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Hastening history’s judgment

The Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board sheds light on crimes committed during the civil rights era

By Steve Fennessy · October 22, 2024
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Darrell Evers and his sister Reena at the funeral of their father, Medgar Evers, in 1963. Evers, the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi, was shot dead outside his home by Byron De La Beckwith Jr. on June 13, 1963. Photo credit: National Archives, Local Identifier 306-SS-16-849

Welcome to the website of the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board. The Board invites you to browse the site and learn more about its four members, its work, and why Congress created it. The Board’s mission is to expedite the public release of records surrounding unresolved cold cases from the civil rights era.

Why do we say “unresolved” and not “unsolved”? Frequently, the person or persons responsible for the crime was known, but they never stood before a judge to answer for their crimes. Why not? That question is perhaps the animating force behind the Board’s work. In some cases, the answer to the question of ‘why’ will be found in the documents themselves. Perhaps the investigators determined there was insufficient evidence to make any arrests or finger any suspects. Or perhaps they didn’t anticipate a local district attorney would prosecute a white defendant for the killing of a Black person. Each case is different, and the circumstances behind the decision to pursue charges – or to not pursue them – are unique to that case.

But while the document may bring us closer to understanding what and how these events occurred, it may also shed no light on why. As the Board releases more cases over the coming months and years, it’s likely that you may scroll through a case file and emerge more confused than ever as to why no one ever faced justice. But here is why releasing these cases still matters, even though it may be years after the suspect has died and no criminal prosecution is possible: That although a perpetrator may have escaped judgment in a court of law, he or she cannot outrun the judgment of history.

The case the Board is releasing today/this week surrounds the violent death of a 46-year-old Alabama woman, but not all civil rights violations the Board will be examining ended in death. Some cases involve assaults, kidnappings, disappearances. The common denominators, though, are that racial animus was the motivating force behind the crime, and that no one was ever punished appropriately.

It’s the Board’s hope that as it reviews more and more cases, and then makes them public through the National Archives and Records Administration, that historians, researchers, journalists and – most especially – descendants of the victims can gain a better understanding of a pivotal and dark chapter in our nation’s history.

So that we can notify you when more cases are made public, please email us at subscribe@coldcaserecords.gov. We’ll be sure to let you know.