NPR’s Civil Wrongs podcast released its sixth season on Monday, October 13, diving deep into the 1939 case of Phillip Hatley, a World War I veteran killed by Memphis police officers in his own home.
The case was first investigated by student researchers in the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice (CRRJ) 2024 Spring Clinic. Elena Kuran ’25, a student from the clinic, conducted the comprehensive investigation into Hatley’s killing during the program, uncovering crucial details about the case that had remained obscured for decades.
A project of the Institute for Public Service Reporting in collaboration with WKNO-FM, Civil Wrongs examines the present-day effects of historical cases of racial terror in Memphis and the Mid-South, bringing long-buried stories of injustice to light and exploring their lasting impact on communities today.
Season 6 centers on Hatley, a 43-year-old mill worker and WWI veteran, who was fatally shot by two Memphis police officers in Shelby County, Tennessee in 1939. According to historical records, the officers shot Hatley inside his home while allegedly intoxicated.
Officers Elmer F. Broens and Roy G. McElroy ended their shift and were off duty when, after drinking heavily, they decided to go to Hatley’s home to question him about a burglary. Hatley was cooking breakfast when they arrived and the officers proceeded to drag Hatley outside, beat him and put him inside their squad car. Hatley broke away and fled back into his house, when Officer Broens followed and shot Hatley twice in the back, killing him instantly.
Listen to Episode one:
This podcast series comes after a summer of restorative justice efforts, led by the Hatley family and supported by CRRJ. On June 21, 2025, CRRJ joined a citywide memorial in Memphis honoring lives taken by the Memphis Police Department, with cases spanning from the Jim Crow era to the present. The event, held at the Harriet Performing Arts Center and drawing more than 100 participants, came on the heels of a Department of Justice investigation that found the MPD engages in a pattern of unconstitutional and racially discriminatory policing.
Kuran traveled to Memphis alongside CRRJ Research Associate Lydia Beal to help install 22 temporary monuments, each honoring a life taken by police officers. These monuments were accompanied by archival materials curated by CRRJ, including protest letters and documentation from the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive—one of the most comprehensive digital databases of racially motivated killings of Black people in the Jim Crow South.
“From the outset, our goals were clear; to honor those killed by MPD, to center the voices of their families and descendants, and to prompt a public reckoning with the enduring legacy of anti-Black policing in the city,” said Beal. “Our collaborative efforts allowed us to build a shared, accessible narrative that directly confronted impunity and affirmed the dignity of those harmed.”
Season 6 of Civil Wrongs is available to stream on all major podcast platforms from Monday, October 13. Led by Laura Kebede-Twumasi, Distinguished Journalist in Residence at the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis, the series continues the podcast’s mission of connecting historical injustices to contemporary conversations about racial terror, policing, and accountability in the American South.
For more information about Civil Wrongs and to access previous seasons, visit the Institute for Public Service Reporting and WKNO-FM websites.
Read more about Hatley’s death on the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive
About the Archive
The Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive houses case files and documents for more than 1,000 cases of racial homicides in the Jim Crow South. Co-founded by Melissa Nobles, professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Margaret Burnham, CRRJ director and professor of law at Northeastern, these uncovered stories highlight how violence affected lives, defined legal rights and shaped politics between 1930 and 1954.
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