The American South caught political fire in 1964. Activism by local African-American organizations and college students from the North led to brutal murders at the hands of white Southerners. But many of the victims of the Civil Rights Movement were not members of political organizations or student committees. Louisiana native, Frank Morris, a Black shoe store owner who was burned alive by two white men in 1964, suffered simply because he was independent and served a racially mixed clientele.
Frank Morris’s case has gone unsolved for over forty-five years. But now, thanks to an investigation by the Civil Rights Cold Case Project and the determined editor of a local Louisiana paper, the case may be solved.