Underscored by the popularity of television shows like 'Cold Case,' the federal government has released additional names of civil rights-era murder victims with the hopes of solving the crimes some 50 years after they were committed.
The development of DNA evidence has allowed crime investigators to reach back in time and build winnable cases against murderers who have evaded the justice system.
Recent investigations dating from the civil rights era have brought the names of murder victims like Emmett Till, Ben Chester White and Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman back in headlines long after they were killed.
The most recently solved cold case developed by the initiative was the 2007 conviction of James Ford Seale for kidnapping two African-American teenagers, who were subsequently killed, in Mississippi in 1964.
The Civil Rights Cold Case Initiative was first developed in 2006 as a partnership between the FBI, other law enforcement agencies and civil rights groups to solve violent crimes committed before 1969. The FBI's 56 field offices were asked to reexamine their unsolved civil rights cases and determine which ones could still be viable for prosecution.
Many of the murder investigations conducted at the time were inadequately looked at by local authorities who chalked up murders to accidental deaths or disappearances.
For more on what is arguably the most famous of these cases, take a look at this documentary, "Who Killed Emmett Till"? Till was a 14-year-old boy who in 1955 was lynched in an especially horrific way for whistling at a white woman. His mother insisted on an open casket, so that the world could see the brutality of the act. The outrage helped to galvanize the modern civil rights movement.
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By: Carla on 6/03/2009 3:14PM
It really makes my blood boil when I hear stories like this! 99% of the time the authorities already knew who killed those people. Fifty years later, after the guilty have lived their lives and are two steps from death, the prosecuters want to finally do the right thing. That does not sound like justice to me!
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By: David Vilabrera on 6/03/2009 7:17PM
I would want justice for the victims of those crimes as well, but the perpetrators by this time are old, sickly and putting them in jail would only give them free medical care, a place to stay warm and cozy, and they would be in effect kept in a nursing home at taxpayer expense - no way could they do hard labor for their crimes. Now if they had their life savings confiscated along with their properties in order to pay for thier incarceration, then that would serve justice, as they would finally pay for what they did.
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By: lee on 6/03/2009 8:23PM
THEY MAY NOT HAVE RECEIEVED THEIR PUNISHMENT ON EARTH BUT GODS PUNISHMENT WILL HAVE ON MERCY AND WILL PREVAIL!
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By: nate on 6/04/2009 3:10PM
and you wonder why blacks don't respect much of white americans and their ways of justice. shameful that you would even want to continue to live life this way
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By: Corey on 6/04/2009 4:30PM
Well, after 50 years you better believe that some of the people who got away with murder have suffered in some way.
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By: Dre Grant on 6/04/2009 7:11PM
Where is the rest of the documentary? I'd like to see the rest! This is important for us to remember and important for them to recieve justice!
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By: hall monitor on 6/04/2009 10:57PM
Check out http://detentionslip.org for an AWESOME video trying to end segregated proms! (yes, they still exist)
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By: Lakers4Life on 6/19/2009 11:57PM
Onbe case that needs to be reopened is the Sam Cooke murder. Read his nephew Eik Greene's book, OUR UNCLE SAM, and you can lay the pieces together for a very clear picture as to who may have killed him and what their motive(s) were. One very compelling bit of evidence is a forensic pathologist's report that rebuked the finding of the coroner. Cooke had a hemotoma on his head and scraped knuckles as though he had been dragged somewhere just prior to his death. The motel manager claimed she beat him with a flimsy broomstick after shooting him through the lung and heart, but that would be physically impossible as he bled to death in a matter of minutes, as well as his heart stopping. One has to question an in-shape Sam Cooke being wrestled to the ground and shot by a near 60-year old woman. The girl he was alleged to have attacked had a record for prostitution, as well as being a Sunset Strip party girl, while the manager was reported to have been one of her madames.The prosecution would not allow cross-ex of the witnesses, and vital police evidence is missing--the clothes, the gun, the broomstick--everything. All we are left with is the photo of a half-naked Cooke lying dead in a heap in front of a broken door. It was meant to destroy any credibility of Cooke's possible innocense of victimization; it was meant to smear his image for life; it was meant to keep the police investigators away from the possible perpretrators.
This case is typical of black crime victims' treatment in the 60s and before when the racist William Parker wouldn't allow whites into the Alameda Corridor where black folks were forced to reside.
As to who had motives for killing Sam, two basic theories emerge:
1. A self-produced,independent entrepreneurial black artist was intolerable to those who controlled the record business in those days. Artists were kept in line by thugs far worse than
anything Death Row came up with in the 80s. Sam
did not get in line for anybody.
2. People benefitted from his death that were never intended to benefit at all. His manager, with whom he'd never signed a contract, had taken out an LLC in a Nevada court without Sam's knowledge. A man that Sam had known since his gospel days also colluded with him and betrayed Sam by siging this paper. Sam's father had always been on Sam's board of directors but was discovered to have been missing. Sam discovered this on Dec. 10th, contacted his former manager and asked him to get him two NY lawyers. He was also planning on divorcing his wife who was seeing Bobby Womack and whose negligence Sam blamed for his baby son Vincent drowning int he family pool.
By Dec. 11th Sam was dead. No one who knew Sam believed the story for a second.No one in the black community believes it today. No one who has read a damn thing about Sam, the case, or 1960s LA believes it.
It is time to reopen this case and reinvestigate those who proffitted tremendously from his death at the expense of Sam's OTHER children and family members. In fact, since this manager has refused to release hardly any of Sam's music for film or play projects, for fear of the truth being told, (and Guralnick's work doesn't count since he is a paid shill for this man),the entire world should know Sam's story and hear his music freely and completely. RIP Sam!
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By: Eva Marie on 8/06/2009 11:38AM
WOW! I have to get this book! For years I knew that story didn't fit! More importantly. I have wondered why on earth we never saw his movie or heard about him. Now it all fits.
Sam Cooke was a revolutionary in the music business, a prophet. My late husband was a musician and you needn't tell me how slick these con men were if a singer or musician had money. they were vultures. probably still are.
Just like all the other murderers, cheats and liars, these scum will have to pay, whether here on earth or hereafter. I wish to see this case reopened, too. Thank-you so much for taking the time to share this.
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