Tenn. Newspaper Asks Judge For More FBI Records On Civil-Rights Informant

Posted Tuesday, August 9, 2011 9:54 am

By: Mark Perrusquia | The Republic

WASHINGTON - It was June 15, 1963, and Ernest Withers, the celebrated news photographer whose work routinely put him in the front lines of the civil rights struggle, lay bloodied on the ground.

Beaten and arrested by police in Jackson, Miss., while covering the funeral of assassinated NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers, Withers returned home to Tennessee determined to stand up for himself. He filed a police brutality report with Memphis' FBI office.

The report is among several newly released documents that add new insight to revelations by The Commercial Appeal newspaper in Memphis last year that Withers, a trusted civil rights insider, had secretly worked as a paid informant to spy on the movement.

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Tenn. Newspaper Asks Judge For More FBI Records On Civil-Rights Informant

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