Donna Ladd

Journalist and Editor

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I, the Southern Muckraker

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When Southern Living magazine called to ask me for a photo, I was immediately suspicious. Let’s just say that I’ve never thought of myself as the Southern Living type. But, I’m honored that the magazine chose me on the “Innovators Changing the South” with the following write-up. It was quite the surprise, to say the least, and I’m honored to be among the other innovators on the list:

Donna Ladd is an old-fashioned muckraking journalist with a sharp modern voice. She helped create Mississippi’s The Jackson Free Press, and her columns and reporting make national news as she takes bold stances that contrast typical Southern stereotypes. In addition to being a writer, she’s a speaker and a teacher with particular focus on children in vulnerable situations, race relations, and police reform.

That Time I Was Featured in Glamour with a Hero’s Daughter

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No, I wasn’t featured in Glamour because of my, well, glamour. Magazine writer Sheila Weller found me when she was determined to do a story about women somehow connected to the 1964 Klan murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in my hometown—by men that my family knew, as I’ve written about many times because, yes, I do believe in “dredging up the past.”

The most powerful part of the experience was meeting James Chaney’s daughter, Angela, who was about my age and even a fellow vegetarian (that we Mississippi women were both vegetarians surprised the Glamour crews from New York and California no end). The day of the photo shoot had many angles to it, far beyond my feeling somewhat exploitive having my photo taken with Chaney’s daughter at the site of the murders. Still, I wouldn’t take anything for the experience.

Below is a PDF of the story, which won awards for Sheila Weller—who became a friend who has helped me many times, especially with connections. I also wrote this column about an argument of sorts that I and a famed civil-rights leader had with members of the Glamour crew at the site of Mount Zion, the church the Klan burned to lure the three men to Philadelphia in order to kill them.

“Two Women Joined by Murder” – View PDF.

My First Two NYPD Stories This Year: Bratton and Black Cops

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Because of my interest in the intersection of policing and race, especially in the wake of high-profile deaths like Eric Garner and Freddie Gray, I spent several months reporting on how the New York Police Department is working to change its culture, especially since Mr. Garner’s death in 2014 from a police chokehold on Staten Island. Due to my desire to get below the surface on these issues, I was able to convince the NYPD to give me wide access inside One Police Plaza, to a number of deputy commissioners as well as an interview with Commissioner William Bratton. I also went out on patrol twice with officers in East Flatbush in Brooklyn, attending a Smart Policing training at the new academy and sat in on a Compstat meeting.

Independently of the NYPD, I found and interviewed a number of police officers of color, current and past, about their experiences on the police force. To a person, they had complicated views of the NYPD, both loving the job while being honest about the drawback for an officer of color, as well as how they watched some white officers behave in poor communities. I had rich, frank conversations with those officers, which helped form the narrative arc of my stories, which benefitted from unusual access to officers who were wiling to speak on the record using their names.

I published the first of the reported narratives in early June 2015, Inside William  Bratton’s NYPD: Broken Windows Policing Is Here to Stay and then the second two days later, Life As A Black Cop. I had a tremendous response to both stories, and some drama as one of Bratton’s quotes to me was lifted completely out of context without my knowledge or consent and went viral, giving a misleading impression (that he was saying that the pool of black candidates for the NYPD is smaller due to stop-and-frisk misdemeanors rather than because of felony convictions). Fortunately, the context was clear in my original story about black cops, which is still bringing me powerful feedback.

I am working on additional stories related to these issues. I will post links when others publish.