Clyde Briggs
Age 42
A teacher and pastor who helped Black people register to vote
Franklin County, Mississippi
January 18, 1965
"But what is most important is not the length of days that you live, but the strength of your legacy."
John & Genesis Briggs
Son and Granddaughter of Briggs
START
GB: So Pop, who was my grandfather? Can you tell me a little bit about him?
JB: Daddy was the youngest of six children. He was a father, of course, to us. Married my mother after coming back from World War II. He was also a Baptist preacher. He pastored five congregations in southwest Mississippi. And at a young age, I would try to imitate my father, going out into the woods or even a stump somewhere out in the yard where I would get up and preach to my brothers and sisters.
GB: When I was a teenager, you found a cassette of one of Big Daddy’s sermons. I remember hearing his voice for the first time. I’ve never heard a voice so booming and deep.
When did you first realize that he was involved in the very hard work of civil rights?
JB: In ‘64, there was the shooting in the house. The bullet had come from the highway and had passed through my sister’s room into the wall. There was the Klan and other people chasing Daddy around the back roads. That kind of let me know that he was involved in something that people did not like.
Growing up, I would question maybe Daddy could have made decisions that thought more about us, instead of trying to do what he could in his activism. But what is most important is not the length of days that you live, but the strength of your legacy. Do what you can to make a world a better place. And just make sure that your motive is not a selfish motive.
GB: That’s powerful advice to give to us, for sure.
JB: We did find out that Reverend Clyde Briggs’ name was on that list of cold case investigations. It’s the first that we had heard of it. I’m hoping that if there is an investigation, that it’s a fair investigation and it’s done as thoroughly as possible and we have some facts about what happened to Daddy.
GB: I think about Big Daddy. I think about his intention. It was of service. I think that in that way he felt he was serving you all, serving his kids and that next generation.
JB: And I’m so happy that that influence has been a part of your life and other young people’s lives where they are doing what they can to make a better society because we won’t see a perfect world ever. But we can move toward a more perfect environment.
GB: A more inheritable tomorrow, I think you quoted in one of your books.
JB: Yes, an inheritable tomorrow. Exactly, baby girl.
END
Photo by Michael Reese Studios
The Department of Justice has not publicly released information about this case, which remains open. The information in this summary comes from news coverage and interviews with Briggs’ family.
Clyde Briggs was a World War II veteran, a school teacher and a minister. His voter registration efforts on behalf of Black Mississippians attracted threats from the local Ku Klux Klan. His journals show he was frequently and violently confronted by Klansmen at his home and on the roads as he drove around Franklin County.
In January 1965, when Briggs was 42, he abruptly became ill and died. His death certificate listed the cause as acute pneumonia and meningitis, but his family has long maintained he was poisoned or otherwise killed.
Initial Investigation
It is unclear whether Briggs’ death was investigated locally or by the Department of Justice at the time, although his name appears in contemporaneous FBI reports about another civil-rights-related attack.
On May 2, 1964, two young Black men in Franklin County were tortured and killed by the KKK. During the beating, the Klansman interrogated the two 19-year-olds about guns the KKK believed were being trafficked through the county by Black locals. One of the young men cried out that Briggs might know something about it and that the guns might be in the basement of his church.
At the time, Briggs was not aware his name had been mentioned. But according to his journal, in which he took meticulous notes, a state highway patrolman and a Franklin County deputy sought out Briggs that evening and asked to search a church he pastored. They found nothing.
Briggs would die early the next year.
Till Act Status
Briggs’ name first appeared on a list of cold cases being investigated by the Department of Justice in a 2019 Attorney General report to Congress. As of the 2019 report to Congress, the DOJ’s most recent, Briggs’ case had not been closed.
Case Status open**This case has been closed since FRONTLINE's original publication.
Themes
- Men
- Open Cases
- Storycorps Stories
About the Project
This multiplatform investigation draws upon more than two years of reporting, thousands of documents and dozens of first-hand interviews. FRONTLINE spoke to family and friends of the victims, and witnesses, some of whom had never been interviewed; current and former Justice Department officials and FBI agents, state and local law enforcement; lawmakers, civil-rights leaders and investigative journalists, to explore the Department of Justice’s reopening of civil rights-era cold cases under the 2008 Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.
In addition to an examination of the federal effort, the project features the first comprehensive, interactive list of all those whose cases were reopened by the Department of Justice. Today, the list stands at 151 names. Among the victims: voting rights advocates, veterans, Louisville’s first female prosecutor, business owners, mothers, fathers, and children.
The project consists of a web-based interactive experience, serialized podcast, a touring augmented-reality exhibit, documentary and companion education curriculum for high schools and universities.
A project like Un(re)solved would not be possible without the historic and contemporary contributions of universities, civil rights groups, and the press, particularly the Black press, who have ensured the ongoing public record of racist violence in the United States. To pay homage to these groups, the web interactive begins with a quote from journalist, activist and researcher Ida B. Wells, one of the first to document with precision the horrors of racial terror in America. “The way to right wrongs,” she wrote, “is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
At the outset of the project, FRONTLINE forged a relationship with Northeastern University’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ), bringing them on as an academic partner. Launched in 2007 by Distinguished Law Professor Margaret Burnham, CRRJ is a mission-driven program of interdisciplinary teaching, research and policy analysis on race, history, and criminal justice. Their work has expanded beyond the names on the Justice Department’s list, archiving documents in over 1,000 cases of racially motivated homicides.
With support from the CRRJ, FRONTLINE reporters gathered what could be known about the individuals on the list, conducting interviews with family, friends and witnesses, delving into newspaper archives and gathering documentation including headstone applications, draft cards and archival photographs.
At the heart of the project has been a drive to center the voices of the families of those on the list. FRONTLINE partnered with StoryCorps to record nearly two dozen oral histories with victims’ next of kin, which are featured both in the web-based interactive and traveling AR exhibit. These oral histories will also be archived in the National Library of Congress.
To lead the creative vision for the web experience and installation, FRONTLINE partnered with Ado Ato Pictures, a premier mixed reality studio founded by artist, filmmaker, and technologist Tamara Shogaolu.
Shogaolu rooted the visuals in the powerful symbolism of trees. In the United States, trees evoke the ideal of liberty, but also speak to an oppressive history of racially motivated violence. In Persian myth, trees are humanity’s ancestors, while in Toraja, Indonesia, they serve as sacred burial sites.
“I was really inspired by looking at the role of the tree as a symbol in American history” Shogaolu said. “It’s been looked at as a symbol of freedom, we look at it as a connector between generations, and also there’s the association of trees with racial terror.” When designing the creative vision for Un(re)solved Shogaolu wondered whether she might be able to reclaim the symbol of the tree. “As a person of color, we’re often terrified of being in isolated places in the woods. And I thought it was kind of crazy that there are natural environments that instinctually give great fear because of this connection with racial terror and I wanted to reclaim that — to turn these into beautiful spaces.”
Un(re)solved weaves imagery of trees, which also recall family ties, into patterns and textures from the American tradition of quilting. Among enslaved African Americans forbidden to read or write, quilts provided an important space to document family stories. Today, quilting remains a creative outlet rich with story and tradition for many American communities.
We invite you to enter this forest of quilted memories — a testimony to the lives of these individuals, and the multi-generational impact of their untimely, unjust loss.
(Credits to come)