Mack Charles Parker
Age 23
A Black truck driver and Army veteran in Mississippi
Pearl River County, Mississippi
May 4, 1959
Mack Charles Parker, 23, was a Black truck driver who had previously served in the Army. Upon leaving the military, Parker returned to his hometown of Lumberton, Mississippi, where he worked to support his widowed mother and younger siblings.
On the night of February 23, 1959, Parker and his friends drove to a neighboring city to drink. The same night, on the same stretch of highway, a car had stalled and stranded a white family: a man, his pregnant wife and their 4-year-old child. The man left his family and walked alone to Lumberton for help. On the drive back to Lumberton, Parker and his friends passed the disabled car. Parker reportedly made comments about the woman sitting inside, the historian Howard Smead wrote in his 1986 book Blood Justice: The Lynching of Mack Charles Parker. Smead wrote that Parker went home, picked up a toy cap pistol and left again. Later that night, someone kidnapped the young woman and her child, raped the woman then abandoned both on a secluded road.
Although the woman had described her attacker as a middle-aged Black man, local law enforcement immediately began to suspect Parker and beat him up as they arrested him, according to Smead. The woman, when presented with a police lineup, identified Parker by his voice but said she could not be sure.
After hearing police evidence and testimonies from Parker’s friends, an all-white grand jury indicted Parker for rape and two counts of kidnapping. He was taken first to Hinds County Jail for polygraph testing then moved to Pearl River County Jail in Poplarville, Mississippi, to await trial.
Late on April 24, 1959, three days before the trial was scheduled to begin, a group of eight or 10 hooded men broke into the Pearl River County Jail with the help of the jailer and dragged Parker from his cell. His body was discovered the following month in Pearl River, shot and weighed down with chains. According to an FBI report, an autopsy showed Parker had died from “a penetrating wound in the left auricle of the heart.”
Initial Investigation
Parker’s murder caught national attention. The FBI sent a special squad to Poplarville, one newspaper reported, and then-attorney general William P. Rogers said the White House had been informed.
A lengthy FBI report about the lynching was produced, Jet magazine reported in 1959. FBI investigators testified about their findings, which included confessions from several members of the lynch mob. Still, the grand jury of 18 white men declined to indict anyone. A federal grand jury of 22 white men and one Black man also failed to indict.
Till Act Status
The FBI reopened its investigation into Parker’s lynching in 2009. The case remained open as recently as 2019, according to a Justice Department report.
Case Status open
Themes
- Men
- Open Cases
About the Project
This multiplatform investigation draws upon more than two years of reporting, thousands of documents and dozens of first-hand interviews. FRONTLINE spoke to family and friends of the victims, and witnesses, some of whom had never been interviewed; current and former Justice Department officials and FBI agents, state and local law enforcement; lawmakers, civil-rights leaders and investigative journalists, to explore the Department of Justice’s reopening of civil rights-era cold cases under the 2008 Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.
In addition to an examination of the federal effort, the project features the first comprehensive, interactive list of all those whose cases were reopened by the Department of Justice. Today, the list stands at 151 names. Among the victims: voting rights advocates, veterans, Louisville’s first female prosecutor, business owners, mothers, fathers, and children.
The project consists of a web-based interactive experience, serialized podcast, a touring augmented-reality exhibit, documentary and companion education curriculum for high schools and universities.
A project like Un(re)solved would not be possible without the historic and contemporary contributions of universities, civil rights groups, and the press, particularly the Black press, who have ensured the ongoing public record of racist violence in the United States. To pay homage to these groups, the web interactive begins with a quote from journalist, activist and researcher Ida B. Wells, one of the first to document with precision the horrors of racial terror in America. “The way to right wrongs,” she wrote, “is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
At the outset of the project, FRONTLINE forged a relationship with Northeastern University’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ), bringing them on as an academic partner. Launched in 2007 by Distinguished Law Professor Margaret Burnham, CRRJ is a mission-driven program of interdisciplinary teaching, research and policy analysis on race, history, and criminal justice. Their work has expanded beyond the names on the Justice Department’s list, archiving documents in over 1,000 cases of racially motivated homicides.
With support from the CRRJ, FRONTLINE reporters gathered what could be known about the individuals on the list, conducting interviews with family, friends and witnesses, delving into newspaper archives and gathering documentation including headstone applications, draft cards and archival photographs.
At the heart of the project has been a drive to center the voices of the families of those on the list. FRONTLINE partnered with StoryCorps to record nearly two dozen oral histories with victims’ next of kin, which are featured both in the web-based interactive and traveling AR exhibit. These oral histories will also be archived in the National Library of Congress.
To lead the creative vision for the web experience and installation, FRONTLINE partnered with Ado Ato Pictures, a premier mixed reality studio founded by artist, filmmaker, and technologist Tamara Shogaolu.
Shogaolu rooted the visuals in the powerful symbolism of trees. In the United States, trees evoke the ideal of liberty, but also speak to an oppressive history of racially motivated violence. In Persian myth, trees are humanity’s ancestors, while in Toraja, Indonesia, they serve as sacred burial sites.
“I was really inspired by looking at the role of the tree as a symbol in American history” Shogaolu said. “It’s been looked at as a symbol of freedom, we look at it as a connector between generations, and also there’s the association of trees with racial terror.” When designing the creative vision for Un(re)solved Shogaolu wondered whether she might be able to reclaim the symbol of the tree. “As a person of color, we’re often terrified of being in isolated places in the woods. And I thought it was kind of crazy that there are natural environments that instinctually give great fear because of this connection with racial terror and I wanted to reclaim that — to turn these into beautiful spaces.”
Un(re)solved weaves imagery of trees, which also recall family ties, into patterns and textures from the American tradition of quilting. Among enslaved African Americans forbidden to read or write, quilts provided an important space to document family stories. Today, quilting remains a creative outlet rich with story and tradition for many American communities.
We invite you to enter this forest of quilted memories — a testimony to the lives of these individuals, and the multi-generational impact of their untimely, unjust loss.
(Credits to come)