Eric J. Shelton is a Report for America corps member who is a photojournalist for Mississippi Today. He answered a few questions about his work as a local journalist for the latest edition of the Report Local newsletter. 1) As a journalist working in your home state of Mississippi, how has your knowledge of the state informed
On the Ground in SUMNER, Mississippi — The courthouse where Emmett Till’s murderers were acquitted has been restored to look like it did during his 1956 trial, when his abduction, torture and murder shocked and shamed the nation. It’s an unassuming and stately building. Rows of identical brown seats face the flags of Mississippi and
On the Ground — Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, one of the state’s three main prisons, is located in a sparse pocket of the town of Pearl, a few minutes outside of Jackson. To reach its gates, I drove south from the newsroom one July morning, exiting the interstate and winding through a couple of two-lane roads
On the Ground in JACKSON, Miss. — It was almost Independence Day and Lee Eric Evans straightened a flag pole on his aunt’s front porch and respectfully unfurled an American flag so that it hung properly. He wanted to make sure it didn’t touch the ground. It was July 3 and Lee, 26, was fussing