THE WEEKLY REVEAL

Hello! In this issue:

• There were racial profiling concerns in Lucedale, Mississippi, long before Billey Joe Johnson’s fatal traffic stop.
• Is your child really learning to read? Look back at an investigation into one strategy that's failing kids.

THIS WEEK’S PODCAST

Mississippi Goddam Chapter 6: Mississippi Justice

Missed earlier episodes? Start here.
 

Black communities around Mississippi have long raised concerns about suspicious deaths of young Black men, especially when law enforcement is involved.

Curley Clark, vice president of the Mississippi NAACP at the time of Reveal’s reporting, called Billey Joe Johnson Jr.’s case an example of “Mississippi justice.”

“It means that they still feel like the South should have won the Civil War,” Clark said. “And also the laws for the state of Mississippi are slanted in that direction.”

Before Johnson died during a traffic stop with a White sheriff’s deputy, friends say police had pulled him over dozens of times. And some members of the community raised concerns that police had been racially profiling Black people.

Reveal investigates Johnson’s interactions with law enforcement – and one officer in particular.

BACK TO SCHOOL

How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong

It’s back-to-school time. Do you know if your children are really learning to read?

Two-thirds of fourth graders in the United States are not proficient readers. The problem is even worse when you look beyond the average and focus on specific groups of children: 83% of Black fourth graders don’t read proficiently.

American Public Media reporter Emily Hanford digs into a flawed theory that has shaped reading instruction for decades.

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