The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "NAACP" ...
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Until Proven Innocent
The book reviews how the case and charges against the three Duke Lacrosse players was handled. The authors focus on how "political correctness, personal agendas, sensationalist journalism, and academic extremism," all shaped the public opinion about the players before they went on trial.
Tags: Duke; rape; gang rape; Duke Lacrosse; court; trial; justice; NAACP; media; DNA; Nifong; sports; college; law enforcement;
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Unpunished Killings
This investigation began with the 1989 release of the film "Mississippi Burning" because the author was outraged that so many crimes against civil rights workers went unpunished. Cultivating sources in the now defunct Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a state segregationist spy agency, the author was able to gain access to sealed documents. These documents led to the reprosecution of Klansman Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 killing of NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers.
Tags: civil rights; Mississippi; Ku Klux Klan; NAACP; crime; Mississippi Sovereignty Commission; Byron De La Beckwith; Medgar Evers; Hinds County; Sam Bowers; Edgar Ray Killen; Mississippi Department of Archives and History; Billy Roy Pitts; Vernon Dahmer; Deavours Nix; Bobby Cherry; Fred Shuttlesworth; Birmingham Church Bombings; Richard Barrett
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Guess Who's Not Going to Jail
The Austin Chronicle uncovers shocking disparity in how whites and blacks are treated and prosecuted for their crimes in Williamson County. This observation is reinforced by the cases of drug dealers: two white men found with more than 200 grams of meth were fined and sent to prison for less than 6 months, while several blacks in possession of less than 45 grams of crack were sentenced to 15 months to life.
Tags: jail; prison; white; black; race; racism; plea bargain; crime; sentence; FOIA; drug; methamphetamine; crack; NAACP
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The Great Divide
This four-part series reveals that education in Pennsylvania and New Jersey is overwhelmingly not diverse despite 50 years of supposed desegregation. Economic factors often lead to racial segregation, but research shows that "white flight" causes suburban areas to be just as separated as big cities. The private schooling option also steals many white students from public schools. One school district attempts to prove that with effort almost perfect racial balance can be achieved.
Tags: Brown v. Board of Education; school; diversity; minority; black; African American; integration; equal; education; race; segregation; NAACP; white flight; Jim Crow
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A Future Foreclosed
This two-part investigation shows how Boshwit Brothers Mortgage Co, a longtime Memphis mortgage company specializing in loans to the poor, used Tennessee's lender-friendly foreclosure laws to take possession of 189 houses where it had made mortgages. It seized the property when the owners couldn't meet the high-interest payments. Many of the properties were converted to rentals and entered in a federal rent subsidy program that nets the firm $240,000 a year.
Tags: NAACP; real estate; rent; landlords
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Strom Thurmond's Secret Daughter
These stories offered the first confirmation that Strom Thurmond (the nation's former leading segregationist), fathered and secretly supported a mixed-race child throughout his political life. The first story features an exclusive interview in which the daughter, Essie May Washington-Williams, confirmed the relationship. Follow-up's included the Thurmond Family's acknowledgement of the truth and provided details of how the relationship and exchange of money worked.
Tags: Strom Thurmond; segregationist; Essie May Washington; DNA Tests; NAACP; African Americans; paternity claim; mixed-race
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The Color of Justice
As some U.S cities make progress in lowering the number of blacks in juvenile detention, Columbia's numbers rise. The Trib takes an in-depth look at how the number of arrests of black kids has been on a steady rise in this university town that prides itself on individual freedoms and civil rights. The story narrates multiple incidents where black children have been harshly taken into custody without being given a chance to be heard.
Tags: Fenna Isaacson; Kenny Harris-Jones; Almeta Crayton; Columbia Police Department; NAACP; W. Haywood Burns Institute for Juvenile Justice; Judge Patricia Clark; King County
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Are you experienced?
This story deals with police brutality. It narrates the death of Mexican legal immigrant Luis Alfonso Torres after he was detained by three members of the Police Dept. of the city of Baytown, west of Houston (Texas). The detention was filmed by a camera mounted on one of the squad's car. When he was detained, Bernstein says, Torres was "suffering from hypertension" and unarmed. "It's bigger than the Rodney King video. After all, in this incident someone died", says a Houston-based Hispanic activist quoted in the story. "Cops killing Mexicans is not new to Harris County", Bernstein says and adds in 1999 the Mexican consulate "proposed a travel warning to advise fellow citizens against visiting Houston because of all the police shootings in the area."
Tags: Baytown Police; Harris County; Harris County District Attorney's Office; Texas ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union); Emergency Medical Service (EMS); Baytown Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
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Unmet Promise: Raising Minority Achievement
Race plays a large role in whether children succeed academically. This article examines the phenomenon and offers not only various theories of causation but also some possible solutions.
Tags: education; college admissions; racism; NAACP; achievement gap
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A jury of peers?
Due to a flawed selection system, blacks and whites in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, do not have a reasonably equal chance of being called to jury duty, as the U.S. Supreme Court requires. This investigation spurred several major changes, including an ongoing statewide study of jury pool imbalances, several proposed bills in the PA Senate, and a jury registration drive by the local NAACP.
Tags: Juries; race; discrimination