Our New Project Investigating Racial Injustice

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A letter from our Director

May 10, 2022

Dear Readers,

Today our organization takes a big step forward.

We’re launching a new investigative reporting initiative exploring racial injustice.

I’m excited to tell you, too, we’re hiring a veteran journalist to head it up.

Laura Faith Kebede will serve as coordinator of “Civil Wrongs,’’ a serialized reporting project that will investigate unsolved and

Marc Perrusquia

unresolved murders of the civil rights era as well as historical and modern abuses ranging from environmental injustice to voter suppression and police oppression.

Laura comes to us with a decade of reporting experience, including five years writing about education inequities in Memphis. She recently hosted and wrote WKNO public television’s special, "History, Justice and the Journalists," on unresolved civil rights crimes in the Memphis area.

Her hiring is significant to The Institute for several reasons.

First, by adding a third journalist we’re growing our staff by 50 percent. That’s thinking big. Right? But if there’s one thing David Waters and I have learned over the past three years it’s how to do a lot with little.

Our stories have pushed the public agenda, triggering reforms in police use-of-force investigations, government ethics, school contracting and custodial interrogations of suspects by the Memphis Police Department. Our reporting led President Biden to remove a Klansman’s name from Memphis’s federal building.

Laura Faith Kebede

We’re expecting more impactful stories from Laura and the Civil Wrongs project.

Appearing in print and broadcast mediums, our Civil Wrongs project will investigate lynchings, deaths related to civil rights work, and racially motivated massacres in Memphis and the Mid-South and analyze their effect today. By shining a light on these long-neglected cases we aim to promote understanding and healing.

"We have been living with the consequences of suppressing the truth for far too long,’’ Laura says.

“I firmly believe that when we know the truth about our nation's history of racial injustice, we will be equipped to create an equitable future."

The Civil Wrongs project is made possible by financial support from Report For America, WKNO, and the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change as well as private donations from Gayle Rose, Ruby Bright, Becky Wilson, Jeanne Jemison and Jocelyn Wurzburg.

It’s also made possible by you, our readers, and the generous individual donations made by many of you during our successful NewsMatch fund drive last year. We are now positioned for more growth in the coming months. We intend to add more journalists who will help us meet our civic-minded journalistic mission to explore and explain, promote a vibrant democracy, foster inclusiveness and mentor the next generation of journalists.

Thank you for your support. And for helping us think big.

Marc

Our Journalism Model

The Institute for Public Service Reporting is a professional newsroom specializing in

in-depth investigative and explanatory journalism.

Our approach fills a void where legacy media has scaled back or eliminated essential coverage of key community issues.

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Give at: supportum.memphis.edu/publicservice

or make checks payable to:

Institute for Public Service Reporting

University of Memphis Foundation

Department 238

P.O. Box 1000

Memphis, TN 38148

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Who We Are

We believe in the Fourth Estate's vital role in democracy.

We value the journalist's duty to impartially "explore and explain” complex issues that impact metropolitan Memphis and its citizens.

We believe quality local journalism leads to an informed electorate and is among the highest forms of public service.

We are duty bound to prepare the next generation of journalists in support of this essential mission.

Marc Perrusquia won numerous state and national awards for his investigative reporting in his 29-year tenure with The Commercial Appeal. His investigations of Tennessee’s corrupt taxpayer-funded childcare system led to broad reforms and the criminal prosecutions of six people. His long-running reporting on state senator John Ford and larger political corruption in Memphis inspired the FBI’s Tennessee Waltz bribery sting that altered the state’s political landscape. He holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Minnesota.

David Waters worked for The Commercial Appeal for 35 years, as a religion and education reporter, columnist, and editorial page editor. From 2007 to 2010, he served as religion editor for The Washington Post and launched, wrote, edited, and produced its “On Faith” website and “Under God” blog. His numerous state and national journalism awards include a Distinguished Writing Award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors, five Wilbur Awards from the Religion Communications Council, and induction into the Scripps Howard Editorial Hall of Fame. He is a 1981 graduate of the UofM and received the Outstanding Journalism Alumni Award from the University in 2009.

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