From the Clarion Ledger:
Civil Rights Crime Act Clears Another Hurdle
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation Thursday that would establish a unit to pursue unpunished killings from the nation's civil rights era.
It now goes on to the full Senate.
"I'm pleased this bill has received a favorable vote from the Senate Judiciary Committee and hope the full Senate will take it up soon," said U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a sponsor, along with fellow Mississippi Republican Sen. Trent Lott, of the legislation.
The Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act would set up a Justice Department section and an FBI office to help local authorities pursue prosecutions of pre-1970 killings.
Since 1989, authorities in Mississippi and six other states have reexamined 29 killings and made 27 arrests, leading to 22 convictions, including Edgar Ray Killen, convicted last summer of orchestrated the Ku Klux Klan's 1964 killings of three civil rights workers - James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman.
Chaney's mother, Fannie Chaney, called the legislation "perhaps the most important piece of civil rights legislation since the 1960s."
The bill has been nicknamed the "Till bill" after the 1955 killing of Chicago teenager Emmett Till, whose killing helped to galvanize the civil rights movement.
From the Arkansas Delta Truth and Justice Center (via email):
It is good that the federal Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act bill is moving towards perhaps becoming law.
But Mississippi already has enough evidence to successfully prosecute a number of white racist murderers, particularly in the Neshoba murders case.
Why won't they?
From Representative John Lewis (in the Clarion Ledger):
There are unsolved cases like the Till case in many states in America . . .
If we allow these crimes to go unanswered, we cannot candidly declare we are a nation that believes in justice . . .
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