FBI: civil rights deaths

To assist with the FBI’s review of unresolved civil rights era murders, the Southern Poverty Law Center has provided the bureau’s Civil Rights Unit with information about the deaths of dozens of people who may have been victims of racially motivated killings.

In a letter accompanying the files, Center President Richard Cohen asked the FBI to use its considerable investigatory resources to uncover more information about these cases.

“Those responsible for these forgotten deaths - those who may still be alive today, like James Ford Seale, who was recently arrested for the murders of Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore - have gone unpunished too long,� Cohen said.

The names were gathered from research originally done in the late 1980s as the Center planned the Civil Rights Memorial, the black granite monument designed by Maya Lin and dedicated by the Center in 1989. The names of 40 people who met certain criteria were inscribed on the Memorial’s timeline. Dozens of others could not be included because there was not enough information known about the circumstances of their deaths.

“We suspect that some were killed by white supremacists to intimidate the black community or to thwart the Civil Rights Movement,� Cohen said.

The list of 75 names sent to the FBI is alphabetical and includes the time and place of each death and a brief description of what happened.

Research conducted in connection with the Civil Rights Memorial has played a key role in the reopening of recent civil rights era murders, including the indictment of Seale. After the 40 martyrs were selected, the Center published a book, Free At Last, that tells their stories. The book was distributed in concert with the Memorial’s dedication and was updated in 2004.

Earlier that year, Jerry Mitchell, a writer for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., attended a special press screening of the film Mississippi Burning, a fictionalized account of the three civil rights workers murdered in Neshoba County in 1964. Also at the screening were two FBI agents who had opened a Mississippi office during a search for the three workers. The film and his conversation with the agents afterwards piqued Mitchell’s interest in unsolved civil rights murders and prompted his quest to bring unpunished killers to justice.

Since then, the investigative reporter has unearthed documents, cajoled suspects and witnesses and pursued evidence in ...