In 1964, Frank Morris suffered fatal burns from an arson.The FBI launched two investigations into Morris's death in the 1960s, but the case was never solved. In 2007, newspaper editor Stanley Nelson picked up the case. His reporting led him to suspect Arthur Leonard Spencer, a Richland Parish truck driver and former member of the Ku Klux Klan.
January 2011
Concordia Sentinel
Frank Morris Case
January 12, 2011
NPR
Frank Morris Case
January 12, 2011
In December 1964, Frank Morris' shoe shop was set ablaze. He died four days later. Like many Southern crimes against blacks in the 1960s, the incident went unsolved. Now, 46 years later, Stanley Nelson, the editor of the Concordia Sentinel newspaper, says he has found information that may implicate a man as a member of a Ku Klux Klan "wrecking crew," which is said by sources Nelson has interviewed to be responsible for burning down the shop.
ColorLines
Frank Morris Case
January 12, 2011
But there were other victims, like Frank Morris, who were targeted for reasons that are less overtly political, and perhaps even more insidious. These are stories in which there seem to be an accumulation of hostilities towards a black male that reach an unpredictable breaking point. Three main things animate the hostilities towards this different class of victim, often occurring in combination: their financial success, their willingness to stand up to whites and allegations of their having liaisons, real or perceived, with white women.