May 6, 2026 • 28 mins
Sometimes the hardest part about a crime isn't figuring out what happened — it's revisiting what's already been decided. Once a case is closed and a conclusion settles in, changing that can be just as difficult as investigating it was in the first place.
My guest today is Jill Collin Jefferson, a civil and human rights attorney and the founder of JULIAN, an organization focused on investigating modern-day lynchings. JULIAN works with families and communities seeking answers in cases that have often gone unresolved or unquestioned.
In this episode, we talk about how Jill approaches this work, how cases reach her in the first place, and what it takes to reexamine investigations that others have already moved on from. Jill walks us through the Willie Andrew Jones Jr. case in Mississippi, her arrest in Lexington while monitoring police, and the contentious relationships that come with exposing gaps in law enforcement investigations.
Jill Collen Jefferson, JULIAN’s founder and Executive Director, is a civil and human rights attorney who grew up in the racism and de facto segregation of rural Mississippi and was trained by the leaders of the civil rights movement. She was mentored by the great civil rights leader Julian Bond, the organization’s namesake, who taught her civil rights history and strategy. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and her J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she is now faculty in its Trial Advocacy Workshop. She hails from a farm in southeastern Mississippi.
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SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
I'm Jeff Asher, and this is the Jeffalytics Podcast.
(00:04):
Sometimes the hardest part abouta crime isn't figuring out what
happened.
It's revisiting what's alreadybeen decided.
Once a case is closed and aconclusion settles in, changing
that can be just as difficult asinvestigating it was in the
first place.
My guest today is Jill CullenJefferson, a civil and human
rights attorney and the founderof Julian, an organization
focused on investigatingmodern-day lynchings and working
(00:25):
with families and communitiesseeking answers in cases that
have often gone unresolved orunquestioned.
In this episode, we talk abouthow she approaches that work,
how these cases reach her in thefirst place, and what it takes
to re-examine investigationsthat others have already moved
on from.
We also get into the realitiesof doing this work in the field,
the challenges of working acrossdifferent jurisdictions, and the
(00:46):
tension that can come withtaking a closer look at cases
that were never meant to bereopened.
If you're looking for aconversation about what it takes
to keep pushing when the answersaren't as settled as they might
seem, this is it.
My guest today is Jill CullenJefferson.
Jill, thanks so much forjoining.
SPEAKER_00 (01:03):
Thank you so much for having me, Jeff.
SPEAKER_01 (01:05):
So walk me through what is your background?
What brought you here to ustoday?
SPEAKER_00 (01:09):
Well, I am a civil and human rights attorney.
My background, I grew up in thesticks of Mississippi.
Went to an undergrad, I metJulian Bond, who became my
mentor and taught me everythingI know about civil rights and
human rights.
He took me under his wing and hebecame my mentor.
Years later, when I was in lawschool, I went to Harvard and I
(01:32):
was working in the innovationlab to put together a civil
rights organization that wasunlike any other that existed.
And I thought, what should Iname this thing?
And so I named it Julian afterhim.
And founded Julian in 2020.
We are the only organization inthe country that has a focus on
modern-day lynchings.
(01:53):
Our mission is to end castesystems in America.
And I think we've I think we'vedone some good work in getting
to where we need to go andachieving our vision.
SPEAKER_01 (02:04):
And sort of what what motivates you to do all of
this work?
SPEAKER_00 (02:07):
So it's my purpose on this earth.
And I know that sounds weird,but like um when I was an
undergrad, Professor Bond tookme aside and he said, you know,
your purpose in life is to be adisciple of civil rights because
you understand it better thanyour peers.
So you have a responsibility toteach them.
(02:30):
And I really took that to heart,and it wasn't just him saying
it, I fell in love with civilrights, like the history of it,
the movement.
I just I love it.
I'm in love with it.
And I had started to investigatecivil rights cold cases from the
(02:51):
1960s, like during the civilrights era, people who had been
lynched during that time.
And at one of those conferencesabout historical lynchings,
somebody said, somebody here gotlynched two weeks ago and
nobody's talking about that.
And I said, Oh my gosh.
And so at that point, my focusbecame focusing on modern-day
(03:13):
lynchings and getting attentionto those and solving those
cases.
SPEAKER_01 (03:17):
I want to ask a very broad question that sort of
comes from my personalexperience.
My dad grew up in Bogaloosa,Louisiana, which I guess would
be the sticks of Louisiana.
Um, are you familiar withBogaloosa?
SPEAKER_00 (03:27):
I am, yes.
SPEAKER_01 (03:28):
All right.
I haven't been there.
I think he took me there when Iwas two.
Um, was the most recent I'vebeen there, and I know it's
changed a lot since then.
But he would tell me stories ofmy grandfather and my great
uncle, like as one of like sixJewish families in town, they
were targeted by the Klan.
Um, and he would tell me storiesabout them uh staying up, like
(03:49):
sleeping by the door with arifle and like just ready to for
anything that might happen fromthe clan.
And my my very broad question ishaving been involved in this
work, uh, how do you thinkthrough like communicating all
of this, all of this struggle,everything that happened in the
the um during the civil rightsmovement to a generation that
(04:11):
maybe doesn't have thosefirsthand uh stories to live by?
SPEAKER_00 (04:16):
Yeah.
So we talk about the evolutionof lynching.
We talk about what it was beforeand what it is now in terms of,
you know, before it would be ummob violence, and people would
take souvenirs, like they wouldcut off body parts as souvenirs
and things like that, and takephotographs and and share those
(04:40):
photographs around like baseballcards.
And a lot of those photographsstill exist to this day, and you
can go online and see them.
We talk about that and we talkabout the transition to
lynchings being moreunderground.
The fact that lynchings nowhappen through not mob violence,
but a couple of people who gettogether and they're usually
(05:02):
radicalized online and they gettogether and they carry out this
act, there's still the aspect ofspectacle to it, like there was
in the civil rights era.
But now lynchings, they'rethey're carried out by small
groups, but they're also in somein some instances carried out by
(05:24):
police.
I would call what happened toGeorge Floyd a lynching.
SPEAKER_01 (05:27):
How would you sort of define?
Do you have a definition oflynching in the modern sense?
Or is that something that justsort of you look at a case and
you you can kind of feel it?
SPEAKER_00 (05:38):
Yeah, a lynching is an extrajudicial killing.
A modern-day lynching, to be tobe clear, isn't is a
discriminatory killing committedin the late 20th or early 21st
century by more than one personcarried out for an alleged
offense with or without a legaltrial or due process?
(05:59):
And our definition of lynchingexpands the definition to
include cases that are likeLGBTQ PLUS and Indigenous women
and things like that thathaven't historically been
included in the definition oflynching.
SPEAKER_01 (06:14):
So, what what is your sort of investigative
process when you're looking at acase?
Are these the type of thingsthat someone brings brings
potential cases to you?
Do you have research that thatlooks into these things and
finds them first?
Is there a like first thing thatcomes to mind that makes you
want to investigate a certaincase further?
SPEAKER_00 (06:34):
The first thing that comes to mind is always, is it a
lynching or was it a suicide orsomething else?
And figuring that piece out.
These cases come to us indifferent ways.
Sometimes people call us and askus to get on a case.
In one case, a police officercame to my mother's house and
(06:56):
asked me to look into the case.
In other cases, family memberswill contact us.
And in some instances, we findthe case on our own and we
contact them and see if theywould like assistance.
And so the investigativeprocess, it really looks like
after we get the case, the firststep is to talk to family and
(07:20):
friends.
A lot of times, family andfriends have gotten leads or
have ideas of maybe whathappened to someone that I
that's really helpful tokickstart an investigation.
The next step is to get all thepaper you can possibly get, if
there are court documents, ifthere are police documents, to
get all the paper and examineit.
(07:41):
And then after that, it's amatter of following the
individual leads and seeingwhere they take you, making sure
that you don't miss any gaps,making sure that you fill the
gaps that the police may havemissed and things like that.
SPEAKER_01 (07:56):
And how does the process, the investigative
process, work from there?
SPEAKER_00 (07:59):
Once we have basically figured out what
happened, we then take ourinformation to authorities,
whether it be the FBI or theState Bureau of Investigation or
local authorities.
Usually local authorities arenot willing to do anything
(08:20):
because they're the ones whobotched it in the first place.
And they don't want, they'remore concerned about their image
than they are about justice, iswhat I've found.
And so by any means, we takethese facts and everything that
we learn to them and we givethem all the evidence and when
that we urge them to take actionto charge the people criminally
(08:43):
with murder and with lynching.
And so in these instances, wehaven't, we've gotten some cases
reopened, but the local DAs andthe local police have been in
the way of actually getting newcharges filed.
SPEAKER_01 (08:58):
So is there a sort of a communication pattern that
you tend to sort of operatewithin when you get this
information?
I'm sure you frequently lawenforcement is certainly
skeptical, I'm I imagine.
The public might be skeptical.
You sort of have to overcome alevel of skepticism.
How do you go about sort ofovercoming that?
(09:19):
And what role does justcommunicating what you're
finding play into that?
SPEAKER_00 (09:23):
Yeah, so it's never as easy as just communicating
what we found.
With every single modern-daylynching case, we have to
overcome a suicide designationfirst.
The coroner, the crime lab, thepolice rule it a suicide, and
you have to prove that it's notbefore they will actually, you
(09:47):
know, listen to you and whatyour theory is.
So you have to disprove theirs.
And so that's always an uphillbattle.
You have to show the gaps thatthey've they had in their
investigation, the people theydidn't talk to.
You have to present the evidenceto them that they missed,
essentially, and show them, hey,if you had gotten this right,
(10:08):
then you would have seen thisdifferent outcome.
But yeah, we in every case, wehave to overcome the designation
of suicide first.
And that's always hard.
If it's under the jurisdictionof the FBI and you have a good
president and administration in,then they can be very helpful in
(10:30):
getting things moved and gettingstates to give traction to
things to investigations, but wedon't have that right now.
And so it's basically just downto us to prove the cases on our
own and with the evidence thatwe have and hope that the local
authorities will listen.
SPEAKER_01 (10:51):
What has your experience been with that?
Is it sort of hit or miss basedon the jurisdiction and the
police department or orsheriff's office and coroner, or
is it certain states or citiesthat do better that you've come
across, or is it just sort ofrandom scattering of you get
lucky sometimes?
SPEAKER_00 (11:08):
Um, I have found that it's always an uphill
battle.
I have not come across asituation where it just happened
like in terms of like routine.
It's always been having to, likeI said, disprove and then prove.
(11:28):
And when you're talking to theseDAs, the thing you have to
realize is that they work withthese police every day.
And their motivation a lot oftimes is to protect the people
they work with, to protect thepolice, not really to get
justice in the case.
And so I found in pretty muchevery instance that we have to
(11:51):
go head to head with the DAs inorder to get them to seek
justice on behalf of thesefamilies.
SPEAKER_01 (11:59):
Can you walk me through any like success stories
in terms of your work and takinga case and overcoming all of
those hurdles and reaching aconclusion where at least sort
of the truth of the case is atleast acknowledged?
SPEAKER_00 (12:14):
The Willie Andrew Jones Jr.
case is one that I referenceoften in terms of a victory,
even though the DA hasn'tcompletely come around yet.
Um, we have gotten the casereopened by the Miss City Bureau
of Investigation to just set thefacts of that case.
Willie was a 21-year-old blackman who was found hanging from a
(12:37):
tree in his white girlfriend'sfront yard in 2018.
Authorities ruled it a suicide.
Within 40 minutes of Willie'smother being on the scene, they
told her it was a suicide.
They had not interviewed anywitnesses.
They had not canvassed the crimescene.
They had not roped off the crimescene.
(12:59):
They basically had notinvestigated at all.
Yet they they came up with thisdetermination.
We came in, we found a ton ofgaps.
We found witnesses that they hadnot spoken with, people who
heard Willie fighting for hislife.
We put all of that evidenceforward to the DA, and the DA
still didn't budge.
(13:20):
We got help from the FBI and inthe state U.S.
attorney's office to putpressure on the local DA and the
Mississippi Bureau ofInvestigation.
And so the Mississippi Bureau ofInvestigation reopened the case
and put pressure on the DA andgot the DA to say, you know, if
(13:42):
I I am willing to to prosecutethis, if the evidence is there,
but of course the evidence hasbeen there all along.
And so we we've gotten the casereopened, but we still haven't
gotten a favorable ruling.
SPEAKER_01 (13:54):
And it's been what, eight years from that for that
case?
SPEAKER_00 (13:58):
Yes.
It takes a lot of time.
The investigation itself doesn'thave to take that long, but
usually um when you're dealingwith getting other authorities
to move or to change their, tochange their minds on something,
they dig their heels and they itis it is hard to get things
(14:20):
reversed.
SPEAKER_01 (14:21):
Uh sort of on the opposite end, has there been
cases where you felt, like atleast initially, that there was
strong evidence to support yourwork, to support an
investigation, and then theevidence just sort of didn't pan
out and despite initialsuspicions and and sort of how
how do you handle situationslike that?
SPEAKER_00 (14:40):
There have been situations where we thought
potentially it was a lynching,and then through investigation
we found that it was a suicideinstead.
In those instances, what we dois we we always work closely
with the families.
We don't reveal the identitiesof the people whose
(15:02):
investigations we came out withas suicides, or we work closely
with the families to make surethat they get some level of
closure.
In some of these cases, theymight disagree, you know, but
after we show them the evidence,they tend to, they tend to be
more on board.
But in those instances, is avery, it's a very delicate
(15:24):
balance.
You have to be very aware oftheir feelings and and the
situation.
Um, and you also have to justreally be aware of your own
investigation to make sure thatyou didn't miss anything.
Like the police missed things inthe first place.
(15:44):
And so, yeah, it takes it takesa lot.
It's a delicate balance when youfind out that it wasn't a
lynching.
You a lot of times have familieswho have been believing the
opposite for years.
And so it's a matter of of ofhelping them come to terms with
what actually happened.
SPEAKER_01 (16:04):
Have there been any cases where you were sort of, I
mean, you're probablyuncomfortable with many of the
findings, but sort ofuncomfortable or unexpected
conclusions that sort ofcomplicate everything for you
and and have been sort ofdifficult to wrap your head
around?
And sort of like, I'm justcurious, how do you handle like
real, like strong complexity anduncertainty?
(16:26):
Because that's something that atleast in in the crime data world
we deal with all the time.
And how do you how do youexpress perceptions or express
trends where the data's reallythe information's really
uncertain?
SPEAKER_00 (16:39):
In terms of how we investigate, we investigate
until we are certain aboutsomething.
Um, we feel like there's more tofind.
Um, if we're uncertain thatthere are more people to talk
to, more perspectives that wehaven't gotten that we need to
get.
Right now, in in one of our openinvestigations, there is
(17:00):
uncertainty about what the causeof death was.
And that to me just means thatwe haven't talked to enough
people or investigated deeplyenough or gotten enough, enough
evidence.
There have been some situationswhere like the autopsy will say
something and witnesses will saysomething different.
(17:22):
And that situation is one whereyou have to really figure out
what happened because obviouslythe independent autopsy,
especially, is is is going to beclear about what happened.
Maybe not the first one by thestate.
But in those instances, youreally just keep digging deeper
and you talk to additionalpathologists to get their
perspective and you go back overyour notes.
(17:45):
You know, in terms of like theseinvestigations, I haven't gotten
to one yet where I couldn't findfor certain what happened to
someone, whether it was asuicide, whether it was an
accident, or whether it was alynching.
And so that hasn't come up asmuch.
It just so far, it just meansthat we need to keep looking.
(18:05):
But I haven't gotten to a casewhere at the end of the case,
we're still uncertain.
SPEAKER_01 (18:11):
Do you have any idea how law enforcement perceives
you?
Are there just sort of lawenforcement and criminal justice
system actors, I guess?
Are there DAs and sheriffs andpolice officers that sort of
respect your approach but don'tnecessarily agree with the
findings?
Um, or do you feel feel thatthere's sort of a contentious
relationship pretty much always?
SPEAKER_00 (18:31):
With the exception of one case, it has been
contentious every time.
People do not like me.
The authorities don't likesomebody coming in and looking
at gaps in their work.
They don't like being exposedfor having missed things.
No.
And then this work happens inthe deep south.
(18:53):
And I am not naive enough tothink that who I am doesn't play
a role into it.
I'm a black woman doing thiswork.
And I'm sure that that doesn'tmake it any easier for anybody
to to like me or to get on boardwith what we're doing.
And so, with the exception ofone case, a case where the it
(19:15):
was actually the police whoasked us to investigate the
case, it has been contentiousthe entire time.
SPEAKER_01 (19:22):
And how do you sort of handle that?
How do you protect sources andcontinue investigating, knowing
that you sort of have acontentious relationship out
there somewhere?
SPEAKER_00 (19:32):
I have allies.
I don't want to say who theyare, but I have allies.
SPEAKER_01 (19:36):
Name all of your sources on this podcast, please.
SPEAKER_00 (19:40):
Our allies really do a lot in taking the heat off.
They will sometimes they'll filethings so that I don't have to,
so that there isn't a focus onme.
Sometimes they will have,they'll take meetings so that I
don't have to take them and somy identity doesn't have to be
involved.
And so that is how we get aroundit, having good allies,
(20:03):
honestly.
SPEAKER_01 (20:04):
Can I ask you about your sort of somewhat
high-profile arrest in 2023?
SPEAKER_00 (20:09):
Sure.
SPEAKER_01 (20:10):
Is that is that okay?
SPEAKER_00 (20:11):
I mean, I don't want to I'm just curious, like how
nobody's ever asked me if theycould ask first.
SPEAKER_01 (20:19):
It feels polite, right?
SPEAKER_00 (20:20):
Like it is polite, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (20:22):
So what one is uh can you sort of describe what
happened?
And two, I'm just curious howhas your work or has your work
at all changed since thatoffense or since that that
incident, I should say?
SPEAKER_00 (20:36):
What happened was that Julian, my organization,
had sued the Lexington PoliceDepartment.
They had been just completelyviolating people's rights.
There were Fourth Amendmentviolations, 14th Amendment
violations, like they weretargeting black people, they
were using excessive force, theywere retaliating against people
(20:57):
for free speech.
It was it was justridiculousness.
It was the worst police crisisthis country had seen in 50
years.
And so something that washappening was that this was
before the DOJ got involved andbefore people were were paying
attention to what was happening.
I would go to Lexington and kindof patrol and police the police.
(21:22):
Um, and so one night when I wasdoing this, I saw the police
pulling somebody over like theywere in the process of arresting
someone, and I drove by andrecorded it.
I drove back by, and when Idrove by the second time, they
stopped me and asked me why Iwas recording them.
(21:45):
And then proceeded to try toarrest me.
Well, not try, they did arrestme.
They told me to get out of thecar, would not get out of the
car.
I asked them why they hadstopped me because it wasn't a
roadblock, you know.
So why are you just stopping mein the Middle of the road and
demanding to see my ID.
From the perspective of like,like the legal perspective of a
(22:06):
stop, things just were not righton their end.
They things were just reallyoff.
And so I was not going to getout of the car and I was not
going to just allow myself to bearrested.
So they they pulled me out ofthe car, pushed me up against
the side of the car and put myhands behind my back.
And and and when they put me inthe police car, the white
(22:27):
officer who had arrested me, heshaped his hands into like the
shape of a gun and acted like hewas like putting it to my head
and shooting me.
So we got to the police stationand he was really just um, he
thought he was gonna intimidateme.
He was telling me, you know,you're going, you're gonna go to
jail tonight.
(22:47):
And I was like, okay, let's goto jail.
He ended up taking me to thejail.
And I spent, I think it wasthree days in jail.
But it was honestly a blessingin disguise.
So we knew that the police hadbeen harassing women and
stopping women for the purposeof getting their phone numbers
(23:10):
or asking them out on dates andthings like that.
And if the one, if the womansaid no, the police would then
figure out a way to arrest her,ticket her, or something like
that.
And so I had been trying toreach those women.
And it came to find out, theyended up being my cellmates.
Like I get in, I get in jail,and these women are my
cellmates.
The guards were able to get mesome paper and a pen.
(23:34):
I just wrote down their storiesand wrote down their contact
information for when I got out.
And so um it ended up beingsomething that was really
helpful to our efforts,actually.
And since then, you know, it'sit's definitely set the tone in
these cases to show how lawlessthese this department was, and
(23:57):
how they tried to make a pointto the community by arresting
the leader of their of theirlocal movement.
They they wanted to send amessage to the community that
that they could not be stopped,that the police could not be
stopped.
And thankfully that did not goover well.
Um, and the opposite was shown.
(24:19):
What they were doing is stillwhat stop was put to it, and
justice was found, and at leasta DOJ findings report for these
victims.
SPEAKER_01 (24:29):
And how how has that impacted your work going
forward?
SPEAKER_00 (24:32):
Well, now when somebody googles me, the first
thing they see is that I wasarrested.
SPEAKER_01 (24:38):
And so that was not the first thing.
I I was I yeah, I read about it.
I there was an interview youwere giving, I think to the
University of Virginia.
I read about it, so that wasn'tthe first thing.
SPEAKER_00 (24:50):
Okay, it wasn't the first thing, but is there it's
one of the most more prominentthings there.
I think it's you know thank youto you for continuing to read,
but a lot of people don't keepreading.
They they it's like, oh, she'sbeen arrested.
I don't want to work with her.
Why would an attorney getarrested?
(25:10):
And so I I haven't seen it belike, you know, a positive thing
for for the work.
Um, to be honest with you.
It's been something that's beenmore like if people don't get
past the headline and like readwhat actually happened.
It's it's more like it it lookslike incompetence on my end or
(25:34):
that I was doing something wrongother rather than the police
actually targeting me andarresting me.
And that was something else thatI I forgot to mention that we
did find out that the police hadtargeted me.
It was a if a former policeofficer told us that the police
had been plotting to arrest mefor some time, but they just
couldn't figure out how and whenum in the right circumstances.
(25:58):
And so um everything cametogether that night for them.
SPEAKER_01 (26:03):
Yeah.
Well, I I really appreciate yousharing.
Um it's it's obviously such aunique and important
perspective.
So I really appreciate that.
I want to sort of turn to thefuture.
And I'm curious, do you have avision for what the future of
your work, for what yourorganization looks like?
And this is a question I'vestarted asking all of my guests
that is there a role for AIspecifically in this, or is that
(26:25):
just not something that's onyour radar?
SPEAKER_00 (26:27):
AI is on my radar.
Yes, it is.
We have to be careful with likethe AI data centers and things
like that to make sure they'renot polluting communities that
are already vulnerable.
I will say that.
(26:51):
It also just sometimes, like,you know, it can be helpful in
brainstorming.
And so AI does have, does have aplace in Julian's future.
And what I see our work being isthat we're gonna end lynchings
for real this time.
We're going to end lynchings.
We are going to eliminatesystems of caste in America.
(27:11):
But the biggest thing in that ismaking sure that these families
and these communities are takencare of, making sure that what
their vision for what they wantand what their future, what they
want their future to be, is whatwe uphold.
And so I'll say I have a visionfor Julian overall to end
(27:32):
lynchings, and modern-daylynchings, and to eliminate
caste.
But when it comes down to likethe individual details of that,
that that depends on thecommunities that we work with
and what they want and how wecan help them get there.
SPEAKER_01 (27:47):
That's great.
Well, it's certainly aninspiring story and an inspiring
uh organization.
So I really appreciate youcoming on, Jill.
Um, keep up the good work and Iwish you luck.
SPEAKER_00 (27:56):
Thank you so much for having me, Jeff.
I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01 (28:00):
Thanks for listening to the Jeffalytics Podcast.
Be sure to subscribe and tolearn more, head on over to
ahdatalytics.com for moreinformation and previous
episodes.
If you like what you heard,please leave a glowing review,
which will help others todiscover the show.
Until next time, I'm Jeff Asher.
I'm Jeff Asher, and this is the Jeffalytics Podcast.
(00:04):
Sometimes the hardest part abouta crime isn't figuring out what
happened.
It's revisiting what's alreadybeen decided.
Once a case is closed and aconclusion settles in, changing
that can be just as difficult asinvestigating it was in the
first place.
My guest today is Jill CullenJefferson, a civil and human
rights attorney and the founderof Julian, an organization
focused on investigatingmodern-day lynchings and working
(00:25):
with families and communitiesseeking answers in cases that
have often gone unresolved orunquestioned.
In this episode, we talk abouthow she approaches that work,
how these cases reach her in thefirst place, and what it takes
to re-examine investigationsthat others have already moved
on from.
We also get into the realitiesof doing this work in the field,
the challenges of working acrossdifferent jurisdictions, and the
(00:46):
tension that can come withtaking a closer look at cases
that were never meant to bereopened.
If you're looking for aconversation about what it takes
to keep pushing when the answersaren't as settled as they might
seem, this is it.
My guest today is Jill CullenJefferson.
Jill, thanks so much forjoining.
SPEAKER_00 (01:03):
Thank you so much for having me, Jeff.
SPEAKER_01 (01:05):
So walk me through what is your background?
What brought you here to ustoday?
SPEAKER_00 (01:09):
Well, I am a civil and human rights attorney.
My background, I grew up in thesticks of Mississippi.
Went to an undergrad, I metJulian Bond, who became my
mentor and taught me everythingI know about civil rights and
human rights.
He took me under his wing and hebecame my mentor.
Years later, when I was in lawschool, I went to Harvard and I
(01:32):
was working in the innovationlab to put together a civil
rights organization that wasunlike any other that existed.
And I thought, what should Iname this thing?
And so I named it Julian afterhim.
And founded Julian in 2020.
We are the only organization inthe country that has a focus on
modern-day lynchings.
(01:53):
Our mission is to end castesystems in America.
And I think we've I think we'vedone some good work in getting
to where we need to go andachieving our vision.
SPEAKER_01 (02:04):
And sort of what what motivates you to do all of
this work?
SPEAKER_00 (02:07):
So it's my purpose on this earth.
And I know that sounds weird,but like um when I was an
undergrad, Professor Bond tookme aside and he said, you know,
your purpose in life is to be adisciple of civil rights because
you understand it better thanyour peers.
So you have a responsibility toteach them.
(02:30):
And I really took that to heart,and it wasn't just him saying
it, I fell in love with civilrights, like the history of it,
the movement.
I just I love it.
I'm in love with it.
And I had started to investigatecivil rights cold cases from the
(02:51):
1960s, like during the civilrights era, people who had been
lynched during that time.
And at one of those conferencesabout historical lynchings,
somebody said, somebody here gotlynched two weeks ago and
nobody's talking about that.
And I said, Oh my gosh.
And so at that point, my focusbecame focusing on modern-day
(03:13):
lynchings and getting attentionto those and solving those
cases.
SPEAKER_01 (03:17):
I want to ask a very broad question that sort of
comes from my personalexperience.
My dad grew up in Bogaloosa,Louisiana, which I guess would
be the sticks of Louisiana.
Um, are you familiar withBogaloosa?
SPEAKER_00 (03:27):
I am, yes.
SPEAKER_01 (03:28):
All right.
I haven't been there.
I think he took me there when Iwas two.
Um, was the most recent I'vebeen there, and I know it's
changed a lot since then.
But he would tell me stories ofmy grandfather and my great
uncle, like as one of like sixJewish families in town, they
were targeted by the Klan.
Um, and he would tell me storiesabout them uh staying up, like
(03:49):
sleeping by the door with arifle and like just ready to for
anything that might happen fromthe clan.
And my my very broad question ishaving been involved in this
work, uh, how do you thinkthrough like communicating all
of this, all of this struggle,everything that happened in the
the um during the civil rightsmovement to a generation that
(04:11):
maybe doesn't have thosefirsthand uh stories to live by?
SPEAKER_00 (04:16):
Yeah.
So we talk about the evolutionof lynching.
We talk about what it was beforeand what it is now in terms of,
you know, before it would be ummob violence, and people would
take souvenirs, like they wouldcut off body parts as souvenirs
and things like that, and takephotographs and and share those
(04:40):
photographs around like baseballcards.
And a lot of those photographsstill exist to this day, and you
can go online and see them.
We talk about that and we talkabout the transition to
lynchings being moreunderground.
The fact that lynchings nowhappen through not mob violence,
but a couple of people who gettogether and they're usually
(05:02):
radicalized online and they gettogether and they carry out this
act, there's still the aspect ofspectacle to it, like there was
in the civil rights era.
But now lynchings, they'rethey're carried out by small
groups, but they're also in somein some instances carried out by
(05:24):
police.
I would call what happened toGeorge Floyd a lynching.
SPEAKER_01 (05:27):
How would you sort of define?
Do you have a definition oflynching in the modern sense?
Or is that something that justsort of you look at a case and
you you can kind of feel it?
SPEAKER_00 (05:38):
Yeah, a lynching is an extrajudicial killing.
A modern-day lynching, to be tobe clear, isn't is a
discriminatory killing committedin the late 20th or early 21st
century by more than one personcarried out for an alleged
offense with or without a legaltrial or due process?
(05:59):
And our definition of lynchingexpands the definition to
include cases that are likeLGBTQ PLUS and Indigenous women
and things like that thathaven't historically been
included in the definition oflynching.
SPEAKER_01 (06:14):
So, what what is your sort of investigative
process when you're looking at acase?
Are these the type of thingsthat someone brings brings
potential cases to you?
Do you have research that thatlooks into these things and
finds them first?
Is there a like first thing thatcomes to mind that makes you
want to investigate a certaincase further?
SPEAKER_00 (06:34):
The first thing that comes to mind is always, is it a
lynching or was it a suicide orsomething else?
And figuring that piece out.
These cases come to us indifferent ways.
Sometimes people call us and askus to get on a case.
In one case, a police officercame to my mother's house and
(06:56):
asked me to look into the case.
In other cases, family memberswill contact us.
And in some instances, we findthe case on our own and we
contact them and see if theywould like assistance.
And so the investigativeprocess, it really looks like
after we get the case, the firststep is to talk to family and
(07:20):
friends.
A lot of times, family andfriends have gotten leads or
have ideas of maybe whathappened to someone that I
that's really helpful tokickstart an investigation.
The next step is to get all thepaper you can possibly get, if
there are court documents, ifthere are police documents, to
get all the paper and examineit.
(07:41):
And then after that, it's amatter of following the
individual leads and seeingwhere they take you, making sure
that you don't miss any gaps,making sure that you fill the
gaps that the police may havemissed and things like that.
SPEAKER_01 (07:56):
And how does the process, the investigative
process, work from there?
SPEAKER_00 (07:59):
Once we have basically figured out what
happened, we then take ourinformation to authorities,
whether it be the FBI or theState Bureau of Investigation or
local authorities.
Usually local authorities arenot willing to do anything
(08:20):
because they're the ones whobotched it in the first place.
And they don't want, they'remore concerned about their image
than they are about justice, iswhat I've found.
And so by any means, we takethese facts and everything that
we learn to them and we givethem all the evidence and when
that we urge them to take actionto charge the people criminally
(08:43):
with murder and with lynching.
And so in these instances, wehaven't, we've gotten some cases
reopened, but the local DAs andthe local police have been in
the way of actually getting newcharges filed.
SPEAKER_01 (08:58):
So is there a sort of a communication pattern that
you tend to sort of operatewithin when you get this
information?
I'm sure you frequently lawenforcement is certainly
skeptical, I'm I imagine.
The public might be skeptical.
You sort of have to overcome alevel of skepticism.
How do you go about sort ofovercoming that?
(09:19):
And what role does justcommunicating what you're
finding play into that?
SPEAKER_00 (09:23):
Yeah, so it's never as easy as just communicating
what we found.
With every single modern-daylynching case, we have to
overcome a suicide designationfirst.
The coroner, the crime lab, thepolice rule it a suicide, and
you have to prove that it's notbefore they will actually, you
(09:47):
know, listen to you and whatyour theory is.
So you have to disprove theirs.
And so that's always an uphillbattle.
You have to show the gaps thatthey've they had in their
investigation, the people theydidn't talk to.
You have to present the evidenceto them that they missed,
essentially, and show them, hey,if you had gotten this right,
(10:08):
then you would have seen thisdifferent outcome.
But yeah, we in every case, wehave to overcome the designation
of suicide first.
And that's always hard.
If it's under the jurisdictionof the FBI and you have a good
president and administration in,then they can be very helpful in
(10:30):
getting things moved and gettingstates to give traction to
things to investigations, but wedon't have that right now.
And so it's basically just downto us to prove the cases on our
own and with the evidence thatwe have and hope that the local
authorities will listen.
SPEAKER_01 (10:51):
What has your experience been with that?
Is it sort of hit or miss basedon the jurisdiction and the
police department or orsheriff's office and coroner, or
is it certain states or citiesthat do better that you've come
across, or is it just sort ofrandom scattering of you get
lucky sometimes?
SPEAKER_00 (11:08):
Um, I have found that it's always an uphill
battle.
I have not come across asituation where it just happened
like in terms of like routine.
It's always been having to, likeI said, disprove and then prove.
(11:28):
And when you're talking to theseDAs, the thing you have to
realize is that they work withthese police every day.
And their motivation a lot oftimes is to protect the people
they work with, to protect thepolice, not really to get
justice in the case.
And so I found in pretty muchevery instance that we have to
(11:51):
go head to head with the DAs inorder to get them to seek
justice on behalf of thesefamilies.
SPEAKER_01 (11:59):
Can you walk me through any like success stories
in terms of your work and takinga case and overcoming all of
those hurdles and reaching aconclusion where at least sort
of the truth of the case is atleast acknowledged?
SPEAKER_00 (12:14):
The Willie Andrew Jones Jr.
case is one that I referenceoften in terms of a victory,
even though the DA hasn'tcompletely come around yet.
Um, we have gotten the casereopened by the Miss City Bureau
of Investigation to just set thefacts of that case.
Willie was a 21-year-old blackman who was found hanging from a
(12:37):
tree in his white girlfriend'sfront yard in 2018.
Authorities ruled it a suicide.
Within 40 minutes of Willie'smother being on the scene, they
told her it was a suicide.
They had not interviewed anywitnesses.
They had not canvassed the crimescene.
They had not roped off the crimescene.
(12:59):
They basically had notinvestigated at all.
Yet they they came up with thisdetermination.
We came in, we found a ton ofgaps.
We found witnesses that they hadnot spoken with, people who
heard Willie fighting for hislife.
We put all of that evidenceforward to the DA, and the DA
still didn't budge.
(13:20):
We got help from the FBI and inthe state U.S.
attorney's office to putpressure on the local DA and the
Mississippi Bureau ofInvestigation.
And so the Mississippi Bureau ofInvestigation reopened the case
and put pressure on the DA andgot the DA to say, you know, if
(13:42):
I I am willing to to prosecutethis, if the evidence is there,
but of course the evidence hasbeen there all along.
And so we we've gotten the casereopened, but we still haven't
gotten a favorable ruling.
SPEAKER_01 (13:54):
And it's been what, eight years from that for that
case?
SPEAKER_00 (13:58):
Yes.
It takes a lot of time.
The investigation itself doesn'thave to take that long, but
usually um when you're dealingwith getting other authorities
to move or to change their, tochange their minds on something,
they dig their heels and they itis it is hard to get things
(14:20):
reversed.
SPEAKER_01 (14:21):
Uh sort of on the opposite end, has there been
cases where you felt, like atleast initially, that there was
strong evidence to support yourwork, to support an
investigation, and then theevidence just sort of didn't pan
out and despite initialsuspicions and and sort of how
how do you handle situationslike that?
SPEAKER_00 (14:40):
There have been situations where we thought
potentially it was a lynching,and then through investigation
we found that it was a suicideinstead.
In those instances, what we dois we we always work closely
with the families.
We don't reveal the identitiesof the people whose
(15:02):
investigations we came out withas suicides, or we work closely
with the families to make surethat they get some level of
closure.
In some of these cases, theymight disagree, you know, but
after we show them the evidence,they tend to, they tend to be
more on board.
But in those instances, is avery, it's a very delicate
(15:24):
balance.
You have to be very aware oftheir feelings and and the
situation.
Um, and you also have to justreally be aware of your own
investigation to make sure thatyou didn't miss anything.
Like the police missed things inthe first place.
(15:44):
And so, yeah, it takes it takesa lot.
It's a delicate balance when youfind out that it wasn't a
lynching.
You a lot of times have familieswho have been believing the
opposite for years.
And so it's a matter of of ofhelping them come to terms with
what actually happened.
SPEAKER_01 (16:04):
Have there been any cases where you were sort of, I
mean, you're probablyuncomfortable with many of the
findings, but sort ofuncomfortable or unexpected
conclusions that sort ofcomplicate everything for you
and and have been sort ofdifficult to wrap your head
around?
And sort of like, I'm justcurious, how do you handle like
real, like strong complexity anduncertainty?
(16:26):
Because that's something that atleast in in the crime data world
we deal with all the time.
And how do you how do youexpress perceptions or express
trends where the data's reallythe information's really
uncertain?
SPEAKER_00 (16:39):
In terms of how we investigate, we investigate
until we are certain aboutsomething.
Um, we feel like there's more tofind.
Um, if we're uncertain thatthere are more people to talk
to, more perspectives that wehaven't gotten that we need to
get.
Right now, in in one of our openinvestigations, there is
(17:00):
uncertainty about what the causeof death was.
And that to me just means thatwe haven't talked to enough
people or investigated deeplyenough or gotten enough, enough
evidence.
There have been some situationswhere like the autopsy will say
something and witnesses will saysomething different.
(17:22):
And that situation is one whereyou have to really figure out
what happened because obviouslythe independent autopsy,
especially, is is is going to beclear about what happened.
Maybe not the first one by thestate.
But in those instances, youreally just keep digging deeper
and you talk to additionalpathologists to get their
perspective and you go back overyour notes.
(17:45):
You know, in terms of like theseinvestigations, I haven't gotten
to one yet where I couldn't findfor certain what happened to
someone, whether it was asuicide, whether it was an
accident, or whether it was alynching.
And so that hasn't come up asmuch.
It just so far, it just meansthat we need to keep looking.
(18:05):
But I haven't gotten to a casewhere at the end of the case,
we're still uncertain.
SPEAKER_01 (18:11):
Do you have any idea how law enforcement perceives
you?
Are there just sort of lawenforcement and criminal justice
system actors, I guess?
Are there DAs and sheriffs andpolice officers that sort of
respect your approach but don'tnecessarily agree with the
findings?
Um, or do you feel feel thatthere's sort of a contentious
relationship pretty much always?
SPEAKER_00 (18:31):
With the exception of one case, it has been
contentious every time.
People do not like me.
The authorities don't likesomebody coming in and looking
at gaps in their work.
They don't like being exposedfor having missed things.
No.
And then this work happens inthe deep south.
(18:53):
And I am not naive enough tothink that who I am doesn't play
a role into it.
I'm a black woman doing thiswork.
And I'm sure that that doesn'tmake it any easier for anybody
to to like me or to get on boardwith what we're doing.
And so, with the exception ofone case, a case where the it
(19:15):
was actually the police whoasked us to investigate the
case, it has been contentiousthe entire time.
SPEAKER_01 (19:22):
And how do you sort of handle that?
How do you protect sources andcontinue investigating, knowing
that you sort of have acontentious relationship out
there somewhere?
SPEAKER_00 (19:32):
I have allies.
I don't want to say who theyare, but I have allies.
SPEAKER_01 (19:36):
Name all of your sources on this podcast, please.
SPEAKER_00 (19:40):
Our allies really do a lot in taking the heat off.
They will sometimes they'll filethings so that I don't have to,
so that there isn't a focus onme.
Sometimes they will have,they'll take meetings so that I
don't have to take them and somy identity doesn't have to be
involved.
And so that is how we get aroundit, having good allies,
(20:03):
honestly.
SPEAKER_01 (20:04):
Can I ask you about your sort of somewhat
high-profile arrest in 2023?
SPEAKER_00 (20:09):
Sure.
SPEAKER_01 (20:10):
Is that is that okay?
SPEAKER_00 (20:11):
I mean, I don't want to I'm just curious, like how
nobody's ever asked me if theycould ask first.
SPEAKER_01 (20:19):
It feels polite, right?
SPEAKER_00 (20:20):
Like it is polite, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (20:22):
So what one is uh can you sort of describe what
happened?
And two, I'm just curious howhas your work or has your work
at all changed since thatoffense or since that that
incident, I should say?
SPEAKER_00 (20:36):
What happened was that Julian, my organization,
had sued the Lexington PoliceDepartment.
They had been just completelyviolating people's rights.
There were Fourth Amendmentviolations, 14th Amendment
violations, like they weretargeting black people, they
were using excessive force, theywere retaliating against people
(20:57):
for free speech.
It was it was justridiculousness.
It was the worst police crisisthis country had seen in 50
years.
And so something that washappening was that this was
before the DOJ got involved andbefore people were were paying
attention to what was happening.
I would go to Lexington and kindof patrol and police the police.
(21:22):
Um, and so one night when I wasdoing this, I saw the police
pulling somebody over like theywere in the process of arresting
someone, and I drove by andrecorded it.
I drove back by, and when Idrove by the second time, they
stopped me and asked me why Iwas recording them.
(21:45):
And then proceeded to try toarrest me.
Well, not try, they did arrestme.
They told me to get out of thecar, would not get out of the
car.
I asked them why they hadstopped me because it wasn't a
roadblock, you know.
So why are you just stopping mein the Middle of the road and
demanding to see my ID.
From the perspective of like,like the legal perspective of a
(22:06):
stop, things just were not righton their end.
They things were just reallyoff.
And so I was not going to getout of the car and I was not
going to just allow myself to bearrested.
So they they pulled me out ofthe car, pushed me up against
the side of the car and put myhands behind my back.
And and and when they put me inthe police car, the white
(22:27):
officer who had arrested me, heshaped his hands into like the
shape of a gun and acted like hewas like putting it to my head
and shooting me.
So we got to the police stationand he was really just um, he
thought he was gonna intimidateme.
He was telling me, you know,you're going, you're gonna go to
jail tonight.
(22:47):
And I was like, okay, let's goto jail.
He ended up taking me to thejail.
And I spent, I think it wasthree days in jail.
But it was honestly a blessingin disguise.
So we knew that the police hadbeen harassing women and
stopping women for the purposeof getting their phone numbers
(23:10):
or asking them out on dates andthings like that.
And if the one, if the womansaid no, the police would then
figure out a way to arrest her,ticket her, or something like
that.
And so I had been trying toreach those women.
And it came to find out, theyended up being my cellmates.
Like I get in, I get in jail,and these women are my
cellmates.
The guards were able to get mesome paper and a pen.
(23:34):
I just wrote down their storiesand wrote down their contact
information for when I got out.
And so um it ended up beingsomething that was really
helpful to our efforts,actually.
And since then, you know, it'sit's definitely set the tone in
these cases to show how lawlessthese this department was, and
(23:57):
how they tried to make a pointto the community by arresting
the leader of their of theirlocal movement.
They they wanted to send amessage to the community that
that they could not be stopped,that the police could not be
stopped.
And thankfully that did not goover well.
Um, and the opposite was shown.
(24:19):
What they were doing is stillwhat stop was put to it, and
justice was found, and at leasta DOJ findings report for these
victims.
SPEAKER_01 (24:29):
And how how has that impacted your work going
forward?
SPEAKER_00 (24:32):
Well, now when somebody googles me, the first
thing they see is that I wasarrested.
SPEAKER_01 (24:38):
And so that was not the first thing.
I I was I yeah, I read about it.
I there was an interview youwere giving, I think to the
University of Virginia.
I read about it, so that wasn'tthe first thing.
SPEAKER_00 (24:50):
Okay, it wasn't the first thing, but is there it's
one of the most more prominentthings there.
I think it's you know thank youto you for continuing to read,
but a lot of people don't keepreading.
They they it's like, oh, she'sbeen arrested.
I don't want to work with her.
Why would an attorney getarrested?
(25:10):
And so I I haven't seen it belike, you know, a positive thing
for for the work.
Um, to be honest with you.
It's been something that's beenmore like if people don't get
past the headline and like readwhat actually happened.
It's it's more like it it lookslike incompetence on my end or
(25:34):
that I was doing something wrongother rather than the police
actually targeting me andarresting me.
And that was something else thatI I forgot to mention that we
did find out that the police hadtargeted me.
It was a if a former policeofficer told us that the police
had been plotting to arrest mefor some time, but they just
couldn't figure out how and whenum in the right circumstances.
(25:58):
And so um everything cametogether that night for them.
SPEAKER_01 (26:03):
Yeah.
Well, I I really appreciate yousharing.
Um it's it's obviously such aunique and important
perspective.
So I really appreciate that.
I want to sort of turn to thefuture.
And I'm curious, do you have avision for what the future of
your work, for what yourorganization looks like?
And this is a question I'vestarted asking all of my guests
that is there a role for AIspecifically in this, or is that
(26:25):
just not something that's onyour radar?
SPEAKER_00 (26:27):
AI is on my radar.
Yes, it is.
We have to be careful with likethe AI data centers and things
like that to make sure they'renot polluting communities that
are already vulnerable.
I will say that.
(26:51):
It also just sometimes, like,you know, it can be helpful in
brainstorming.
And so AI does have, does have aplace in Julian's future.
And what I see our work being isthat we're gonna end lynchings
for real this time.
We're going to end lynchings.
We are going to eliminatesystems of caste in America.
(27:11):
But the biggest thing in that ismaking sure that these families
and these communities are takencare of, making sure that what
their vision for what they wantand what their future, what they
want their future to be, is whatwe uphold.
And so I'll say I have a visionfor Julian overall to end
(27:32):
lynchings, and modern-daylynchings, and to eliminate
caste.
But when it comes down to likethe individual details of that,
that that depends on thecommunities that we work with
and what they want and how wecan help them get there.
SPEAKER_01 (27:47):
That's great.
Well, it's certainly aninspiring story and an inspiring
uh organization.
So I really appreciate youcoming on, Jill.
Um, keep up the good work and Iwish you luck.
SPEAKER_00 (27:56):
Thank you so much for having me, Jeff.
I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01 (28:00):
Thanks for listening to the Jeffalytics Podcast.
Be sure to subscribe and tolearn more, head on over to
ahdatalytics.com for moreinformation and previous
episodes.
If you like what you heard,please leave a glowing review,
which will help others todiscover the show.
Until next time, I'm Jeff Asher.
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