothe unsolved murders or the
crimes against civil rightsworkers in the 1960s.
You did it and there wasresistance to that.
(18:51):
You wrote about that quite abit in the book and then it led
to convictions.
People that should have beenput away for murder eventually
were put away for murder likedecades later.
Did you notice a change in theattitude of the general public?
You know, like I said, theymoved on and probably were like,
(19:11):
yeah, that happened a long timeago, we're moving on with our
lives.
Then the cases were reopenedand then people were convicted.
You know a good example.
Did you notice that people inMississippi, for example, were
like Jerry, thanks for revealingthe truth.
This changes our perspective oneverything.
Jerry Mitchell (19:30):
When I started doing the Beckwith case, I had a
lot of people that were nothappy with me.
I had someone stop me in thechurch parking lot.
Yeah, I remember that.
Who was mad about what I waswriting about.
So I was getting about.
So I mean, I, I, I, you know,so I was getting into church too
, so but yeah, it's, it's.
(19:52):
But it changed over time andwhat you began to see was people
began to realize, wait a minute, you know, like, let's say,
from a conservative standpointof viewing this, whether people
were looking at it from aliberal or conservative
standpoint, they began to, youknow, people who are more
(20:15):
conservative began to realize itwas a good thing, you know, and
they were like, yeah, becausethis is, and that's the thing
about these cases People don'trealize that is, these cases got
prosecuted by Republicans andDemocrats.
This was not a partisan issueat all or a political one.
It was the right thing to do.
(20:37):
And I know God loves justiceand that's the thing that's come
trying through to me and reallyled me to do a deeper dive into
scripture, of studying whatdoes God think about justice?
What are his thoughts on that?
BT Irwin (20:56):
We'll get to that a little more in a second.
So I've lived in Mississippi.
My dad and grandparents livedin Mississippi and by some
estimates you likely know allabout this Mississippi is either
the most Christian or secondmost Christian state in the US.
I believe that yeah, of thepopulation that claims
Christianity Real close withAlabama something like eight out
(21:17):
of ten people.
I think I can't imagine thatMississippi was less Christian a
few generations ago, thatMississippi was less Christian a
few generations ago and yetMississippi had the highest
recorded number of lynchings andviolent accidents of people of
color during the Jim Crow era.
And then in the 1960s you gointo great detail about the
(21:37):
murder and the violence againstpeople who were working very
hard to realize their right tovote under the US Constitution.
So what have you learned aboutthe disconnect or dissonance
that must exist within peoplewho claim to be Christian and
yet perpetrate or excuseviolence against fellow human
(21:59):
beings made in God's image?
You had to have encountered alot of that in your reporting.
Jerry Mitchell (22:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah , it's very fascinating.
I know sam bowers justified themurs in this interview that he
did.
Sam bowers was the head of thewhite knights of the q quest
clan in mississippi, which wasthe clan organization most
violent clan organization unitedstates for at least 10 killings
.
So in this interview he talkedabout that.
(22:26):
I was like you know, yeah, hewas justifying killing.
He said, yeah, if someone'sgoing to destroy your way of
life, you know you have a rightto kill them.
And so that kind of becamejustification, I think in terms
of like the Christian identitytype stuff.
(22:46):
They believe that you know, youknow if you kill, if you, if
you kill someone that's notwhite, like Beckwith at one
point said to someone, it waslike killing killing a dang dog
and a dang dog.
You know I mean because heviewed it as you know, those who
(23:08):
were black were subhuman insome form and therefore it was
justified.
And look, this still goes ontoday.
This disconnect unfortunatelystill continues.
What I mean by that is thisthere's a great book I read
years ago.
It's called Faces of the Enemyand it points out something I
(23:30):
think is very scriptural, whichis before we kill people with
our weapons, we kill them withour minds.
Wow, and I think that's verytrue.
I think we would especiallyunderstand, as Christians Jesus
talks about that.
BT Irwin (23:47):
Yes.
Jerry Mitchell (23:47):
You know you hate.
You know you say, oh, you knowthat, you know it's been said,
don't murder anyone.
But you know, I tell you, don'teven hate your brother.
And he goes.
And then you think, well, jesus, what are you saying?
And then he goes on and sayslove your enemies.
It's like what are you talkingabout?
(24:08):
Jesus is like I love my enemies.
And so I still, to this day,believe that what Jesus taught
is radical and we have not fullyembraced it.
And we have not fully embracedit Like we want to take the
edges off of what Jesus teaches.
BT Irwin (24:31):
Yeah.
Jerry Mitchell (24:32):
You know, and I think that's what you get back
to, this undiluted Jesus, and Ithink if we will embrace that
and drink that, it will changeus.
BT Irwin (24:46):
You in another interview, I think, with our
friendly camp.
You talked about growing up inTexarkana, right.
Jerry Mitchell (24:53):
Yeah, texarkana.
BT Irwin (24:55):
Texas Right and there was a bus bombing or I think
maybe there was Church bombings.
Okay, church bombings.
Jerry Mitchell (25:03):
Right, I didn't even know it.
BT Irwin (25:04):
I grew up there and I didn't know it Exactly.
You didn't know about it.
My dad was living inMississippi in the early 60s at
the time this was going on, andmy parents they eventually moved
to Nashville.
So both of my parents were inNashville and I've asked them
many times about what was goingon during the civil rights
movement.
What was going on during thecivil rights movement Right, and
they both told me we knewnothing.
Jerry Mitchell (25:26):
Yeah, we weren't aware at all that, and and I
mean there were things goingdown all around newspapers
newspapers, which was the mainsource of news at the time,
local news at the time werecomplicit in this, and what I
mean by that is they would notreport on this stuff and what
(25:48):
I'm talking about.
BT Irwin (25:49):
Well, I was going to say you talked about people like
Sam Bowers and Byron DLeBeckwith and they had this
interpretation of Scripture thatwas obviously racist.
But then you have folks like myparents and their parents,
folks in the churches that werenot, were not part of these
(26:11):
crimes, but they were aware thatthings were going on.
Yeah, I think they're awaregenerally.
Yeah, they stayed on thesidelines.
That's kind of what I wasgetting at with with question is
that.
Jerry Mitchell (26:24):
Oh yeah, I think we in the church, to be honest,
share some lameness.
I mean the sense of you know,we didn't.
I mean churches were segregatedfor many, many, many years and
we have to accept the fact thatwe did that.
You know, we and our fore, thefact that we did that.
(26:45):
You know we and our forefatherswere responsible for that.
I mean and and we should, weshould not.
I mean that's not good.
I mean the fact that we closedthe door to people that were of
different color.
Yeah, I mean that's and and and.
So what we need to do aboutthat obviously is is do our best
to change those kinds ofattitudes.
BT Irwin (27:10):
Our brothers and sisters, we're all one blood,
you're a, you're a church guyand I'm a church guy and so
we've we've been in a lot ofchurches and so you know, you
start, you start reporting likeyou were in the early 90s, and
you even mentioned beingapproached in the church parking
lot, the church parking lot,with my daughter in my arms.
Jerry Mitchell (27:31):
Am I right?
BT Irwin (27:31):
Okay.
So I'm imagining all the churchfolks I've been around my whole
life and I have to imagine thatat some point someone
approached you and said someoneapproached you and said you know
God cleanses of our sinsthrough the blood of Jesus
Christ and you know forgivenessis total, it's free to us
(27:54):
because of Jesus's pain andsuffering for us.
So if someone confesses andrepents, maybe in the privacy of
their own thoughts, godforgives and makes a fresh start
.
Jerry Mitchell (28:07):
And so I can imagine someone.
BT Irwin (28:08):
Yeah, I've had people talk about that.
You know, Jerry isn't that kindof unchristian.
You know you're digging up dirton the past when God is
forgiven and we should all moveon, and so I imagine you've had
to live in that.
Oh, I have plenty of peopletell me to move on, that's for
sure it's in the past leavingyeah what have you found in that
tension?
Being a christian, one hand,who believes in the forgiveness
(28:30):
of god and yet also working forjustice?
How do you, how do you navigatethat space?
Jerry Mitchell (28:35):
well, these guys never repented.
I mean they were.
I mean I had conversations withthem.
It's not like they were sorryfor what they did.
I mean they never expressed anyremorse or or other than I
billy roy pitts and tommyterrence and there were two guys
that two client guys I didinterview that expressed remorse
(28:56):
and repentance.
You know for that, I think thatyou know and I'm you know, I, I
think obviously if you've donesomething wrong, someone, you
need to go to that particularperson.
I mean that's obviously.
that's pretty basic.
You should go to that person.
But yeah, it's, you know.
But I had people say thingslike why don't you like they'd
(29:18):
see the guys going off to trial,playing guys going off to trial
or off to prison?
And they would say to me, jerry, why don't you leave these old
men alone?
And I would tell them thesewere young killers, they just
happened to get old.
BT Irwin (29:37):
Wow, wow.
I'm thinking in particular.
We had Nancy French on the show.
I might've been last year and,excuse me, she was.
She was the victim of Terriblesexual abuse at the hands of a
someone who worked in her church.
This is what she writes aboutin her book and you know, one of
(30:20):
the troubling things about thatstory that she tells is how the
perpetrator and people who knewabout it have kind of said to
her well, you know, we're movingon.
God forgives, we're moving on,gibbs, we're moving on.
And yet there's this strongmove in the church circles in
which she was a part of toforgive and move on from that,
and even people that didn'tperpetrate the abuse but knew
about it and covered it theproblem is covering it up.
Jerry Mitchell (30:42):
That's the problem.
It looks like we don't want totalk about this.
We want to cover this up.
We want to keep it secret.
Yeah, and that's in my opinion.
I'm just.
You know, and I can't speak tothat particular situation.
I don't know the details ofthat situation, but I'm just
talking about in general.
We're supposed to confess oursins right One to another.
(31:06):
It's the opposite.
We're not about covering up sin.
That's what the devil wants usto do.
He wants us to cover up sin.
It's the old what happens inVegas stays in Vegas.
I mean, isn't that the wholeidea?
That's the whole idea.
We're just going to not talkabout our sins, conceal our sins
(31:29):
.
God gives us a way out.
We confess our sins and whenyou confess your sins, as
someone who's done that, it'sfreeing.
It's freeing.
(32:03):
God is trying to free us fromthe shackles of sin and we have
the exact wrong mindset aboutthis.
Oh, this is.
You know, this might be bad.
This might reflect badly on thechurch.
The church is supposed to takecare of sin.
We're not supposed to wink atit or cover it up.
We should be the first ones outthere going hey look, this has
happened.
Here's what we're doing aboutit and not covered up.
I know it sounds contrary tothe way we think, but it's not
(32:23):
what the Bible says.
BT Irwin (32:25):
That's a good segue into talking about the Christian
Chronicle and the kind of workwe do here.
So you recently joined ourboard here at the Christian
Chronicle, so thank you for that.
We talk about this sometimesabout well, we just recently had
a really popular comedianstand-up comedian on the show
and we talked about is he aChristian stand-up comedian or
(32:48):
is he just a stand-up comedianwho happens to be a Christian,
or a Christian who is a stand-upcomedian?
And so, in that tone ofquestion, should there be such a
thing as Christianinvestigative journalism and, if
so, how would it differ fromjust regular investigative
journalism?
Jerry Mitchell (33:08):
Well, I don't separate this Like I view what I
do and people may think this isodd, but I view what I do as
ministry.
I don't view what I do asseparate from being a Christian
(33:28):
or somehow different than beinga Christian.
My faith informs what I do, howI act, how I behave.
What I do, how I act, how Ibehave and what I, what we do, I
think is, is godly in the senseof we're trying to get the
truth and God loves truth, godloves justice, and and the more
(33:52):
I kind of, you know, havelearned about that, the more I
realized, like when I startedoff, I didn't think that way,
you know, I kind of thought ofoh, my job's over here, you know
church here and you know havethese compartments of life, so
to speak, but that's not whatGod intended.
BT Irwin (34:14):
I studied the history of the Christian Chronicle when
I came to work here and I cameacross how its founders in 1943
wanted to be a source of goodnews what God and God's people
are doing around the world.
And then Eric Trigestad andBobby Ross Jr joined the team a
couple of decades ago and theybrought their experience and
training as what we might callquote unquote real world news
reporting, and we've won allkinds of journalism awards for
(34:36):
news reporting.
And that includes covering someof what folks might call bad
news.
So, for example, after Istarted here, we covered a story
about a Church of Christpreacher who carried on years of
sexual assault against girls inthe congregations he served.
And I know some people in ouraudience recoil at that kind of
(34:57):
coverage because they want us tocover good news, the good
things that are happening, andavoid stories like that.
So, as a Christian who happensto be a Pulitzer Prize finalist
and a world famous newsjournalist, how far should a
Christian news organization likethe Christian Chronicle get
into what we might call hardnews or bad news?
(35:19):
How might we do it that in away that stays true to our roots
?
Jerry Mitchell (35:24):
See, I see no distinction.
I mean, here we go.
Here's a very simple parallel.
Does the Bible have any badnews in it?
Good, I mean, as peoplequote-unquote say it that way
yeah yeah, in fact I'd say, interms of the gospel, you have to
(35:49):
kind of know what the bad newsis until you understand except
the good news news.
And so I think we thenomenclature of this has, I
think, unfortunately affectedour views and it's not really
it's bad.
We call it bad but it's notreally bad, it's it's it's
(36:11):
reality, it's the reality.
It's the reality.
There is going to be a judgmentday one day and we'll stand
before God and heaven or hellawaits.
I mean, that's the reality.
Now you can ignore that and youcan go on with your life and do
whatever you choose to do, butthat's the reality.
And so, in my mind, the truthis the truth.
(36:35):
And one of the big problems isyou're talking about the.
What the Christian trialscovered covered, like, for
example, the example you gavehere's been one of the big
problems.
It's not unique to Churches ofChrist.
Is that these churches?
And certainly has been the hugescandal about the Catholic
(36:55):
Church along these lines?
Is they, these sexual abusesituations were taking place?
Catholic church along theselines?
Is they these sexual abusesituations were taking place?
And then they would cover it upand then bump the person some
other place and they would do itagain.
BT Irwin (37:15):
Yeah.
Jerry Mitchell (37:17):
Do you think that's what God desires?
Hmm, of course not.
BT Irwin (37:25):
God desires for sin to be exposed.
Jerry Mitchell (37:26):
Yeah, and it's not pleasant.
He calls, and jesus would say,those those whom I love, I
rebuke and discipline, and callson us to do the same thing.
And so I just think that wehave misunderstood Scripture and
(37:48):
are thinking that, oh, this isso horrific we can't tell
anybody.
It's what the Catholic Churchdid for years, and Protestant
Church has been guilty of theexact same thing, and I know of
a case right here in Jackson.
Same thing happened.
I saw a youth minister.
He was off someplace, I thinkin Texas, and then got sent here
(38:11):
to Mississippi, and that churchdidn't let the church here in
Mississippi know.
Hmm, wow, sexually abusing boys.
BT Irwin (38:24):
Oh man.
Jerry Mitchell (38:26):
And worked at a school, wow.
And when you do that kind ofstuff, you perpetuate it Again.
Our job is not to cover up sin,our job is to expose it, and so
that's the way I think about it.
I don't think about quote,unquote, bad news.
(38:47):
I just think about what's thetruth in this situation, and we
need the truth because we can't,again, we can't act in the way
that we need to act.
We don't know.
Yeah.
BT Irwin (38:58):
I know I've seen our news team agonize over oh yeah,
it's a story, yeah the church ofchrist is a small world.
Everybody knows everybody.
I was at the crusade for christhere in detroit this week and
everywhere I went people arelike tell bobby ross.
I said hi.
And yeah, of course I've seenbobby ross six times a day about
(39:18):
how well known he is amongpeople, and so these are our
friends, these are brothersabsolutely right, it's hard to
report on some of these thingsabsolutely so I just like to
take it down to nuts and bolts,because I've I've seen these
discussions play out among ournews people here at the
Christian Chronicle.
(39:40):
If a tip, we get a tip and youknow what this is like.
You get a tip.
You hear about a situation thatmay be happening and it could
be sexual assault in a church.
There have been quite a few ofthose.
It could be embezzling money.
Jerry Mitchell (39:58):
Yeah, that happens, that happens.
BT Irwin (40:00):
So if you're working at the at Mississippi today and
you get a tip like that as areporter, you you follow that
tip right.
Jerry Mitchell (40:09):
Oh yeah, you follow it and you want to see if
it's true or not.
You don't assume anybody whotells you anything is telling
you the truth, right.
BT Irwin (40:16):
I think here I think a lot of people in our audience I
can't say for sure, but I thinka lot of people in our audience
would say well, instead offollowing that tip, what you
need to do is turn thatinformation over to the church
for church discipline and letthem handle that internally
without the chronicles.
Jerry Mitchell (40:37):
Hopefully they've done that.
I mean, hopefully it's alreadygotten to that.
I would presume most of thosetips you get along those lines
are to the point that they werealready being dealt with in some
capacity by the church, ormaybe ignored.
I don't know, it depends on thesituation.
BT Irwin (40:52):
And that's kind of the question.
Jerry Mitchell (40:55):
It's a tough situation, it's a case-by-case
situation, and so yeah, it'stough, it's a tough situation,
it's a case-by-case situation,and so yeah, it's tough, it's a
tough situation.
But on the other, you know,usually I assume by the time you
guys get involved it's alreadyto a point of it's come to a
head at a particularcongregation or something like
(41:17):
that, and so then it's moreyou're covering the fallout of
it than you know, than you knowthe early investigation.
BT Irwin (41:28):
I can think of a specific tip that we received in
the last, I think, a year wherechurch discipline I don't think
happened.
Jerry Mitchell (41:39):
Yes, i'm't think happened.
That's what I'm talking aboutRight.
BT Irwin (41:43):
And so, as an apprentice and student of Jesus
Christ and a church guy on onehand, but as a professional
investigative reporter whobelieves in finding the truth
and bringing people to justice,christian chronicle is there a
kind of metric that you would gothrough in your in your mind
about how to follow up on thistip or what to do with this,
(42:06):
knowing that you're with thechristian chronicle and not say
mississippi?
Jerry Mitchell (42:09):
yeah, yeah, yeah .
Well, obviously you have adifferent mindset.
As a christian chronicle,you're covering, but, but you're
being as churches of christ,you're covering and you're
trying to be truthful about itand to be honest, you know
Christian Chronicle tells thetruth in love.
So I think that's the thing youreally want to do is tell the
truth in love, and people needto know.
(42:31):
Again, look at the Bible.
I mean, for example, does theBible just say King David was a
great guy?
Is that all it says?
King David was a great guy?
(42:52):
No, we have the faults of Davidall laid out, completely,
completely laid out.
So, again, I think sometimesthere's this disconnect between
what we read in the Bible, whatwe think should be done here and
it needs to be done in love.
And you know you wouldn't wantto.
(43:14):
You know it's not to lambastanyone or two, but here's the
deal.
I can bet you money.
There are some, there are othercongregations who are dealing
with the same situation and whoknows but that that might be
instructive to them and how theyshould handle the situation,
(43:39):
disruptive to them and how theyshould handle the situation.
So I, I, I this idea that wedon't write about something
because it might quote unquotehurt somebody's feelings or hurt
someone's reputation, or, youknow, if they've committed some
grievous sin, they've alreadydone that to themselves, because
(44:01):
our reputation is in god's eyesis what really matters.
BT Irwin (44:07):
If we're worried about people, our reputation in terms
of with people then we've gotthe wrong mindset I want to give
you a chance here at the end totell us what you're working on
now.
We've spent a lot of timetalking about Race Against Time
and where that led you, butyou've been once again doing
some hardcore investigativereporting on a story in
(44:30):
Mississippi that's made thenational news quite a lot, and I
don't know if you have anyother projects that you want to
talk about here but share withour audience what you're
continuing to do as aninvestigative journalist these
days.
Jerry Mitchell (44:44):
Yeah, the Goon Squad is, I guess, the best
shorthand to describe what we'vebeen doing.
We started investigatingsheriffs in summer of 2022.
We didn't set out toinvestigate sheriffs.
We were working on another casewhen we heard these allegations
of a sheriff allegedly takingwomen out of the jail and having
(45:07):
sex with them, and so we beganworking on that story and then
we found out the neighboringsheriff was doing the same thing
.
He and his deputies was doingthe same thing, he and his
deputies.
So we wrote about that andwe've been working with the New
York Times since the fall of2022.
They started a program, I guessyou could say, kind of focusing
(45:31):
on local investigationsfellowship, as they call it and
so we've been working with themsince fall of 2022 and
investigating sheriffs andprobably the most famous story
we have a whole team ofreporters now and in fact, as I
speak now, we have six rightthis second Now we won't be able
(45:51):
to keep that because we've gottwo of them are summer fellows
and then a third that's a fellow.
But we've been investigatingthis quote-unquote goon squad,
which was essentially a group oflaw enforcement officers mainly
deputies that would go aroundand just beat people.
It would go into people whowere suspected of using drugs or
(46:14):
selling drugs.
They would just break into thehomes without warrants.
It sounds like something fromthe 50s.
They'd break into homes withoutwarrants.
They would beat people.
In the case that, they allbasically went to prison for
they planted drugs.
They shot this guy in the mouth.
(46:36):
What it was is two young blackmen.
They went into the home, theypoured food over them.
They tried to humiliate folks,really humiliate them, the idea
being, well, you're never goingto do this again after we do
this.
But they put a gun in the guy'smouth that they were wanting him
(46:57):
to give him information aboutdrugs.
He kept saying I don't know whoyou know, and they didn't have
any drugs.
It wasn't like drugs they foundthere.
It was.
There were no drugs.
And you know, please, you know,tell me about it.
And so he sticks a gun to theguy's mouth and he had emptied
the chamber and so he pulled atrigger and, of course, click.
(47:18):
You know it didn't fire.
And then he did it again, butthis time the chamber didn't
empty.
So when he pulled the trigger,it it literally makes me, of
course explodes and barelymisses the guy's spine.
It shatters his jaw, lacerateshis tongue, and then they're
(47:42):
like and then they try tobasically cover up their crime,
what they've done, instead ofadmitting to it, and so these
guys have all gone up to prisonnow, the guys that were involved
in that particular incident.
But we showed in our reportingis this kind of stuff has been
going on for more than 20 yearsand so we're continuing to
(48:06):
investigate.
We just did a story about thesame sheriff whose son-in-law
dodged a DUI conviction and it'syou know he showed the sheriff
shows up at the scene to takehim home, and you know all this
kind of stuff that's going onand you know, for lack of better
(48:26):
terms, some of it's just goodold boyism you know, they just
want to.
You know, as we sometimes callthem south, but yeah, but, but.
But it's important because youcan't mistreat people.
I mean, it's just not, you know, as Jesus tells us.
(48:47):
You know, we're supposed toeven love our enemies.
So I think, unfortunately, thementality arises, you know, and
I'm not the vast majority ofpeople in law enforcement are
great people, they do athankless job, they put their
lives on the line every singleday, but unfortunately, a
mentality arises among some thatwe're the good guys, they're
(49:07):
the bad guys.
So therefore, we have a rightto mistreat these folks.
And that's not right and wedon't believe that as Christians
, and so that's kind of what'sbeen going on for a long time
and we're trying to dig downbelow that.
And we're trying to dig downbelow that and we've been doing
a number of stories.
The same sheriff was usinginmates at his mama's chicken
house to work there and clean itout and do other stuff there
(49:31):
and different things like that.
So we just continued ourreporting along those lines.
So, yeah, is it tough reporting?
Yeah, it's tough reporting, butwe always want to be fair about
it.
We always give them anopportunity the sheriff and
anybody else that we write aboutan opportunity to respond, to
talk to us.
We'd love to talk to them, sitdown and talk.
(49:52):
We've asked the sheriffrepeatedly for sit-down
interviews.
He's never done that.
BT Irwin (49:58):
How has your work changed you as an apprentice and
student of Jesus Christ, overthese many long years that
you've been investigating thepeople that you investigate?
Jerry Mitchell (50:11):
Interestingly, it strengthened my faith.
Do I have more faith in people?
Probably not.
Hmm, do I have more faith inpeople?
Probably not Less faith inpeople, because I know too much.
But having said that, yeah,it's, it's, it's a challenge,
(50:34):
it's a challenge, but I thinkthe faith, from a faith
perspective, it's, it's, it's,it's strengthened my faith, and
I hope this doesn't come offegotistically, because I mean
none, zero ego in this.
I look back at my own career andfour Klansmen going off to
(50:55):
prison and a serial killer wentoff to prison in in terms of
this reporting, and I think tomyself I'm not that talented I.
This is not something I did,this is something god did,
because god loves justice.
It's just that simple.
(51:16):
It's really that simple that.
So it's strengthened my faith.
It is not so I'm.
I'm just very grateful andhumble to be.
You know, you know to have seen, you know been able to witness
justice against impossible odds,impossible odds.
(51:38):
I could go through case.
You read the book.
I would go through case aftercase after case where the odds
were a zillion to one and yetjustice came.
How did?
BT Irwin (51:50):
that happen.
Jerry Mitchell (51:51):
Yeah, how did that happen?
Well, there's something calledGod he loves justice.
BT Irwin (52:02):
Well, race Against Time is the book.
We've referenced it severaltimes.
What you just said aboutimpossible odds, it's true.
If you like a good mystery,folks read the book, because
it's amazing how things cometogether in every one of these
cases.
Jerry Mitchell is the founderof the Mississippi Center for
Investigative Reporting.
(52:24):
He is a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
He's won the MacArthurFellowship, also called the
MacArthur Genius Grant, and heis the newest member of the
Christian Chronicles Board.
Jerry, thank you for makingtime to talk to us today about
your work.
Jerry Mitchell (52:40):
Thanks, I appreciate it very much, peter,
very good, it's been fun.
BT Irwin (52:44):
We hope that something you heard in this episode
encouraged, enlightened orenriched you in some way.
If it did, thanks be to God andplease pay it forward.
Subscribe to this podcast andshare it with a friend.
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(53:07):
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The Christian Chronicle podcastis a production of the
(53:30):
Christian Chronicle Incorporated, informing and inspiring Church
of Christ congregations,members and ministries around
the world since 1943.
The Christian Chroniclesmanaging editor is Calvin
Cockrell, editor-in-chief BobbyRoss Jr and executive director
and CEO Eric Triggestad.
The Christian Chronicle podcastis written, directed, hosted
and edited by BT Irwin and isproduced by James Flanagan at
(53:53):
Podcast your Voice Studios inthe Motor City, detroit,
michigan, usa.
Until next time, may grace andpeace be yours in abundance.
Family and friends, neighbors and, most of all,
strangers.
Welcome to the ChristianChronicle Podcast.
We're bringing you the storiesshaping Church of Christ
congregations and members aroundthe world.
I'm BT Earley.
May what you are about to hear.
Bless you and honor God.
Here in the United States, weoften say that freedom is not
free, and what we mean is thatthe freedom we enjoy as citizens
(00:25):
of this country is freedom thatcame at the cost of the men and
women who died on battlefieldsto support and defend the US
Constitution.
So the image that comes to mindfor many of us is that of
sailors and soldiers in battle,but for a few of us and it
really needs to be all of usother images may come to mind.
As many as 100 Americancitizens were murdered for their
(00:49):
peaceful advocacy and effortsto support and defend the US
Constitution during the civilrights movement of the 1950s and
1960s.
Those Americans laid down theirlives so that Black Americans
could enjoy the full freedomsand rights to which they are
entitled under the Constitutionand its amendments, and yet were
denied by local customs andlaws, particularly in the former
(01:12):
Confederate states.
We're releasing this episodethe week of the 60th anniversary
of the Voting Rights Act.
This federal legislation aimedto overcome local and state laws
that prevented Black Americansfrom exercising their right to
vote, as guaranteed under the15th Amendment of the US
Constitution.
The freedom that BlackAmericans accessed through the
(01:34):
Voting Rights Act was not free.
It came at the cost of thelives of those who died
advocating for it.
How did they die?
Many of them were murdered incold blood by those who opposed
equality for people of color.
In many cases, the murderersgot away with it.
How did they die?
Many of them were murdered incold blood by those who opposed
equality for people of color.
In many cases, the murderersgot away with it as governments
and law enforcement workedtogether to make sure that
convictions and punishmentsnever came in full.
(01:56):
Our guest today did thedangerous, exhausting and
painstaking work it took tobring many of those murderers to
eventual justice decades afterthey committed their crimes and
seemed to get away with it.
Jerry Mitchell is a PulitzerPrize finalist and winner of a
MacArthur Fellowship, also knownas the MacArthur Genius Grant.
As a reporter for theClarion-Ledger in Jackson,
(02:17):
mississippi, in the late 1980sand early 1990s, mitchell began
investigating the murders ofcivil rights workers in the
1960s.
His investigative reportingeventually led to cold cases
being reopened and four Ku KluxKlansmen being convicted and
sentenced for their roles in themurders of Medgar Evers in 1963
, michael Schwerner, jamesChaney and Andrew Goodman in
(02:38):
1964, and Vernon Dahmer in 1966.
In 2020, he released his firstbook, race Against Time, which
details the story of how heinvestigated the civil rights
murders.
It is one of the best booksI've ever read and I cannot
recommend it enough.
In 2023, he founded theMississippi Center for
Investigative Journalism, whichnow has the largest newsroom in
(03:00):
the state of Mississippi.
He's a Church of Christ kid, aHarding University alumnus, and
now he's one of the newestmembers of our board of trustees
at the Christian Chronicle.
Jerry, welcome to the show.
Great to be with you, bt.
Thanks.
I want to ask you what I call atrade question.
My wife and I read the bookRace Against Time together when
it came out in 2020, and thenrecently we picked it up again
(03:22):
and started reading it.
When we go on road trips,she'll drive and I'll read, and
so I was reading to her from thebook and she stopped me and
said how does he get thesepeople to talk to him?
Because a lot of the people youinterview are guilty and they
know they're guilty, they knowwhat they did, and yet they,
(03:43):
they talk to this stranger, thisreporter.
How, how does that happen?
Jerry Mitchell (03:50):
I.
I think you know there wereseveral factors in, you know, my
favor.
One was I'm pretty unassuming.
I mean I'm not, uh, I'm alwayssaying the opposite of Mike
Wallace for those that rememberthe old 60 minute show.
And so I don't, I don't come inthere gun guns blazing.
(04:11):
I just kind of come in thereand say, hey, you know, and I
had the Southern accent and youknow, and, and the upbringing
that made it such, in fact, withByron D D LeBeck asked me all
sorts of questions.
I was like what are yourparents' names?
Where did you grow up?
Where do you go to church?
Yeah, I could have refused toanswer, but I knew he'd love my
(04:35):
answer, so why not just answer?
He was like come on, I'll talkto you.
I was one of the only handfulof reporters who actually got to
talk to him before he, beforehe went out and got arrested
yeah, I one of the things thatmy wife and I talked about when
(04:56):
we were discussing how do these,why do these people talk?
BT Irwin (04:59):
to Jerry I said, well, the internet wasn't a thing.
Jerry Mitchell (05:03):
Like, yeah, and that's exactly right.
Yeah, the vast majority of thisrecording was free internet,
thank God, because otherwise I'd, you know, had my face
plastered everywhere.
You know all that kind of stuff, so I benefited from the lack
of social media.
BT Irwin (05:22):
Yeah, I reminded her I think it was early nineties
maybe.
Yeah, I, I.
I reminded her I think it wasearly nineties maybe.
Yeah, like to Byron DelaBeckwith, that was a early nine,
1990, 1990, 35 years ago thisyear.
Jerry Mitchell (05:34):
So I said to my wife I said I'm pretty sure he
wasn't reading the Clarionledger up in signal mountain
Tennessee, right, no, although Iinterviewed him before and he
liked what I wrote, these werejust like little, these were
just little snippets, yeah, kindof small bios, not even that
long, like what have thesepeople done since?
(05:58):
And so it was him, it was MerleEvers, it was, you know, the
prosecutor, you know those kindof things the original
prosecutor in the case anddifferent things like that.
And so it just kind of hadthese short bios and I just
quoted him accurately and heloved it was real racist, but he
(06:19):
loved what I had.
Yeah, because I quoted himaccurately, I didn't misquote
him or anything.
BT Irwin (06:28):
And so I think that probably helped me as well.
Let's just stick with Beckwithfor a second here, because the
chapter where you go to hishouse.
Jerry Mitchell (06:34):
That's kind of creepy, isn't it?
BT Irwin (06:38):
Here's what I want to say about the book to anybody
who hasn't read it yet RaceAgainst Time.
It is a page turner and thereare some really tense moments in
the book, like I read the wholething the first time, I think
in less than a week because Icouldn't put it down and like
the chapter where you go toBeckwith's house, which is on
(06:59):
Signal Mountain, tennessee.
So anybody who's ever beenaround Chattanooga you know you
drive up into the mountains andso you get this sense of you
going to this secluded place andhe is a he's a scary, scary man
, like the way he talks, and soone of the things that one of
the things I thought about as Ias I read that chapter in
(07:21):
particular and you even kind oftouched on this is is just the
kind of bile that he was spewingwhile you were sitting there
and you were drinking some weirddrink concoction.
Jerry Mitchell (07:32):
He was.
BT Irwin (07:33):
He was and his wife gave you this.
It was almost kind of like whatcould be in here, could it be
poison?
But my wife always tells me Ican't lie.
She said I can't play a joke onher because my face gives it
away.
Your face gives it away, right,and so you're sitting here.
I imagine looking this guy inthe eye while he's saying these
things and I'm like I have nopoker face and so how do you?
(07:59):
a lot of people might read thatchapter and just be kind of
repulsed by what he says.
People might read that chapterand just be kind of repulsed by
what he says and ask how canjerry sit there with a straight
face and look at this man whilehe's saying these things and not
give himself away?
Jerry Mitchell (08:12):
yeah, it's a great question.
I'm not sure how I didn't getmyself away, but he was
definitely of the.
I think as reporters we kind ofdeveloped this knack of more of
a poker face, you know, justasking questions.
We stay focused on thequestions and what we're asking
(08:34):
and what they have to say, and Iwas recording the whole
interview.
BT Irwin (08:38):
Yeah, so, yeah.
So the book again, highlyrecommend everybody to read it.
It's it's a very good read,very good read and it's all true
.
That's the crazy thing.
There were many times when Iwas reading the book where I'm
like this is not a like.
I think John Grishamrecommended your book.
He is on his.
I love John Grisham books andyou would think, reading the
(09:02):
book, that you're reading a JohnGrisham book because it's just
so, it's like a great story.
But it's just crazy that it'sall true and you lived it, man.
So I want to, I want to getdown into the reporting that you
did, that you write about in inrace against time and
everything that you've donesince.
Really, I feel like you've hadto overcome a lot of inertia,
(09:23):
and what I mean by that is thecases you covered in Race
Against Time were around 30years old.
Jerry Mitchell (09:30):
Yeah, they were.
BT Irwin (09:32):
Yeah, had moved way on .
It almost seemed like adifferent era by the time that
the late 80s, early 90s rolledaround.
I think there may be anotherkind of inertia, though, that
you're reporting us to overcome,and that's what I would call
evil on the people that we wantto admire and respect and trust
the most.
So the murderers in RaceAgainst Time you pointed out in
(09:55):
your book.
I mean these were like churchdeacons, sunday school teachers,
cops, upstanding citizens, youknow, smiling and waving at the
kids down on the town square.
And even now, with the case ofthe so-called goon squad in
Rankin County, mississippi,you've been investigating that
for a while.
People these days, christiansin particular, really hold up
(10:16):
law enforcement as almost holyor sacred.
So insofar as people criticizeor resist your investigating,
how much do you think it's notso much that because you're
going after individual badactors, but they feel like
you're going after their mostsacred institutions themselves,
you know, church, civilgovernment, law enforcement,
things like that.
Jerry Mitchell (10:35):
Yeah, well, I mean these, you know so-called
church goers no offense, theywere Klansmen, you know.
Yeah, but I mean, like beckwithwas christian identity, which I
don't know that your listenershave heard of, but it's, it's
basically a white supremacistreligion.
(10:56):
I remember so distinctly askingbeckwith about it.
You know it's like because Iknew nothing about it.
I, I mean that was the otherthing going in to talk to
Beckwith is.
I mean he just told me aboutthis whole world I knew nothing
about.
So I was learning from himabout white supremacy and what
(11:19):
was going on at that point intime.
But yeah, I mean prettyreprehensible.
I mean like they believe thingslike Adam and Eve were white
people and you know anyone whodoesn't have white skin, that
these were made by God on thesixth day with the animals and
(11:40):
therefore don't have souls, andjust, you know things that none
of us would, as christians,would support.
I mean it's just ludicrous.
You know teaching and belief.
So I have to say that, eventhough, even though you had some
that were the quote-unquotetaught sunday school, which the
(12:01):
heather clan sandbowers did,some of these other guys, they
were out there in terms of theirreligious beliefs.
But yeah, in terms of lawenforcement.
Yeah, it's a great question andI think you know we have to be
careful, and it's whether we'retalking about investigative
(12:25):
reporting or not.
Talking about investigativereporting, I think there's we're
unfortunately in a period oftime right now where it's kind
of a come on us versus themsituation and where it's like
you're, here's my team for lackof better terms and I'm talking
about politically or notpolitically, and so anybody on
(12:49):
my team I'm going to back andsay they're wonderful, and
anybody who's on the oppositeside, well, they're just of the
devil or whatever people sayabout it, and so I have to be
very careful about that.
And so I have to be verycareful about that, because in
my mind and that's why I thinkwhat I do and why investigative
(13:09):
reporting and journalism is soimportant, because it's about
trying to find the truth, and Ithink that's a Christian cause
as well we should be about thetruth, not about whether our
side wins or doesn't win, and Idon't mean that in Christian
terms, I just mean politically,socially, whatever box you want
(13:34):
to put that in.
We've still got to be about thetruth, because it's not.
We've got to have truth inorder to have justice, and if
you don't have truth, you can'tget justice, and that's what I
see a lot of right now.
There's just a lot of muddyingof the water, lots of lies told
(14:03):
not just by politicians but byplenty of others, and it just
really muddies the water andmakes it difficult for people to
sort out.
I'll give a simple examplethese, so these so-called news
shows right now, and I I justthink they all ought to be
labeled opinion, because allthey are is there's some talking
(14:25):
head, whether you're talkingabout msnbc or fox or cnn, I
pick your channel, I don't carewhat channel and it's they're
purporting to share the news,but what it really is is them
pontificating about the news.
It's their opinion, and I justthink the show should all be
(14:47):
labeled opinion because they'renot news and and I think that
leads to a lot of confusion forpeople, and and people think
that's true.
You know well, it's theiropinion about something may not
be true at all, and so that'swhy I think what we do is so
important.
We're trying to get it true andit's not about who's on what
(15:12):
team or politically I'm about asapolitical a person as you can
get it to, because I just thinkthat I think that confuses
things Again.
It gets into this team thing.
And the other thing I'd say as aChristian is Jesus didn't sink
(15:33):
away much into politics.
In fact, he had opportunitiesover and over again.
They kept trying to, almost tryto bait him into making
political statements and he keptrefusing to.
You know, you know, renderunder season, go to Caesars and
under God, what's God?
So he just would resist it.
(15:55):
And I think we've got to becareful of getting sucked into
those dramas about whatpoliticians said today.
This politician said today orthis one didn't, or whatever.
It's just.
I just think it's endless andI'm not sure it benefits God's
kingdom.
BT Irwin (16:20):
Just thinking about when you started out in this
world and right up to the time,do you feel like people?
I don't want to say people havegiven up on the truth.
Jerry Mitchell (16:29):
People have given up on figuring.
BT Irwin (16:30):
Well, I think it's real difficult for the average
person to figure out what truthis yes, so in other words,
people aren't less interested inthe truth, it's just that will
no longer feel like they canfind the truth.
I think that's accurate givingup.
Jerry Mitchell (16:43):
Yeah, and I think you and I'm not blaming
social media for this, butpeople today get most of their
find the truth.
I think that's accurate andthey're giving up.
Yeah, and I think you know andI'm not blaming social media for
this but people today get mostof their news from social media.
It comes through their Facebookfeed or whatever.
Whatever feed they have, that'show they get it.
Maybe they get a newsletter,maybe they get something else
like that, and that's what, howthey get their news, which is
(17:06):
unfortunate, and I'm glad to seepeople like Christian Chronicle
kind of stick to hey, we'regoing to report on what's
happening.
I think that's a good thing.
I mean, I think sometimes, yeah, you know, I always want to
kill the messenger.
I mean that's age old, themessenger is always the first
(17:28):
one to go.
But yeah, but I think it'simportant.
We need to know these thingsBecause here's the downside If
you don't know, you can't makewise decisions.
If you don't know what thetruth is, how can you you know,
how can you act wisely, how canyou do what's right?
(17:52):
You've got to know, you've gotto know what the truth is, or at
least, again, as close as wecan get to the truth.
BT Irwin (18:01):
Yeah, going back to that question about inertia, and
when you, when you did theinvestigative reporting which,
by the way, that was all on yourown initiative at first it was
almost like a hobby for you,because your your day job was
court reporting.
Jerry Mitchell (18:24):
Yeah, yeah, I was, I was doing court reporting
and I was kind of sticking this.
BT Irwin (18:27):
In addition, you were the person who actually did
something and started followingthe leads and you did it on your
own time and eventually itworked its way into your
full-time work.
But no one else was doing thatinvestigation.
No one else was looking intothe unsolved murders or the
crimes against civil rightsworkers in the 1960s.
You did it and there wasresistance to that.
(18:51):
You wrote about that quite abit in the book and then it led
to convictions.
People that should have beenput away for murder eventually
were put away for murder likedecades later.
Did you notice a change in theattitude of the general public?
You know, like I said, theymoved on and probably were like,
(19:11):
yeah, that happened a long timeago, we're moving on with our
lives.
Then the cases were reopenedand then people were convicted.
You know a good example.
Did you notice that people inMississippi, for example, were
like Jerry, thanks for revealingthe truth.
This changes our perspective oneverything.
Jerry Mitchell (19:30):
When I started doing the Beckwith case, I had a
lot of people that were nothappy with me.
I had someone stop me in thechurch parking lot.
Yeah, I remember that.
Who was mad about what I waswriting about.
So I was getting about.
So I mean, I, I, I, you know,so I was getting into church too
, so but yeah, it's, it's.
(19:52):
But it changed over time andwhat you began to see was people
began to realize, wait a minute, you know, like, let's say,
from a conservative standpointof viewing this, whether people
were looking at it from aliberal or conservative
standpoint, they began to, youknow, people who are more
(20:15):
conservative began to realize itwas a good thing, you know, and
they were like, yeah, becausethis is, and that's the thing
about these cases People don'trealize that is, these cases got
prosecuted by Republicans andDemocrats.
This was not a partisan issueat all or a political one.
It was the right thing to do.
(20:37):
And I know God loves justiceand that's the thing that's come
trying through to me and reallyled me to do a deeper dive into
scripture, of studying whatdoes God think about justice?
What are his thoughts on that?
BT Irwin (20:56):
We'll get to that a little more in a second.
So I've lived in Mississippi.
My dad and grandparents livedin Mississippi and by some
estimates you likely know allabout this Mississippi is either
the most Christian or secondmost Christian state in the US.
I believe that yeah, of thepopulation that claims
Christianity Real close withAlabama something like eight out
(21:17):
of ten people.
I think I can't imagine thatMississippi was less Christian a
few generations ago, thatMississippi was less Christian a
few generations ago and yetMississippi had the highest
recorded number of lynchings andviolent accidents of people of
color during the Jim Crow era.
And then in the 1960s you gointo great detail about the
(21:37):
murder and the violence againstpeople who were working very
hard to realize their right tovote under the US Constitution.
So what have you learned aboutthe disconnect or dissonance
that must exist within peoplewho claim to be Christian and
yet perpetrate or excuseviolence against fellow human
(21:59):
beings made in God's image?
You had to have encountered alot of that in your reporting.
Jerry Mitchell (22:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah , it's very fascinating.
I know sam bowers justified themurs in this interview that he
did.
Sam bowers was the head of thewhite knights of the q quest
clan in mississippi, which wasthe clan organization most
violent clan organization unitedstates for at least 10 killings
.
So in this interview he talkedabout that.
(22:26):
I was like you know, yeah, hewas justifying killing.
He said, yeah, if someone'sgoing to destroy your way of
life, you know you have a rightto kill them.
And so that kind of becamejustification, I think in terms
of like the Christian identitytype stuff.
(22:46):
They believe that you know, youknow if you kill, if you, if
you kill someone that's notwhite, like Beckwith at one
point said to someone, it waslike killing killing a dang dog
and a dang dog.
You know I mean because heviewed it as you know, those who
(23:08):
were black were subhuman insome form and therefore it was
justified.
And look, this still goes ontoday.
This disconnect unfortunatelystill continues.
What I mean by that is thisthere's a great book I read
years ago.
It's called Faces of the Enemyand it points out something I
(23:30):
think is very scriptural, whichis before we kill people with
our weapons, we kill them withour minds.
Wow, and I think that's verytrue.
I think we would especiallyunderstand, as Christians Jesus
talks about that.
BT Irwin (23:47):
Yes.
Jerry Mitchell (23:47):
You know you hate.
You know you say, oh, you knowthat, you know it's been said,
don't murder anyone.
But you know, I tell you, don'teven hate your brother.
And he goes.
And then you think, well, jesus, what are you saying?
And then he goes on and sayslove your enemies.
It's like what are you talkingabout?
(24:08):
Jesus is like I love my enemies.
And so I still, to this day,believe that what Jesus taught
is radical and we have not fullyembraced it.
And we have not fully embracedit Like we want to take the
edges off of what Jesus teaches.
BT Irwin (24:31):
Yeah.
Jerry Mitchell (24:32):
You know, and I think that's what you get back
to, this undiluted Jesus, and Ithink if we will embrace that
and drink that, it will changeus.
BT Irwin (24:46):
You in another interview, I think, with our
friendly camp.
You talked about growing up inTexarkana, right.
Jerry Mitchell (24:53):
Yeah, texarkana.
BT Irwin (24:55):
Texas Right and there was a bus bombing or I think
maybe there was Church bombings.
Okay, church bombings.
Jerry Mitchell (25:03):
Right, I didn't even know it.
BT Irwin (25:04):
I grew up there and I didn't know it Exactly.
You didn't know about it.
My dad was living inMississippi in the early 60s at
the time this was going on, andmy parents they eventually moved
to Nashville.
So both of my parents were inNashville and I've asked them
many times about what was goingon during the civil rights
movement.
What was going on during thecivil rights movement Right, and
they both told me we knewnothing.
Jerry Mitchell (25:26):
Yeah, we weren't aware at all that, and and I
mean there were things goingdown all around newspapers
newspapers, which was the mainsource of news at the time,
local news at the time werecomplicit in this, and what I
mean by that is they would notreport on this stuff and what
(25:48):
I'm talking about.
BT Irwin (25:49):
Well, I was going to say you talked about people like
Sam Bowers and Byron DLeBeckwith and they had this
interpretation of Scripture thatwas obviously racist.
But then you have folks like myparents and their parents,
folks in the churches that werenot, were not part of these
(26:11):
crimes, but they were aware thatthings were going on.
Yeah, I think they're awaregenerally.
Yeah, they stayed on thesidelines.
That's kind of what I wasgetting at with with question is
that.
Jerry Mitchell (26:24):
Oh yeah, I think we in the church, to be honest,
share some lameness.
I mean the sense of you know,we didn't.
I mean churches were segregatedfor many, many, many years and
we have to accept the fact thatwe did that.
You know, we and our fore, thefact that we did that.
(26:45):
You know we and our forefatherswere responsible for that.
I mean and and we should, weshould not.
I mean that's not good.
I mean the fact that we closedthe door to people that were of
different color.
Yeah, I mean that's and and and.
So what we need to do aboutthat obviously is is do our best
to change those kinds ofattitudes.
BT Irwin (27:10):
Our brothers and sisters, we're all one blood,
you're a, you're a church guyand I'm a church guy and so
we've we've been in a lot ofchurches and so you know, you
start, you start reporting likeyou were in the early 90s, and
you even mentioned beingapproached in the church parking
lot, the church parking lot,with my daughter in my arms.
Jerry Mitchell (27:31):
Am I right?
BT Irwin (27:31):
Okay.
So I'm imagining all the churchfolks I've been around my whole
life and I have to imagine thatat some point someone
approached you and said someoneapproached you and said you know
God cleanses of our sinsthrough the blood of Jesus
Christ and you know forgivenessis total, it's free to us
(27:54):
because of Jesus's pain andsuffering for us.
So if someone confesses andrepents, maybe in the privacy of
their own thoughts, godforgives and makes a fresh start
.
Jerry Mitchell (28:07):
And so I can imagine someone.
BT Irwin (28:08):
Yeah, I've had people talk about that.
You know, Jerry isn't that kindof unchristian.
You know you're digging up dirton the past when God is
forgiven and we should all moveon, and so I imagine you've had
to live in that.
Oh, I have plenty of peopletell me to move on, that's for
sure it's in the past leavingyeah what have you found in that
tension?
Being a christian, one hand,who believes in the forgiveness
(28:30):
of god and yet also working forjustice?
How do you, how do you navigatethat space?
Jerry Mitchell (28:35):
well, these guys never repented.
I mean they were.
I mean I had conversations withthem.
It's not like they were sorryfor what they did.
I mean they never expressed anyremorse or or other than I
billy roy pitts and tommyterrence and there were two guys
that two client guys I didinterview that expressed remorse
(28:56):
and repentance.
You know for that, I think thatyou know and I'm you know, I, I
think obviously if you've donesomething wrong, someone, you
need to go to that particularperson.
I mean that's obviously.
that's pretty basic.
You should go to that person.
But yeah, it's, you know.
But I had people say thingslike why don't you like they'd
(29:18):
see the guys going off to trial,playing guys going off to trial
or off to prison?
And they would say to me, jerry, why don't you leave these old
men alone?
And I would tell them thesewere young killers, they just
happened to get old.
BT Irwin (29:37):
Wow, wow.
I'm thinking in particular.
We had Nancy French on the show.
I might've been last year and,excuse me, she was.
She was the victim of Terriblesexual abuse at the hands of a
someone who worked in her church.
This is what she writes aboutin her book and you know, one of
(30:20):
the troubling things about thatstory that she tells is how the
perpetrator and people who knewabout it have kind of said to
her well, you know, we're movingon.
God forgives, we're moving on,gibbs, we're moving on.
And yet there's this strongmove in the church circles in
which she was a part of toforgive and move on from that,
and even people that didn'tperpetrate the abuse but knew
about it and covered it theproblem is covering it up.
Jerry Mitchell (30:42):
That's the problem.
It looks like we don't want totalk about this.
We want to cover this up.
We want to keep it secret.
Yeah, and that's in my opinion.
I'm just.
You know, and I can't speak tothat particular situation.
I don't know the details ofthat situation, but I'm just
talking about in general.
We're supposed to confess oursins right One to another.
(31:06):
It's the opposite.
We're not about covering up sin.
That's what the devil wants usto do.
He wants us to cover up sin.
It's the old what happens inVegas stays in Vegas.
I mean, isn't that the wholeidea?
That's the whole idea.
We're just going to not talkabout our sins, conceal our sins
(31:29):
.
God gives us a way out.
We confess our sins and whenyou confess your sins, as
someone who's done that, it'sfreeing.
It's freeing.
(32:03):
God is trying to free us fromthe shackles of sin and we have
the exact wrong mindset aboutthis.
Oh, this is.
You know, this might be bad.
This might reflect badly on thechurch.
The church is supposed to takecare of sin.
We're not supposed to wink atit or cover it up.
We should be the first ones outthere going hey look, this has
happened.
Here's what we're doing aboutit and not covered up.
I know it sounds contrary tothe way we think, but it's not
(32:23):
what the Bible says.
BT Irwin (32:25):
That's a good segue into talking about the Christian
Chronicle and the kind of workwe do here.
So you recently joined ourboard here at the Christian
Chronicle, so thank you for that.
We talk about this sometimesabout well, we just recently had
a really popular comedianstand-up comedian on the show
and we talked about is he aChristian stand-up comedian or
(32:48):
is he just a stand-up comedianwho happens to be a Christian,
or a Christian who is a stand-upcomedian?
And so, in that tone ofquestion, should there be such a
thing as Christianinvestigative journalism and, if
so, how would it differ fromjust regular investigative
journalism?
Jerry Mitchell (33:08):
Well, I don't separate this Like I view what I
do and people may think this isodd, but I view what I do as
ministry.
I don't view what I do asseparate from being a Christian
(33:28):
or somehow different than beinga Christian.
My faith informs what I do, howI act, how I behave.
What I do, how I act, how Ibehave and what I, what we do, I
think is, is godly in the senseof we're trying to get the
truth and God loves truth, godloves justice, and and the more
(33:52):
I kind of, you know, havelearned about that, the more I
realized, like when I startedoff, I didn't think that way,
you know, I kind of thought ofoh, my job's over here, you know
church here and you know havethese compartments of life, so
to speak, but that's not whatGod intended.
BT Irwin (34:14):
I studied the history of the Christian Chronicle when
I came to work here and I cameacross how its founders in 1943
wanted to be a source of goodnews what God and God's people
are doing around the world.
And then Eric Trigestad andBobby Ross Jr joined the team a
couple of decades ago and theybrought their experience and
training as what we might callquote unquote real world news
reporting, and we've won allkinds of journalism awards for
(34:36):
news reporting.
And that includes covering someof what folks might call bad
news.
So, for example, after Istarted here, we covered a story
about a Church of Christpreacher who carried on years of
sexual assault against girls inthe congregations he served.
And I know some people in ouraudience recoil at that kind of
(34:57):
coverage because they want us tocover good news, the good
things that are happening, andavoid stories like that.
So, as a Christian who happensto be a Pulitzer Prize finalist
and a world famous newsjournalist, how far should a
Christian news organization likethe Christian Chronicle get
into what we might call hardnews or bad news?
(35:19):
How might we do it that in away that stays true to our roots
?
Jerry Mitchell (35:24):
See, I see no distinction.
I mean, here we go.
Here's a very simple parallel.
Does the Bible have any badnews in it?
Good, I mean, as peoplequote-unquote say it that way
yeah yeah, in fact I'd say, interms of the gospel, you have to
(35:49):
kind of know what the bad newsis until you understand except
the good news news.
And so I think we thenomenclature of this has, I
think, unfortunately affectedour views and it's not really
it's bad.
We call it bad but it's notreally bad, it's it's it's
(36:11):
reality, it's the reality.
It's the reality.
There is going to be a judgmentday one day and we'll stand
before God and heaven or hellawaits.
I mean, that's the reality.
Now you can ignore that and youcan go on with your life and do
whatever you choose to do, butthat's the reality.
And so, in my mind, the truthis the truth.
(36:35):
And one of the big problems isyou're talking about the.
What the Christian trialscovered covered, like, for
example, the example you gavehere's been one of the big
problems.
It's not unique to Churches ofChrist.
Is that these churches?
And certainly has been the hugescandal about the Catholic
(36:55):
Church along these lines?
Is they, these sexual abusesituations were taking place?
Catholic church along theselines?
Is they these sexual abusesituations were taking place?
And then they would cover it upand then bump the person some
other place and they would do itagain.
BT Irwin (37:15):
Yeah.
Jerry Mitchell (37:17):
Do you think that's what God desires?
Hmm, of course not.
BT Irwin (37:25):
God desires for sin to be exposed.
Jerry Mitchell (37:26):
Yeah, and it's not pleasant.
He calls, and jesus would say,those those whom I love, I
rebuke and discipline, and callson us to do the same thing.
And so I just think that wehave misunderstood Scripture and
(37:48):
are thinking that, oh, this isso horrific we can't tell
anybody.
It's what the Catholic Churchdid for years, and Protestant
Church has been guilty of theexact same thing, and I know of
a case right here in Jackson.
Same thing happened.
I saw a youth minister.
He was off someplace, I thinkin Texas, and then got sent here
(38:11):
to Mississippi, and that churchdidn't let the church here in
Mississippi know.
Hmm, wow, sexually abusing boys.
BT Irwin (38:24):
Oh man.
Jerry Mitchell (38:26):
And worked at a school, wow.
And when you do that kind ofstuff, you perpetuate it Again.
Our job is not to cover up sin,our job is to expose it, and so
that's the way I think about it.
I don't think about quote,unquote, bad news.
(38:47):
I just think about what's thetruth in this situation, and we
need the truth because we can't,again, we can't act in the way
that we need to act.
We don't know.
Yeah.
BT Irwin (38:58):
I know I've seen our news team agonize over oh yeah,
it's a story, yeah the church ofchrist is a small world.
Everybody knows everybody.
I was at the crusade for christhere in detroit this week and
everywhere I went people arelike tell bobby ross.
I said hi.
And yeah, of course I've seenbobby ross six times a day about
(39:18):
how well known he is amongpeople, and so these are our
friends, these are brothersabsolutely right, it's hard to
report on some of these thingsabsolutely so I just like to
take it down to nuts and bolts,because I've I've seen these
discussions play out among ournews people here at the
Christian Chronicle.
(39:40):
If a tip, we get a tip and youknow what this is like.
You get a tip.
You hear about a situation thatmay be happening and it could
be sexual assault in a church.
There have been quite a few ofthose.
It could be embezzling money.
Jerry Mitchell (39:58):
Yeah, that happens, that happens.
BT Irwin (40:00):
So if you're working at the at Mississippi today and
you get a tip like that as areporter, you you follow that
tip right.
Jerry Mitchell (40:09):
Oh yeah, you follow it and you want to see if
it's true or not.
You don't assume anybody whotells you anything is telling
you the truth, right.
BT Irwin (40:16):
I think here I think a lot of people in our audience I
can't say for sure, but I thinka lot of people in our audience
would say well, instead offollowing that tip, what you
need to do is turn thatinformation over to the church
for church discipline and letthem handle that internally
without the chronicles.
Jerry Mitchell (40:37):
Hopefully they've done that.
I mean, hopefully it's alreadygotten to that.
I would presume most of thosetips you get along those lines
are to the point that they werealready being dealt with in some
capacity by the church, ormaybe ignored.
I don't know, it depends on thesituation.
BT Irwin (40:52):
And that's kind of the question.
Jerry Mitchell (40:55):
It's a tough situation, it's a case-by-case
situation, and so yeah, it'stough, it's a tough situation,
it's a case-by-case situation,and so yeah, it's tough, it's a
tough situation.
But on the other, you know,usually I assume by the time you
guys get involved it's alreadyto a point of it's come to a
head at a particularcongregation or something like
(41:17):
that, and so then it's moreyou're covering the fallout of
it than you know, than you knowthe early investigation.
BT Irwin (41:28):
I can think of a specific tip that we received in
the last, I think, a year wherechurch discipline I don't think
happened.
Jerry Mitchell (41:39):
Yes, i'm't think happened.
That's what I'm talking aboutRight.
BT Irwin (41:43):
And so, as an apprentice and student of Jesus
Christ and a church guy on onehand, but as a professional
investigative reporter whobelieves in finding the truth
and bringing people to justice,christian chronicle is there a
kind of metric that you would gothrough in your in your mind
about how to follow up on thistip or what to do with this,
(42:06):
knowing that you're with thechristian chronicle and not say
mississippi?
Jerry Mitchell (42:09):
yeah, yeah, yeah .
Well, obviously you have adifferent mindset.
As a christian chronicle,you're covering, but, but you're
being as churches of christ,you're covering and you're
trying to be truthful about itand to be honest, you know
Christian Chronicle tells thetruth in love.
So I think that's the thing youreally want to do is tell the
truth in love, and people needto know.
(42:31):
Again, look at the Bible.
I mean, for example, does theBible just say King David was a
great guy?
Is that all it says?
King David was a great guy?
(42:52):
No, we have the faults of Davidall laid out, completely,
completely laid out.
So, again, I think sometimesthere's this disconnect between
what we read in the Bible, whatwe think should be done here and
it needs to be done in love.
And you know you wouldn't wantto.
(43:14):
You know it's not to lambastanyone or two, but here's the
deal.
I can bet you money.
There are some, there are othercongregations who are dealing
with the same situation and whoknows but that that might be
instructive to them and how theyshould handle the situation,
(43:39):
disruptive to them and how theyshould handle the situation.
So I, I, I this idea that wedon't write about something
because it might quote unquotehurt somebody's feelings or hurt
someone's reputation, or, youknow, if they've committed some
grievous sin, they've alreadydone that to themselves, because
(44:01):
our reputation is in god's eyesis what really matters.
BT Irwin (44:07):
If we're worried about people, our reputation in terms
of with people then we've gotthe wrong mindset I want to give
you a chance here at the end totell us what you're working on
now.
We've spent a lot of timetalking about Race Against Time
and where that led you, butyou've been once again doing
some hardcore investigativereporting on a story in
(44:30):
Mississippi that's made thenational news quite a lot, and I
don't know if you have anyother projects that you want to
talk about here but share withour audience what you're
continuing to do as aninvestigative journalist these
days.
Jerry Mitchell (44:44):
Yeah, the Goon Squad is, I guess, the best
shorthand to describe what we'vebeen doing.
We started investigatingsheriffs in summer of 2022.
We didn't set out toinvestigate sheriffs.
We were working on another casewhen we heard these allegations
of a sheriff allegedly takingwomen out of the jail and having
(45:07):
sex with them, and so we beganworking on that story and then
we found out the neighboringsheriff was doing the same thing
.
He and his deputies was doingthe same thing, he and his
deputies.
So we wrote about that andwe've been working with the New
York Times since the fall of2022.
They started a program, I guessyou could say, kind of focusing
(45:31):
on local investigationsfellowship, as they call it and
so we've been working with themsince fall of 2022 and
investigating sheriffs andprobably the most famous story
we have a whole team ofreporters now and in fact, as I
speak now, we have six rightthis second Now we won't be able
(45:51):
to keep that because we've gottwo of them are summer fellows
and then a third that's a fellow.
But we've been investigatingthis quote-unquote goon squad,
which was essentially a group oflaw enforcement officers mainly
deputies that would go aroundand just beat people.
It would go into people whowere suspected of using drugs or
(46:14):
selling drugs.
They would just break into thehomes without warrants.
It sounds like something fromthe 50s.
They'd break into homes withoutwarrants.
They would beat people.
In the case that, they allbasically went to prison for
they planted drugs.
They shot this guy in the mouth.
(46:36):
What it was is two young blackmen.
They went into the home, theypoured food over them.
They tried to humiliate folks,really humiliate them, the idea
being, well, you're never goingto do this again after we do
this.
But they put a gun in the guy'smouth that they were wanting him
(46:57):
to give him information aboutdrugs.
He kept saying I don't know whoyou know, and they didn't have
any drugs.
It wasn't like drugs they foundthere.
It was.
There were no drugs.
And you know, please, you know,tell me about it.
And so he sticks a gun to theguy's mouth and he had emptied
the chamber and so he pulled atrigger and, of course, click.
(47:18):
You know it didn't fire.
And then he did it again, butthis time the chamber didn't
empty.
So when he pulled the trigger,it it literally makes me, of
course explodes and barelymisses the guy's spine.
It shatters his jaw, lacerateshis tongue, and then they're
(47:42):
like and then they try tobasically cover up their crime,
what they've done, instead ofadmitting to it, and so these
guys have all gone up to prisonnow, the guys that were involved
in that particular incident.
But we showed in our reportingis this kind of stuff has been
going on for more than 20 yearsand so we're continuing to
(48:06):
investigate.
We just did a story about thesame sheriff whose son-in-law
dodged a DUI conviction and it'syou know he showed the sheriff
shows up at the scene to takehim home, and you know all this
kind of stuff that's going onand you know, for lack of better
(48:26):
terms, some of it's just goodold boyism you know, they just
want to.
You know, as we sometimes callthem south, but yeah, but, but.
But it's important because youcan't mistreat people.
I mean, it's just not, you know, as Jesus tells us.
(48:47):
You know, we're supposed toeven love our enemies.
So I think, unfortunately, thementality arises, you know, and
I'm not the vast majority ofpeople in law enforcement are
great people, they do athankless job, they put their
lives on the line every singleday, but unfortunately, a
mentality arises among some thatwe're the good guys, they're
(49:07):
the bad guys.
So therefore, we have a rightto mistreat these folks.
And that's not right and wedon't believe that as Christians
, and so that's kind of what'sbeen going on for a long time
and we're trying to dig downbelow that.
And we're trying to dig downbelow that and we've been doing
a number of stories.
The same sheriff was usinginmates at his mama's chicken
house to work there and clean itout and do other stuff there
(49:31):
and different things like that.
So we just continued ourreporting along those lines.
So, yeah, is it tough reporting?
Yeah, it's tough reporting, butwe always want to be fair about
it.
We always give them anopportunity the sheriff and
anybody else that we write aboutan opportunity to respond, to
talk to us.
We'd love to talk to them, sitdown and talk.
(49:52):
We've asked the sheriffrepeatedly for sit-down
interviews.
He's never done that.
BT Irwin (49:58):
How has your work changed you as an apprentice and
student of Jesus Christ, overthese many long years that
you've been investigating thepeople that you investigate?
Jerry Mitchell (50:11):
Interestingly, it strengthened my faith.
Do I have more faith in people?
Probably not.
Hmm, do I have more faith inpeople?
Probably not Less faith inpeople, because I know too much.
But having said that, yeah,it's, it's, it's a challenge,
(50:34):
it's a challenge, but I thinkthe faith, from a faith
perspective, it's, it's, it's,it's strengthened my faith, and
I hope this doesn't come offegotistically, because I mean
none, zero ego in this.
I look back at my own career andfour Klansmen going off to
(50:55):
prison and a serial killer wentoff to prison in in terms of
this reporting, and I think tomyself I'm not that talented I.
This is not something I did,this is something god did,
because god loves justice.
It's just that simple.
(51:16):
It's really that simple that.
So it's strengthened my faith.
It is not so I'm.
I'm just very grateful andhumble to be.
You know, you know to have seen, you know been able to witness
justice against impossible odds,impossible odds.
(51:38):
I could go through case.
You read the book.
I would go through case aftercase after case where the odds
were a zillion to one and yetjustice came.
How did?
BT Irwin (51:50):
that happen.
Jerry Mitchell (51:51):
Yeah, how did that happen?
Well, there's something calledGod he loves justice.
BT Irwin (52:02):
Well, race Against Time is the book.
We've referenced it severaltimes.
What you just said aboutimpossible odds, it's true.
If you like a good mystery,folks read the book, because
it's amazing how things cometogether in every one of these
cases.
Jerry Mitchell is the founderof the Mississippi Center for
Investigative Reporting.
(52:24):
He is a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
He's won the MacArthurFellowship, also called the
MacArthur Genius Grant, and heis the newest member of the
Christian Chronicles Board.
Jerry, thank you for makingtime to talk to us today about
your work.
Jerry Mitchell (52:40):
Thanks, I appreciate it very much, peter,
very good, it's been fun.
BT Irwin (52:44):
We hope that something you heard in this episode
encouraged, enlightened orenriched you in some way.
If it did, thanks be to God andplease pay it forward.
Subscribe to this podcast andshare it with a friend.
Recommend and review itwherever you listen to your
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Your subscriptionrecommendation and review it
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Your subscriptionrecommendation and review help
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Please send your comments,ideas and suggestions to podcast
(53:07):
at christianchronicleorg.
And don't forget our ministry toinform and inspire christians
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So if you like the show and youwant to keep it going and make
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The Christian Chronicle podcastis a production of the
(53:30):
Christian Chronicle Incorporated, informing and inspiring Church
of Christ congregations,members and ministries around
the world since 1943.
The Christian Chroniclesmanaging editor is Calvin
Cockrell, editor-in-chief BobbyRoss Jr and executive director
and CEO Eric Triggestad.
The Christian Chronicle podcastis written, directed, hosted
and edited by BT Irwin and isproduced by James Flanagan at
(53:53):
Podcast your Voice Studios inthe Motor City, detroit,
michigan, usa.
Until next time, may grace andpeace be yours in abundance.
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