Henry Hezekiah Dee

Age 19

A high-school graduate proud of his stylish new hairdo

Parker's Laning, Mississippi

May 2, 1964

Henry Hezekiah Dee was raised by his grandmother in rural southern Mississippi, in the small town of Roxie. He grew up poor and worked at a local lumber mill after graduating high school. He sometimes visited relatives in Chicago and in 1964 returned with a new hairdo that he often covered with a bandana.

On May 2, 1964, the young Black man stopped by a bank in Meadville, Mississippi, before meeting with his childhood friend Charles Eddie Moore, court documents show. According to the documents, several members of the Bunkley klavern — a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan — saw Dee leave the bank in Meadville and followed him in two vehicles, as “they thought [Dee] fit the profile of a Black Panther because he wore a black bandana over his head.”

The Klansmen watched Dee meet Moore and offered them a ride when the teens began to hitchhike together. They drove Dee and Moore to a secluded area of nearby Homochitto National Forest, where they interrogated the teenagers about rumors of guns being imported by “black militants” in the area. After brutal questioning, the teens claimed there were guns in the basement of a local Black church. Later, Dee and Moore were taken to a backwater of the Mississippi River and tied to heavy objects. They were still alive when Klansmen rowed first Dee, then Moore, onto the river and tipped them overboard.

The Klansmen immediately reported the alleged location of the guns to the county sheriff, Wayne Hutto, and members of the Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol. The officers searched the church for guns but found none. They apparently did not investigate the young men’s disappearance.

Initial Investigation

Months passed before the two bodies were discovered by chance in November 1964, during an unrelated search for three civil rights workers who had also disappeared in the area, The New York Times reported in 1964. Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol officers, together with the FBI, arrested two men — James Ford Seale and Charles Marcus Edwards — and took partial confessions from both. Yet the charges were soon dropped, and the case appeared to go cold.

Till Act Status

In 2000, the Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi, investigated the cold case and learned that the homicides likely had happened on federal land, giving the federal government jurisdiction over the case. The FBI initially told the newspaper that its files on the murders had been destroyed, but the newspaper tracked down an extant copy. Prompted by the news coverage, the Department of Justice reopened the case.

Further coverage prompted the federal government to prosecute the case. In 2004, Moore’s older brother partnered with a Canadian journalist to investigate the killings for the documentary Mississippi Cold Case and confronted one of the original suspects at his home. In 2007, the FBI arrested the same two men who had been arrested in 1964. Only Seale was convicted for participating in the kidnappings and murders. Edwards, who according to court documents has consistently denied knowing anything about the victims’ disappearances, testified against Seale in return for immunity. Seale was sentenced to three life terms in prison, where he died in 2011.

While this case appears on a list of cases the Department of Justice investigated under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, the DOJ has not published a memo describing its investigation of this case, as is standard practice. It is unclear whether the agency investigated any other people, aside from Seale and Edwards, associated with the murders. The case is listed as closed as of 2010.

Un(re)solved

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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)