His work inspired others. Since 1989, authorities in Mississippi and six other states have reexamined 29 killings from the civil rights era and made 27 arrests, leading to 22 convictions. Since 2002, he has collaborated with award winning schoolteacher Barry Bradford, from Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, on several of his projects and has often written about the work of Bradford and his students, who helped Mitchell in the Mississippi Burning Case and, more recently, in clearing the name of Clyde Kennard.