Mississippi Goddam: The Ballad of Billey Joe
Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX
Reveal host Al Letson makes good on a promise to find out what really happened to Billey Joe Johnson Jr., a Black high schooler whose dreams of going to college and playing pro football ended when he died during a 2008 traffic stop. Authorities said he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound during the confrontation with a white sheriff’s deputy, but the boy’s family always had doubts.
PRIMARY PRODUCTION CREDITS
Network/Station/Platform: ~580 public radio stations nationwide, and on the Reveal podcast, distributed by PRX. Host: Al Letson. Lead Reporters/Producers: Al Letson & Jonathan Jones. Series Editor and Executive Producer: Kevin Sullivan. Series Producer: Michael I Schiller. Production Manager: Amy Mostafa. Production Assistant: Steven Rascón. Reporting and Production Assistance: Ko Bragg, Melissa Lewis, Katharine Mieszkowski, Michael Montgomery, Laurel Hennen Vigil. Voice Work: Alexis Hightower. Legal: D. Victoria Baranetsky. Additional Editing: Sumi Aggarwal, Jen Chien, Nina Martin, Andy Donohue. Fact Checkers: Rosemarie Ho, Nikki Frick. Photography: Imani Khayyam. Design and Technical Staff: Sarah Mirk, Joan Wong. Sound Design, Engineering, Composing: Jim Briggs III, Fernando Arruda. Additional Mixing and Sound Design: Claire Mullen, Najib Aminy, Brett Simpson, Ameeta Ganatra, Kathryn Styer Martinez.