Benjamin Brown
Age 21
A Black truck driver and civil rights activist
Jackson, Mississippi
May 11, 1967
Benjamin Brown was a Black truck driver from Jackson, Mississippi, active in civil rights efforts that included freedom rides and voter registration drives. He was known to join demonstrations in his hometown, but on the evening of May 11, 1967, during a student protest against local police at the historically Black Jackson State College (now known as Jackson State University), his friends say Brown was near campus to get a sandwich.
The protests flared into violence, and as Brown left a nearby cafe, police opened fire. Brown was struck in the head, back and legs. He died in a hospital the following morning, his 22nd birthday.
Initial Investigation
The shooting made headlines nationwide. With limited assistance from the FBI, the Jackson Police Department investigated Brown’s killing, but no one was charged.
The following year, Brown’s mother and his widow filed a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court. Their lawsuit was ultimately dismissed, according to a Department of Justice memo.
A cold case unit at the Jackson Police Department revisited Brown’s case beginning in 1998, the same document shows. During the investigation, officers interviewed someone who claimed a Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol trooper had once confessed to killing Brown. The trooper, Lloyd Silas Jones, allegedly shared the information during an office conversation, claiming he had killed a Black man at the 1967 Jackson protest and had hidden his police shotgun in an attic for several months before returning the weapon to service. During the conversation, Jones was asked about another law enforcement official suspected of having killed Brown and allegedly responded that the other officer “didn’t shoot that n—–; I did.”
In 2001, a Hinds County grand jury found probable cause that city and state officers were likely responsible for Brown’s death. His family then filed a second wrongful death lawsuit, which was settled in 2003 for $50,000.
Till Act Status
The FBI opened a review of Brown’s killing in 2009, based on a referral from the Southern Poverty Law Center. In addition to archival and online research, the FBI retrieved its old case file from 1967, as well as the two cold case investigations by Jackson police.
The FBI tried to find Jones, the alleged shooter, but learned he had died in 1995. Jones’ death certificate showed he bled out from a shotgun wound. His death was ruled a homicide.
Several potential witnesses had also died, but the FBI talked to an Associated Press reporter who covered the 1967 Jackson protest. The reporter, who saw the shooting unfold, said officers rushed Jones from the scene and that several law enforcement members later indicated Jones was the shooter.
Through a ballistics analysis, the FBI confirmed that Brown was likely shot by someone from the Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol, which at the time issued shotguns and ammunition that matched pellets removed from Brown’s head. The analysis also ruled out three possible suspects from the Jackson Police Department, which used different weapons.
Four years after the FBI began its review, the Department of Justice labeled Jones as “the only credibly implicated subject” and closed the case. Even if Jones was alive, the relevant statute of limitations to prosecute him for Brown’s death had run out, the DOJ concluded in a report.
Case Status closed
Closed 03/19/2013
Themes
- Closed All Subjects Deceased
- Closed Cases
- Deaths Involving Law Enforcement
- Men
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)