For seven decades, one man kept his eyes and his pen fixed on the truth in Mississippi.

His name was Bill Minor, a journalist who chronicled the state's history from the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement through the dawn of the 21st century.

I'm joined by Ellen Ann Fentress, journalist and the filmmaker of Eyes on Mississippi.

Ellen Ann, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to join us.

So glad to be here, Germaine.

Oh, I'm so glad to have you today.

I wanna jump right into it.

What drew you to Bill Minor's story?

Well, I worked for Bill, and that's, that's how I got to know him.

I had read that his independent paper in Mississippi in the 1970s when I was in college, and it opened up a whole world of, of Jackson and a Mississippi.

I didn't know.

Mm-hmm.

And, and then right when I was graduating, and certainly had nothing else to do, he was offering a job.

And, uh, maybe one of the luckiest things that ever happened to me, I did that.

Of course, he didn't pay anything and I had to work, be a restaurant hostess at night to pay the bills, but Right, right, right.

That's, I I knew him.

Uh, we always kept up with each other, so I just knew his story, and he had been hoping to write his memoir, all of his supporters and readers had told him he needed to write a memoir.

Mm-hmm.

But, you know, Bill worked in 30 inch columns, and I think he tried, he had a couple of people try to help him write a book.

I tried to help him with the memoir, and when I started looking at it, you know, he reported on Mississippi for 70 years.

Right.

It just was such an overwhelming idea.

So we were, we'd met some and we were thinking about it.

We'd done some audio tapes, and I watched a Kim, once again, MPB, I was watching, uh, a Kim Burns documentary on MPB, and it hit me.

Now, wouldn't that be a powerful way to tell Bill's story when you could, besides hearing his words, have access to the archival footage of exactly what he got to witness and see happen?

What Made you want to bring it to the screen today?

In today's time?

Basically, I just think, you know, when you tell a true story, I've always seen this, um, when a story is true mm-hmm.

It just becomes more true over time.

Mm-hmm.

And I think Bill's has, you know, nothing is, it's, it's, it's a mistake to see things as isolated incidents.

It's better to look at 'em in the string of history, and you can really see the deep, uh, dynamics of what's going on.

Right.

And I feel like the power of journalism and of truth telling and the arc of history is, what is it?

The, it's long, but it bends towards justice.

That's right.

Yes.

That's right.

And speaking of bending towards justice, he bent, like you just mentioned, from 47 to 2017, how did you pick out which periods of his life to highlight?

When we started, you know, I, we have 40 hours of film mm-hmm.

And, um, didn't know what to do, but it was clear that the civil rights material was so compelling.

It was such American history mm-hmm.

That, that was essential.

And so we, later we became, um, we just kind of focused on that to get this story out.

In a perfect world, there would be another one, because, you know, once the, uh, the national attention left Mississippi, he stayed and kept everybody honest.

And there was so much good writing and reporting he did in the seventies on simply corruption mm-hmm.

In Mississippi.

And the evolution, um, the, it, it ends with the conviction of the Nashoba murderers.

But, um, you know, the Mississippi electorate didn't become biracial until 1967, so that could have been another whole, uh, another whole documentary.

Bill Remained in the state despite, you know, threats to get him out and opportunities for him to leave.

How did you convey this approach of his courage and his commitment in the film?

I love the story of, you know, I think it's like public television.

Mm-hmm.

Bill's commitment was to tell the story of Mississippi, and he just, he's always said, I wanted to see how it turns out.

Right.

And, uh, yeah.

Yeah.

So he was just committed to it.

I know he had offers, I believe, from the LA Times and from Newsweek to go elsewhere.

Uh, in the film, the New York Times, longtime Southern Bureau chief, uh, Claude Sitton, he, he says that about, he has no idea why Bill didn't leave.

He had every opportunity to, but he was, he just noticed in that time, he was determined to tell the story in Mississippi.

Right.

You know, I got to see the documentary a little bit.

And, and the way you approached telling the fact that he did not leave, that he did stay, came from a very brave standpoint.

And he was, in my opinion, a very brave man to do so.

And I just thank you for, you know, using that approach to convey the message as well.

It was, yeah.

He, he had lots of threats.

Mm-hmm.

And, um, yeah.

Even though into the seventies when I was there in the late seventies, one day, someone called us and told us this was on Midtown Jackson, uh, Millsaps Avenue, that for him to watch his car, that they thought someone had put a car bomb on it.

I mean, threats so serious that he had to remain anonymous while he reported for the New York Times and Newsweek.

I mean, that right there is bravery in itself.

Well, the, the, and it's also how, um, how cheap national publications were and how badly journalists were treated.

Mm-hmm.

Now, that's part of the story too.

Mm-hmm.

Is that the big national publications, they were very parsimonious with bylines back then.

Yeah.

And, uh, he didn't get a New York Times byline until maybe in the seventies, which I, so, but it served, it, it was like a, a blessing in disguise.

Mm-hmm.

Because it let him tell these stories without, with his main employer, the New Orleans Times Picayune not being the wiser of how much he was moonlighting.

That's what I was gonna Ask.

Yes.

How did the, an anonymity influence, basically his journalism and, and what it was he was doing at the time?

I'm so glad you're asking this, Germaine.

'cause to me, this is one of the major points that I want the film to get across.

Mm.

The, the name Eyes on Mississippi has three levels of meaning.

One, it was always the name of his column, Eyes On Mississippi.

Number two.

It was just, we are seeing it.

Hopefully, my goal was that we are seeing all of this unfold from inside Bill Minor's head as an eyewitness to what happened.

Mm-hmm.

Um, it, there's no narrator.

It's Bill telling the story, but the third meaning is this meaning is that he was a journalist.

There's, there's just so much you can do to actively get involved in the, um, uh, protest movement.

And yet you have to tell the truth was activism in itself.

That's right.

And he felt like what he could do as a journalist was to get the nation's eyes on Mississippi.

And he could, because of his, he was a, a longtime stringer, which is, you know, an on the ground correspondent mm-hmm.

Paid by the story for the New York Times, and Newsweek and other, other, uh, publications would reach out as well.

Mm-hmm.

But because they were so, um, parsimonious with the bylines, he could, he, he said sometimes, and it's in the documentary, sometimes he would have a story.

He's a Mississippi Bureau for a New Orleans paper.

Sometimes something happened here wouldn't particularly get big play in the New Orleans Times pic because their focus was on New Orleans more.

But he knew the, the national publications cared very much about it.

So maybe he would do something very little for the Times Pick Union, it would get buried, or maybe not at all.

And he would do it.

He said sometimes he would have things on the front page of the times of things that were happening.

Right.

That were never actually in the Times Pick Union.

And the Times Pick Union was never the wiser about how that ended up on the front page of the Times.

What I like the most about Bill and about you, Ellen Anne, is the fact you all are, I call them, you know, the truth bearers, you are the bearers of truth.

And you described, um, his reporting differing from mainstream Mississippi coverage at the time as white supremacist propaganda masquerading as fact.

I'm afraid it was.

Explain that to me a Little bit.

Yes.

I mean, I'm sure there were some newspapers, there were some community newspapers in Mississippi, and that, that this was not their purpose, but they didn't wanna believe the truth, and they didn't wanna believe how much change needed to happen.

Mm.

That's the benign version of it.

There were many papers in the state, particularly the, the Jackson newspapers, the Hedermans, their, their raison detra was to fight civil rights.

They felt like they had to represent the status quo.

The, um, the headlines are astonishing.

Mm-hmm.

Now, for, and we have some of them in the documentary, uh, for example, when the Brown versus Board of Education decision came out in May of 1954, you you've seen lots of the headlines from the Times you've seen this beautiful photos on the front steps of this, um, the Supreme Court mm-hmm.

The headline in from that Mississippi readers got was adverse decision in the Supreme Court.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So I know, and so I'm so honored that Dr.

Robert Smith here in Jackson, he, he was a good friend, very involved in the movement.

Mm-hmm.

He was with, um, Medgar Evers.

Uh, he's in it, and he talks about Bill was their only access point that many times he said he would see Mr.

Evers write up a press release simply for Bill Minor, knowing that he was the only one that would get it out.

But he was, was he the only one?

He would get it out.

But if Bill got it out, then Associated Press would be obligated to get it out.

And sometimes even because of that, the, the Clarion Ledger and Jackson Daily News would have to, because it was an AP story, and it was just all over the place.

You know, that kind of intrigues me as to, I want to know how the relationship began, even with the Evers.

Um, how did they know to go to Bill?

How did that become a thing?

Did you, did you research any of that?

Yes, And I, Bill talks about it a little that he said that until the, um, until Medgar Evers became the field Secretary of NACP, it had been a pretty dormant group in Mississippi.

Mm-hmm.

And with good reason.

It was just, Mississippi was just a dangerous place Right.

For, uh, testing the system, but that Medgar Evers came along and was determined to, to bring this, bring more energy to it.

Mm-hmm.

And so Bill, Bill knew that when he came along, I, I think there's a headline in the documentary of, um, Medgar Evers joining the NAACP in Mississippi.

That's an early story, but he could just see as he went along.

And I think in the documentary, Bill says, as the further he went along, he realized that Medgar, I think he says Medgar Evers was the one.

Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Can you talk about the role Bill played in the events surrounding the 1964 Freedom Summer volunteers in the Nashoba County Church investigation?

Yes, I will.

You know, to me, of course, like when you think about Mississippi and civil rights history, the first thing that comes to mind is this terrible racial failure.

And, and what happened in the violence.

The second characteristic of Mississippi that with good reason, it's not seen because the other one eclipses it, but all the things that happen here, because Mississippi is such a small state Yeah.

And there's, every, there's a connection.

It's not just, you know, every, there's a connection somehow.

Mm-hmm.

And this is an eerie thing.

How it happened to Bill was that, first of all, he had a friend in Philadelphia who tipped him off about the church burning in Philadelphia.

Okay.

And he wrote a, he wrote a story about it at the same time that the Weekly in Philadelphia was saying it was a hoax, that that really wasn't true.

Mm.

But Bill wrote the story.

It was in the Times-Picayune.

Associated Press picked it up.

It, it got out.

And this is like, this is kind of a stunning thing to think about, that the summer civil rights workers were not supposed to go to Nashoba County.

It was just considered too dangerous for them to go in.

Correct.

Stay in Meridian.

And, but they read this story that Bill had written about the church burning, and they decided that Sunday afternoon to three of them to go up to Nashoba County to investigate it.

So it was his story that no one else printed that took him to Nashoba County.

Yeah.

Wow.

And so, you know, he was very aware of that With the documentary featuring what we said.

Um, Merley Evers, um, was in it.

Claude Sitton, John, um, Dora, how did you approach capturing, capturing their perspectives on Minor's impact?

Of course, that was one of the most amazing things about, of course, capturing the story was so gratifying, but the people, it just speaks to Bill's impact that so many other figures from American history were, were pleased and happy to tell Bill's story.

These, you could do a documentary, certainly many documentaries on all the people that agreed to sit and, and take.

It was kind of ironic when I would film them because I was thinking, I have a figure of American history.

And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But tell me about Bill Minor.

Talk about the pressure it was to even book them.

How was was that a little bit of a, to-do?

One of the, um, one of the, and most interesting ones was John Doar.

You know, he was sort of the, he was the US Justice Department point person during the sixties for the, uh, for the Kennedy administration.

And, um, he was here on the ground.

And then Bill admired him so much.

In fact, when I worked with Bill at the Capitol Reporter later on, he had an old door in his office that said, the John Doar.

Love it.

Yeah.

Because he always admired him so much.

So I'd asked Bill myself about, do you think he would, that John Doar would be filmed?

And he said he didn't think so.

He'd gone on for his own, he had his own life.

And he was a, a lawyer in New York, and he didn't particularly talk a lot about those times.

Mm-hmm.

And then one night I'm watching the news and I'm seeing a, a Civil Rights conferences was happening at Tougaloo.

And I look up on the screen and there's John Doar, he's there, he is, you know, an elderly man by this time.

And so the next morning, you know, I got in the car and just hauled out to Tougaloo to find John Doar.

And he was there and he was on his way to the airport.

And he, he said, you know what?

You come see me in New York.

Wow.

We'll talk.

And so I had my camera and, um, I went, I had a, a, a friend's was, uh, I had an apartment in York.

I went and stayed with her and, um, filmed him at his office.

It was, it was one, it was just really an amazing experience because Yeah.

I got the footage with him.

And of course, Mrs.

Evers, that was a wonderful experience.

Yeah.

Getting to film with Mrs.

Evers.

Yeah.

That's pretty powerful stuff.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, just a whole array of just civil rights superstars and people who came on his behalf that was so powerful.

So I love that.

Now the film draws on historic footage from 19 archives across the us.

What challenges did you face in gathering and integrating these materials, aside from having to book some of the biggest Civil rights icons as well?

Well, the, um, the archives here is the thing, as a rookie, I discovered as just a very seductive rabbit hole to go down all these archival slides you can get up.

I recommend it to anyone who wants to lose hours and hours of their life to just go look at what is available online.

Yes.

And so it ended up from 19 places.

This is a very interesting thing.

Um, a lot of the really powerful things from Freedom Summer in Mississippi, you know, where their archive, the Wisconsin Historical Society, and you think, well, now isn't that random, but it's really not, because at that time, they didn't trust the Mississippi.

They didn't trust anyone in Mississippi to have these pictures.

Yeah.

And so they trusted the Wisconsin Archive, but it's some wonderful things there, still photos Wow.

That, that I've used in you'll, they're iconic photos of Freedom Summer in Mississippi.

I'll, you'll I'll see 'em at a lot of places.

Wow.

Yes.

That, that was an, uh, an incredible one.

And, um, the Mississippi, um, Mississippi Archives and history, they have all of the outtakes of WLBT from the beginning of like 1952 on.

Okay.

And those are absolutely fascinating.

Um, two things I wanna talk about about that.

One is, uh, it's fascinating.

And, uh, the things that were there, they, they're there and that they've only been digitized on as called for basis.

And so much of what's in the film, I was the first one that had ever asked for it.

So these are things that hadn't been seen before that.

I need to know a little bit about your collaboration with your co-writer Lida Gibson.

And how did that help shape, um, the storytelling approach for the doc?

Well, Lida made, Lida Gibson made it happen, is what happened.

That's the thing.

You know, I knew nothing.

I'm a writer.

I knew nothing about documentary work.

And in fact, Jean Luckett used to work at MPB.

Well, so she's, she's involved in so many things.

I knew she had done video, and I asked her, is it possible for me to even think about doing this as a documentary?

And she said, if you had thought about doing this 10 or 15 years ago, the answer is no.

You would've need a quarter million dollars worth of equipment to do it.

But now, you know, if you got a video camera and Final Cut Pro on your laptop, yeah.

It's possible.

So only because of that did I get the, the idea of this delusion that I could do it, but the secret was that I, uh, partnered with someone who clearly knew what she was doing Lida was giving you green lights.

Yes, Yes.

And she, she was just, she's an expert filmmaker.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, so she, she knew how to structure the material and to kind of have it in chapter in the chapters it's in.

Mm-hmm.

It breaks down to the story of the, um, Willie McGee Brown v Board of Education and the rise of the Citizens Council.

Mm-hmm.

The riot at Ole Miss, uh, the freedoms, uh, of Medgar Evers in the start of the Civil Rights movement of activism in Mississippi and Freedom Summer.

Um, she knew how to make it in chapters.

And so I'm just so grateful that, uh, the secret, the secret to this was Lida made it happen.

Mm-hmm.

What choices did you or Lida make in presenting Minor's dual role as both a local reporter and an anonymous national journalist?

I tried to make that one of the, the main points of the movie in that idea of eyes on Mississippi.

Mm-hmm.

That it was, it was this unique thing, this about that, yes, he was the reporter for the Times-Picayune, but that because that the newspapers were so stingy with the bylines that he could do this other work with freedom.

And it really, it, it did much.

The, the, uh, subtitle on the movie on the poster is the Most Essential Reporter The Nation's never Heard of.

Mm-hmm.

That's amazing.

Mm -hmm.

That's amazing.

And he really did do essential work for the state, especially with putting those eyes on Mississippi Absolutely.

As primary documents of history.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

That's good stuff.

So, I wanna know a little bit about you and his, um, correlation with each other.

I, when I watched the documentary, I noticed two things.

One, both of you all have a, a truthful approach to telling the story.

Bill is gonna tell it just as it was, and you are going to capture it and retell it just as it is as well.

And then the way that the, the flow of it all between Bill and you, I just love the flow of the documentary and of Bill telling his story as well.

Do you find yourself making comparisons between your work and Bill's work when it comes down to this documentary?

'cause I found them myself while watching.

Oh, Well, um, uh, I mean, I, he inspires me.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, I would hope to be a truth teller because he was, it was just so wonderful to be, that was my first job out of college, to watch someone in the, the beautiful journalism watch word with neither fear nor favor just to tell the truth.

And that's your job.

It's not to, you know, it's not to coddle anyone.

It's not to be anyone's PR agent.

It's to tell the truth.

And, you know, truth, truth is gonna produce some friction, but in the long run, it's, it's gonna make everything better.

Yeah.

You just gotta get the truth out.

Yeah.

Do you find yourself having to say, okay, can I be brave in this moment?

Can I tell this truth?

Or do you just go, you know, basically guns a blazing into it and say, we're going to tell it.

They need to know.

This is the, this is our job in these times mm-hmm.

Is to truth tell.

Mm-hmm.

And just like, let it happen, because it mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The truth tells is so needed in it is like the, the, the rule of the press is, is a, uh, the watchdog for everyone with neither fear nor favor to just tell the truth.

People need that.

And I feel like now, more than ever, of course, that with newspapers like in such financial crisis now, and yet no time have we needed, uh, professional journalism more than now.

That's Right.

And and truth slayers as well.

Yes.

Yeah.

People who are gonna tell that truth.

So you work in other genres as well, um, particularly as a nonfiction writer.

Is there a thread that links the topics that you examine no matter the genre of the product?

I think so.

You know, I teach in the, um, Mississippi University for Women, uh, creative Writing Program, and I do work community workshops in Jackson.

And what I like to tell people is what I hope is happening with me, there's this phrase, George Saunders wonderful writer at, uh, Syracuse talks about, um, that the students at Syracuse also accomplished already.

What can he teach 'em?

You know, what he can, he can help them find their iconic space.

And that's what I hope I do.

I think that's what Bill did, and that's what I urge all, all creators to do.

What is your iconic space from your time and your place and your obsessions mm-hmm.

What are your stories to tell?

Mm-hmm.

And I think this comes from mine.

I'm, I'm born in Mississippi.

I've never lived anywhere else and grew, I grew up, I was, you know, I was in elementary school during Civil Rights times in Mississippi in Greenwood.

Right.

Which is a hotbed.

So I feel like I'm drawn to these stories and to, to kind of retell 'em, tell them with, uh, I think we, we, we owe it to, in the, our job is to, in the present to, is to look back at the past and tell these stories, so for a better future.

Yeah.

And, and reconveying basically the title of the documentary Eyes on Mississippi, and the more Eyes on Mississippi, the more pressure for transformation.

And that could happen with this documentary as well.

And that's that correlation I was talking about between what the work Bill did and the work you're doing, I think is going to have the same outcome in the end where we put those eyes on the state and they're able to help transform outside of here.

In a way, it's a prequel to our times.

Um, there's a, there's a moment in there when Bill is talking about at the height of the Citizen's Council's power, right.

Before the, uh, James Meredith entered Ole Miss, and there's the Riot, two people died.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, that there's a moment when he's saying he just couldn't believe the emotional pitch of white people in the state at that point.

And, and he says that people that I knew were like intelligent people.

And it's like, if they kept hearing the same distorted story, they started to believe it.

Mm-hmm.

A lot of times when people see this documentary and he says that there's a little gasp, because it seems for our times too.

It's just Yeah.

Just because you have a story, we've gotta have discernment and critical judgment and, and Yeah.

Objective truth telling.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

That's right.

That's right.

Now they actually gave him some flowers, um, for his truth telling work.

He received procedures awards like Harvard's Lewis Lyons Award and Columbia's John Chancellor Award.

How did you though balance celebrating his recognition with telling the human story behind it all?

Oh, Well, I think actually we never mentioned those great awards during the documentary.

I know it was interesting to me.

He talked about, I believe it's the Lions Award.

He, it, he was awarded this in, in the, in the Civil Rights movement.

It was like maybe mid sixties, I believe.

And he said it was kind of the first time he had gotten any national recognition, and it kind of, it gave him a bit of cover, you know?

Okay.

That, with that rec, it was harder for anyone to, um, if, if there was anyone ever trying to edge him out of truth, the truth telling with this, it, it was good.

And I remember he said the only politician or lawmaker that he covered that had the courage to come and be identified with him was, um, later Governor William Winter.

Okay.

No one else came.

Okay.

Yeah.

Hotting Carter came and, um, awarded it to him.

Yeah.

But that, I think the, the ceremony was at the old Heidelberg Hotel, and that William Winter had the integrity to come.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's powerful.

Yeah.

That's powerful.

That's some powerful stuff.

So, I wanna know too, if we fast forward a little bit, how do you hope modern audiences will relate to Minor's story, um, to today's social and political climate like we just spoke about?

Because I definitely did while watching the film.

And hopefully, well, I think they will.

I think you can see most events are not isolated incidents.

Most events are part of a legacy.

And if you, if you know your history, you know the present and you can identify it for what it is.

Mm-hmm.

And so I think this, there's just so many parallels to this story and that, and hopefully it is a hopeful story because it shows no matter how tough things were, that, that they will, the, you know, it bends towards justice.

Mm-hmm.

And the evolution and truth.

Yeah.

That's right.

That's right.

That you can, you know, truth telling can be friction and bring you, bring you grief at the time, but it's worth it in the long run because it's gonna make everything better.

I think, too.

It, it, it cannot be stifled.

Yeah.

No matter how much you would like to stifle the truth, the truth will always come to the surface.

That's right.

And it will, it is here for the long term.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

I love that.

So, I wanna give you, first congratulations again on the film because it has been screened at universities and cultural centers across the nation.

What reactions have you found from the audiences that surprised or moved you the most?

When sometimes when it's over at some of the places far away, they say, how did we not know about Bill Minor?

How is it possible we didn't know this story?

Mm-hmm.

You know, said, you know, the subtitle is the most essential reporter the Nation's never heard of.

Right.

Yeah.

So, uh, I'm gratified, you know, to me something about being a person, uh, a writer and a creator in Mississippi gives, okay.

Are there some, are there some, you know, complications and challenges here?

Not a lot of money for the budget.

Mm-hmm.

But if you get an idea, it's probably yours, you know?

And I feel like that there's so many stories out there that need to be captured.

His was one, and it is, it is one of the most important, but there's so many out there that are just ready for someone to capture because no one has so far.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

I think too, his story would, would, um, actually help a student want to possibly be a little bit more like him?

What helped influence them to possibly tell those truths as well?

Oh, that's a great idea.

Yes.

I think, you know, it ought to be required viewing for anyone in journalism, I believe.

Mm-hmm.

To see, you know, what, Just the process of telling the truth basically.

That's right.

And the commitment.

You know, one thing about it in, uh, Pulitzer Prize winner, Hank Klibanoff is in one of the people in the film, and he talks about, he was there when Bill, he, he was a reporter in the seventies in the press room when Bill was there, and he said, you know, bill didn't even have to do any of this.

That the Times-Picayune traditionally had a Mississippi Bureau person and you, he could have just been writing about what bills were the bill of the week at the legislature mm-hmm.

And going to press conferences mm-hmm.

And writing up the press releases.

This was all on Bill.

He, he chose not to be complacent.

He chose to put himself on the line and to use his privilege and to do work no one else was doing.

What do you hope viewers will take away from Eyes on Mississippi as it relates to journalism and conscience?

I think the power and the necessity of journalism that, you know, in this time, I think it's great.

We have social media and we have like citizen journalists and putting things on there, and they're capturing things that maybe wouldn't be said, but the point of a professional journalist who knows how to be objective mm-hmm.

And is has that, that commitment and integrity to do so.

Ellen Ann, thank you so much for joining Us.

It was great.

Thanks Germaine.

Thank You for Meet the Makers.

I'm Germaine Flood.

Now go make something.