LSU Cold Case Project

Marisa Kwiatkowski, who helped expose the coaches and team doctor who abused hundreds of U.S. gymnasts, gave a riveting talk to LSU Manship School of Mass Communication students about the IndyStar's investigation. The students loved it and send their thanks to Marisa, who is now director of journalism at the Knight Foundation! (Photos by Manship student Cross Harris.)

WAFB Channel 9 aired this poignant video from our event honoring journalist Stanley Nelson. Two daughters of Ku Klux Klan victims talk about how much Stanley's work on the cases meant to them.

Louisiana journalist honored for uncovering truth behind civil rights murders For many families, justice for Civil Rights-era racial violence came not from police—but decades later, through one Louisiana journalist’s search for truth.

The Reveille wrote a moving story about our event last night honoring Louisiana civil rights cold case reporter Stanley Nelson, who helped run the LSU Cold Case Project.

https://lsureveille.com/266665/news/lsu-honors-life-of-stanley-nelson-a-journalist-who-uncovered-truth-on-civil-rights-era-killings/ #

LSU honors life of Stanley Nelson, a journalist who uncovered truth on civil rights era killings The LSU Manship School of Mass Communication honored the life and work of Stanley Nelson on Wednesday at the Old State Capitol, celebrating a small-town editor whose investigations into civil rights era murders brought truth and peace to stories once buried. Nelson, who died in early June at the age...

We will celebrate the life and work of Louisiana civil rights cold case journalist Stanley Nelson at the Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge on Wednesday, Oct. 22. The event, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., is open to the public.

Nelson, the longtime editor of the Concordia Sentinel in Ferriday, was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2011 for his investigations into unsolved Ku Klux Klan murders. In addition to covering regular news and putting out the paper each week, Nelson wrote 150 stories from 2007 through 2010 on Klan violence, including some identifying the likely suspects in murders in Ferriday and nearby Natchez, Mississippi.

Over the years, Nelson, who died June 5 at age 69, also worked with prominent national journalists, and several of them will speak about him at the Oct. 22 event. They include Hank Klibanoff, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and podcast creator; Brad Lichtenstein, executive producer of “American Reckoning,” a documentary that aired on PBS in 2022; Joe Shapiro, an investigative reporter for NPR; and Jerry Mitchell, an investigative reporter whose work led to the prosecutions of Klan leaders in Mississippi.

Members of the families of two men presumably killed by the Klan—Wharlest Jackson, a civil rights leader in Natchez and Oneal Moore, one of the first Black sheriff’s deputies in the Bogalusa area—will attend the event, as will members of Nelson's family. Current and former LSU Cold Case Project students also will speak about how he helped teach them to carry on his work.

Louisiana’s Old State Capitol housed the state Legislature from the mid-19th Century through the early 1930s. Those interested in attending can register for a free ticket on Eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/celebrating-the-life-and-work-of-stanley-nelson-tickets-1778610956249