U.S. Government to Consider Re-Opening Civil Rights-Era Cases

Summary

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The deaths of Freddie Robinson and [Larry Payne] are just some of nearly 100 unsolved civil rights-era deaths that the U.S. Justice Department in conjunction with the FBI will consider reopening as part of a widespread agency initiative announced last month. The National Urban League, NAACP and Southern Poverty Center will also be working with federal authorities to help produce evidence and witnesses who to help solve some of these "cold" cases from a bygone era when, to quote a recent Seattle Times editorial, it was open season on Blacks in the South.

"We brought tons of people to the grand jury (for the church bombing case), some of whom I'm absolutely convinced committed perjury, saying they didn't know about something. Could I prove it? No way," [Doug Jones] told the Birmingham News recently. "But if there was ever a case for people to step forward to do some reconciliation or right a wrong, it was one when four innocent girls were killed in a bomb in a church. And guess what? We didn't have anybody like that."

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U.S. Government to Consider Re-Opening Civil Rights-Era Cases

During the summer of 1960, when the body of 12-year-old Freddie Robinson washed up on the shore of a local creek in Edisto Island, S.C., law enforcement authorit...

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