The Justice Department's Feb. 27 announcement of the initiative came a few days after the Center provided the FBI with information about the deaths of dozens of people who may have been victims of racially motivated killings.

Center President Richard Cohen was invited to appear at a Washington, D.C., press conference with Department of Justice officials and representatives from the NAACP and the National Urban League to discuss the initiative.

"There are murder cases from the civil rights era that still cry out for justice, cases that cry out for further investigation," Cohen told reporters. "Now, with today's announcement, there is renewed hope that these cries will be answered."

The names forwarded to the FBI were gathered from research done for the Civil Rights Memorial. 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. Their names are displayed on a wall in the Civil Rights Memorial Center.

"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 in a letter accompanying the list of 75 names.

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.

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

SPLC Report
Spring 2007