Joseph Shapiro

Turning Up The Heat On Civil Rights-Era Cold Cases

By Joseph Shapiro

Originally published on Sat May 18, 2013 1:26 pm

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Six years ago, the FBI took on a challenge: To review what it called cold-case killings from the civil rights era. The investigation into 112 cases from the 1950s and 1960s is winding down, and civil rights activists are weighing the FBI's efforts.

The review comes with word this week of the death of a man who'd been named, by a newspaper investigation, as a possible suspect in one notorious case.

The Case

2:57 pm

Fri May 3, 2013

Justice In The Segregated South: A New Look At An Old Killing

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Credit Jack Thornell / AP

When John Queen died in August 1965 in front of the Ice House (the building between the Standard Oil station and The Dollar Store), rules of racial inferiority were so entrenched in Fayette, Miss., that black residents felt they couldn't complain. But just four months later things changed and black residents marched on Dec. 24 as part of their boycott against white-owned businesses.

Credit Jack Thornell / AP

When John Queen was killed in August 1965 in front of the ice house (the building between the Standard Oil station and The Dollar Store), rules of racial inferiority were so entrenched in Fayette, Miss., that black residents felt they couldn't complain. But just four months later things did change, and black residents marched on Dec. 24 as part of a boycott against white-owned businesses.

Credit Joseph Shapiro / NPR

As a young man, Burchfield worked at the International Paper plant in Natchez, Miss., by day, and as a constable at night.

Credit Joseph Shapiro / NPR

Jasper Burchfield was a 36-year-old part-time constable when he shot and killed Queen in 1965.

Credit Joseph Shapiro / NPR

Martha Wallace was 18 when she witnessed the argument between Queen and Jasper Burchfield. "I just really heard one shot," she says. "Really like a firecracker."

Credit Joseph Shapiro / NPR

Melissa Martin Wright, who was almost 8 when Queen died, says she saw him tumble after he was shot.

Credit Joseph Shapiro / NPR

Charles Dawkins arrived at the scene moments after the shooting. He says he saw Queen lying dead with a revolver in his hand.

Credit Joseph Shapiro / NPR

A coroner's jury formed by the deputy sheriff quickly reached a conclusion in Queen's death. The official document reads that Queen died of "four gunshot wounds" fired by Burchfield "in self-defense."

Credit Joseph Shapiro / NPR

The local newspaper reported that the dispute started when Queen used "vulgar and indecent language" and Burchfield asked him to stop. Then Queen pulled out a pistol and shot.

Credit Joseph Shapiro / NPR

Nothing about Queen's story seems set in stone. His grave marker includes the wrong birth date and the date of his death is off by a week.

Credit AP

Just three weeks after Queen died, the leader of the NAACP in nearby Natchez, Miss., was seriously injured in a car bomb. Charles Evers led protests, including this one in October 1965.

Credit Joseph Shapiro / NPR

When Jim Crow laws ended, Shirley Cruel — Queen's great-niece — went back to school and became a social worker. Here, Cruel, who died at age 66 last April, is flanked by grandson Alvion Sampson and her daughter Kaye Sampson.

By Joseph Shapiro

Originally published on Sat May 4, 2013 5:41 am

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This story contains language that some may find offensive.

In the segregated South in 1965, John Queen was about as insignificant as a man could be. He was black, elderly and paralyzed. His legs had been crushed when as a boy he fell off a roof. For the rest of his life, he pulled himself around with his hands.

In Fayette, Miss., he would shine shoes on Main Street for a few coins. People called him "Crippled Johnny" or "Shoe-Shine Johnny."

6:38 pm

Wed March 6, 2013

Law Targets Sexual Violence On College Campuses

By Joseph Shapiro

Originally published on Fri March 15, 2013 10:30 am

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When President Obama signs an updated version of the Violence Against Women Act on Thursday afternoon, the law will include new requirements for how colleges and universities handle allegations of sexual assault.

Laura Dunn, who's been invited by the White House to attend, plans to be there.

4:53 pm

Mon February 25, 2013

Koop Turned Surgeon General's Office Into Mighty Education Platform

By Joseph Shapiro

Originally published on Tue February 26, 2013 12:34 pm

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Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

C. Everett Koop was the most outspoken and some would argue the most influential of all U.S. surgeon generals. [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: The correct plural form of the word is surgeons general.] He wore the uniform throughout most of the 1980s, and he turned an office with little power into a mighty platform - to educate Americans about AIDS prevention and the dangers of smoking.

C. Everett Koop died today at his home in Hanover, New Hampshire. He was 96. NPR's Joseph Shapiro looks back on his career.

12:35 pm

Wed January 16, 2013

Why A Young Man Died In A Nursing Home, A State Away From His Mom

Credit Courtesy of Nola Sayne

Zach Sayne at age 5, with his mother Nola.

By Joseph Shapiro

Originally published on Thu January 17, 2013 3:12 pm

Zach Sayne was 25 when he died earlier this month at the place that had been his home for 15 years — a children's nursing home in Alabama.

But that was too far away, 200 miles too far, for his mother in Georgia. Nola Sayne was trying to bring him back, closer to her home. The story of why she couldn't reveals the bureaucratic traps, underfunding and lack of choices that plague state Medicaid programs.

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Credit Doby Photography / NPR

Joseph Shapiro is a NPR News Investigations correspondent.

In this role, Shapiro takes on long-term reporting projects and covers breaking news stories for NPR's news shows.

Shapiro's major investigative stories include his reports on the failure of colleges and universities to punish for on-campus sexual assaults; the inadequacy of civil rights laws designed to get the elderly and people with disabilities out of nursing homes, and the little-known profits involved in the production of medical products from donated human cadavers.

His reporting has generated wide-spread attention to serious issues here and abroad. His "Child Cases" series, reported with PBS Frontline and ProPublica, found two dozen cases in the U.S. and Canada where parents and caregivers were charged with killing children, but the charges were later reversed or dropped. Since that series, a Texas man who was the focus of one story was released from prison. And in California, a woman, who was the subject of another story, had her sentence commuted.

Shapiro joined NPR in November 2001 and spent eight years covering health, aging, disability and children's and family issues on the Science Desk. He reported on the health issues of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and helped start NPR's 2005 Impact of War series with reporting from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center. He covered stories from Hurricane Katrina to the debate over overhauling the nation's health care system.

Before coming to NPR, Shapiro spent 19 years at U.S. News & World Report, as a Senior Writer on social policy and served as the magazine's Rome bureau chief, White House correspondent and congressional reporter.

Among honors for his investigative journalism, Shapiro has received a Peabody Award, a Robert F. Kennedy Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award, Sigma Delta Chi, IRE, Dart and Gracie awards and was a finalist for the Goldsmith Award.

Shapiro is the author of the award-winning NO PITY: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement (Random House/Three Rivers Press), which is widely read in disability studies classes.

Shapiro studied long-term care and end-of-life issues as a participant in the yearlong 1997 Kaiser Media Fellowship in Health program. In 1990, he explored the changing world of people with disabilities as an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow.

Shapiro attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Carleton College. He's a native of Washington, D.C., and lives there now with his family.

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4:17 am

Sat May 18, 2013