BATON ROUGE — The LSU Manship School of Mass Communication will host a public tribute to Louisiana journalist Stanley Nelson on Wednesday, Oct. 22, from 5–7 p.m. at the Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge.
Nelson, longtime editor of the Concordia Sentinel in Ferriday, was a 2011 Pulitzer Prize finalist for his years-long investigation into unsolved Ku Klux Klan murders. From 2007 to 2010, he published 150 stories on Klan violence, identifying likely suspects in killings in Ferriday and nearby Natchez, Mississippi. Nelson died June 5 at age 69.
Speakers will include Hank Klibanoff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and podcast creator; Brad Lichtenstein, executive producer of the 2022 PBS documentary “American Reckoning”; NPR investigative reporter Joe Shapiro; and Jerry Mitchell, whose reporting helped lead to prosecutions of Klan leaders in Mississippi. Members of the families of Wharlest Jackson of Natchez and Oneal Moore of Bogalusa—both presumed victims of Klan violence—are expected to attend, along with Nelson’s family.
Former Manship professor Jay Shelledy, who launched the LSU Cold Case Project to mine FBI files that aided Nelson’s reporting, will speak, as will former students who worked with Nelson. Nelson authored two books on the Klan and served as an adjunct at the Manship School, mentoring students who went on to win regional and national awards for civil-rights cold case reporting.
“Once Stanley learned about the horrible things that had happened in his area, he could not stop digging into them,” said Christopher Drew, director of the LSU Cold Case Project. “He cared so much about the victims, and he did everything he could, including confronting some of the old Klansmen, to provide a greater sense of closure and justice.”
Louisiana’s Old State Capitol, now a museum under the Secretary of State, housed the Legislature from the mid-19th century to the early 1930s. Admission to the event is free. Details and RSVP are available on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/celebrating-the-life-and-work-of-stanley-nelson-tickets-1778610956249.
For more information, contact Becky Sadler at bsadler@lsu.edu
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