Closing civil rights era cold cases could haunt black America

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Sometimes, justice delayed is justice denied. And this certainly applies to many of the racially motivated murders — lynchings actually — committed against during the civil rights era that have remained unsolved and unprosecuted, with the perpetrators never brought to justice.

In some cases, the suspects are long gone, six feet under in the grave. Or the killers confessed to the murder after they were acquitted years ago, unable to be retried under double jeopardy.

And we know what those acquittals were like in the 1950s and 1960s, in the deep Jim Crow South. It probably went something like this: A white man, a racist and die hard segregationist, filled with hate, murdered a black person, whether by shooting, burning, hanging, castration or some other violent means. There is a mountain of evidence against the defendant, and the police may have even participated.

He stands trial before a jury of his peers — an all-white jury, maybe even all-white male — and a judge who has known the defendant and his family for years. The jury deliberates for a half hour or so, and comes back with a verdict of not guilty. The defendant kisses his wife or girlfriend to celebrate, drinks a soda pop, and goes home. End of story. Welcome to Jim Crow.

In 2006 the U.S. Justice Department launched the Cold Case Initiative, in which it reviewed 124 civil rights era deaths involving 111 incidents. “In addition to seeking justice for victims, we were also seeking closure for victims’ families, many of whom had no idea what had really happened to their loved ones,” the FBI says on its website.

The following year, Congress passed the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which allocated millions of dollars “to ensure timely and thorough investigations in the cases involved.” The law was named after Till, the 14-year old boy who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after reportedly whistling at a white woman.

His murder was a flashpoint in the struggle for civil rights, as the open casket with his mutilated body galvanized black people in the fight for equality. The confessed killers died long ago, and after a grand jury failed to indict others who may have played a role, the case was closed in 2007.

For the purposes of investigating these unsolved murders, the FBI and the Department of Justice joined forces to address “violations of criminal civil rights statutes…result[ing] in death” that “occurred not later than December 31, 1969.” The two agencies formed a partnership with the NAACP, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the National Urban League. “We will do everything we can to close those cases and to close this dark chapter in our nation’s history,” said then-FBI Director Robert Mueller.

That was then, but this is now. The feds are shutting down the Cold Case Initiative.

Two years ago, the FBI made a final effort in the investigations, searching for the next of kin in 34 cases. In about two-thirds of the cases, FBI agents have told the next of kin that the government has gone as far as they could go with the investigation, but no dice. Time is the enemy of justice in these old crimes, with many of the suspects aging or deceased. And in a few cases, the government was unable to find any evidence of a racially motivated crime or any wrongdoing.

The passage of time might be a valid reason for the federal government to end the investigations, but is a legitimate reason to keep the program going. After all, one could reasonably argue that now is the most urgent time in a number of these cases, given that suspects who are still alive may not be around for long. This situation is akin to geriatric Nazi war criminals who were tried and convicted years after their crimes.

For African-Americans, the stakes are high. Black people still suffer from wounds of the civil rights movement, and remember the reluctance of FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover to go after civil rights murders. Then there are real-life conspiracies such as COINTELPRO, Hoover’s effort to prevent the rise of a black messiah such as Martin Luther King or Malcolm X, and the 40-year Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment.

Despite these very real crimes committed by the government against black America, the federal government has also played a vital role as the line of defense against states’ rights. Federal troops enforced Reconstruction after the Civil War, and desegregation during the Civil Rights era. When states are unable to guarantee the civil rights of black folks, or simply refuse to do right by them, the federal government steps in to make it right, or so the story goes.

But what do black people do when they feel as if their government is abandoning them, or at least not going the extra mile for the grievous wrongs perpetrated against them? As the United States continues to chase down Muslim terror suspects with Arab names halfway around the world, why can’t they locate a white domestic homegrown terrorist who never left the state of Alabama? Why can’t they go after Luther Steverson, the 84-year old undisputed killer of Joseph Robert McNair, a black father of six, gunned down in Mississippi 46 years ago?

Sadly, these are questions that remain unanswered. But one thing is for sure. Time’s a wasting, and still no justice.