As a professional ghostwriter, Autumn Karen is usually forbidden to discuss her projects or her behind-the-scenes role in creating them. But the author of a recently-published book insisted that her name grace the cover along with his. “Mississippi Still Burning: From Hoods to Suits” (One Human Race Inc./2018) is James Stern’s incredible true story of being a black man incarcerated with Edgar Ray Killen, an Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and the man convicted of the 1964 triple-homicide of three civil rights activitsts.
It weaves in the history of race relations in America with the story of two diametrically-opposed cellmates who built trust and openness with each other. Host Frank Stasio talks with ghostwriter Autumn Karen about finally getting to put her name on a book with such an important historical narrative.
![The gravestone of James Chaney, killed at the direction of Edgar Ray Killen for his civil rights work in Mississippi in 1964.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/b1b44ab/2147483647/strip/true/crop/337x600+0+0/resize/880x1567!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wunc.org%2Fsites%2Fwunc%2Ffiles%2F201904%2Fgrave.jpg)
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