A Death Threat to a Newsman

By Prof. Douglas Perret Starr, a professor of agricultural journalism at Texas A&M

I was an Associated Press newsman in Jackson, Mississippi, from 1953 to 1961, covering government and politics and, beginning in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court-ordered desegregation of the races. It hit Mississippi hard; Negroes were ready for equality; whites were not. White men formed the Citizens Council, a latter-day Ku Klux Klan except no hoods and white sheets. There were killings and injuries and economic pressure on both Negroes and whites who aided in desegregation, none of it pinned directly upon the Citizens Council.

As an AP newsman, I wrote many stories about the Citizens Council and its efforts, and every story I wrote was accurate and objective, as demanded by the AP. In October 1961, I was in a small town north of Jackson, covering a news conference featuring the state administrator of the Citizens Council. I asked him to describe the effects of economic pressure, examples of which I had written about several times, though I could not tie them directly to the Citizens Council.

At my office in Jackson, however, I had a copy of a Citizens Council letter advocating economic pressure and signed by the administrator. He responded that the Citizens Council never advocated economic pressure. In my story, I reported his denial and cited his contrary statement from his letter. I did not call him a liar, but the implication was there, and it painted him and the Citizens Council in a bad light. A few weeks later, a reporter colleague told me privately that he had learned that the Citizens Council had put out a contract on me, that a bomb was to be placed in my home or in my automobile.

I thought about that for a few days, and approached the administrator in his office. I closed his office door and told him privately what I had heard. He did not deny it. I told him that if he hurt any member of my family, I would get a gun and kill him. He became agitated and told me that I should not talk like that. I walked out, my threat unchanged. Two weeks later, the president of the Associated Press notified me that the AP was transferring me to the Miami, Florida, bureau. A few weeks later, I learned that my informant was killed when his automobile ran off a residential street and hit a tree.

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Comments (1)

People who tell the truth are targeted.
written by Bob, June 09, 2009

Here's on good example:

http://surftofind.com/kangas

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