Murders Around Mississippi

Sumner, Miss., site of the trial of Emmett Till's murderers. The Tallahatchie County Courthouse appears in the distance.Emmett Till,from Chicago,was visiting his uncle in the small cotton town of Money when he was murdered. The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, named for him, passed the U.S. Senate unanimously, Sept. 24.

by Ronni Mott
October 1, 2008

If there is any doubt that the wheels of power grind slowly, the U.S. Senate proved the point this week, when, after more than three years of delays, it unanimously passed the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which will strengthen federal and local agencies’ abilities to investigate and prosecute unsolved civil rights era murders.


The act, which was first proposed in July 2005, after the Senate passed a resolution to apologize for lynching, passed in the House June 20, 2007, with nearly unanimous approval (422-2). Since then, it has languished for more than 15 months in the Senate due entirely to the “hold” put on the bill by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., which the Democratic Caucus’s Senate Journal Web site characterized as “petty procedural maneuvers.”

Continued in the Jackson Free Press

Labels: Barack Obama, civil rights movement, Cleve McDowell, cold cases, Delta Blues, Emmett Till