Johnnie Mae Chappell

Age 35

A Black woman who went to buy ice cream for her 10 children

Jacksonville, Florida

March 23, 1964

March 1964 was a month marked by racial tension and violence in Jacksonville, Florida. As Black people in the city protested for equal rights, law enforcement officers were deployed in large numbers to confront them. More than a dozen people were hospitalized, and hundreds more were detained or arrested, The New York Times reported that spring.

On the evening of March 23, 35-year-old Johnnie Mae Chappell, a Black mother of 10 and house cleaner, walked to the store to buy ice cream for her children. Along the way, she lost her wallet. Chappell was retracing her steps with two neighbors when they heard a loud “pop” as a dark sedan sped past, according to a Department of Justice memo on the case. Chappell clutched her right side, said “I’ve been shot” and fell to the ground. She died before reaching the hospital.

Initial Investigation

The Duval County Sheriff’s Office investigated Chappell’s murder in 1964 but made little progress, until a young white man approached two detectives at a restaurant and said he wanted to help. Under questioning, he revealed that he had been in the sedan with three other white men and said that one of them, J. W. Rich, shot Chappell.

According to the detectives, the young man told them the group had been driving around town when Rich said “Let’s get a n—–.” They drove to a Black neighborhood in Jacksonville, and when they passed by Chappell and her two neighbors, Rich pointed a gun out the window and shot Chappell. They then drove away and disposed of the gun. After questioning two of the other men in the car — including Rich, who claimed he shot Chappell by accident — the detectives arrested the entire group for murder. Only Rich, however, stood trial in 1964.

According to a 2014 Department of Justice memo about the case, a juror from the trial said the defense used a flattened bullet, recovered from Chappell’s body, to argue that the shot had ricocheted off a hard surface before killing Chappell. The jurors agreed with the theory and convicted Rich of manslaughter. He served three years of a 10-year prison sentence.

The DOJ memo also noted that the two detectives who made the 1964 arrests alleged mishandling of the case by their superiors at the Duval County Sheriff’s Office. After the detectives conducted an initial investigation, they assumed the case had been given to other detectives on the squad but later learned no one had been assigned a follow-up investigation, they said. The detectives also believed the chief of detectives had buried Chappell’s case to stymie the investigation; at one point, they said, part of it was found under the floor mat in his office.

The detectives said they were removed from the investigation after telling a supervisor about their concerns. According to the DOJ memo, there is no evidence the investigation was ever reassigned. Furthermore, the suspected murder weapon was not forensically analyzed and eventually disappeared from the department’s evidence unit.

Till Act Status

Seven other investigations followed, two of them federal, according to the DOJ memo. None led to further charges. Chappell’s family filed a civil lawsuit in 2000, alleging a conspiracy to cover up the murder, but the lawsuit was dismissed.

One of the two federal reviews was launched under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act in 2008 and involved the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Jacksonville and the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ. Together, the agencies “conducted an exhaustive review” of existing evidence and prior investigations, according to a DOJ memo, but determined they had no federal jurisdiction to prosecute Chappell’s killers. The federal agencies believed a state prosecution could possibly go forward, but state officials disagreed. The DOJ closed the case in 2015.

Un(re)solved

Begin the full experience

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)