Laura Kebede-Twumasi is launching the Civil Wrongs project at the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis in Tennessee. Previously, she wrote and hosted a WKNO public television special on unresolved civil rights crimes in the Memphis area, and spearheaded a partnership between The New Tri-State Defender and WKNO public radio on a forgotten civil rights journalism hero, L. Alex Wilson. Laura Kebede-Twumasi is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and has a decade of reporting experience, including five years writing about education inequities in Memphis for Chalkbeat.
Beat: Civil rights cold cases in Tennessee
This project fills a major gap in the reporting and understanding in this region of hate crimes, police brutality and systemic racism. The purpose is to examine and produce print and public radio stories about unsolved and unpunished racially motivated murders from the modern civil rights era in Memphis and across Tennessee. The reporter also examines modern and historical civil rights abuses, police brutality and environmental justice issues.