Visitors read the names of martyrs inscribed on the Civil Rights Memorial in downtown Montgomery, Ala.

When the Southern Poverty Law Center was planning for the Memorial, its research staff searched long-forgotten files at a number of sites in an effort to determine who should be listed as martyrs on the Memorial's granite timeline. When the 40 were selected, the Center published a book,Free At Last, that tells their stories. It was distributed in concert with the Memorial's dedication and was updated in 2004.

The book became a valuable tool for journalist Jerry Mitchell of The [Jackson, Miss.] Clarion-Ledger. He has unearthed documents, cajoled suspects and witnesses and pursued evidence in the notorious killings from that era.

"Free At Last became my road map on my journey into reinvestigating these cases, starting with the 1963 assassination of Mississippi NAACP leader Medger Evers," he said.

"The Memorial stands as a reminder that the martyrs' killers walked free, even though everyone knew they were guilty," Mitchell said. "After it was dedicated in 1989, it transformed into an instrument of justice."

The Memorial and the book helped ensure that the martyrs were never forgotten, he said. The Memorial is situated across the street from the Center’s headquarters in Montgomery, Ala.

In early 1989, Mitchell 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.

Mitchell's reporting resulted in the 1994 conviction of Byron de la Beckwith for the Evers killing; the 1998 conviction of Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers for the death of Vernon Dahmer; the 2003 conviction of Ernest Avants for killing caretaker Ben Chester White; and the conviction of Edgar Ray Killen for helping orchestrate the Neshoba County murders. His stories also contributed to the investigation that led to Seale's indictment.

"It has not been an easy journey," Mitchell said. "There were many people who wanted me to stop, including friends, family and fellow journalists."

Since 1989, authorities in seven states have re-examined 29 killings from the civil rights era and made 28 arrests - including Seale’s - and obtained 22 convictions. Mitchell has won a number of prestigious awards for his reporting, including the 2005 John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism.

"For too long, people thought that nothing could be done about those who had literally gotten away with murder during the civil rights era," Cohen said. "But as we've seen in recent years, with the successful prosecutions of murderers like Edgar Ray Killen, Dr. King was right when he said that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice. It's our hope that investigators will continue to prove the point."

Legislation that would give the Department of Justice and the FBI the ability to reopen civil rights era criminal cases that have gone cold was reintroduced in Congress on Feb. 8. The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act is named for the teenager who was murdered while on a summer vacation in Money, Miss., in 1955. Public outrage surrounding the case helped spur the modern-day Civil Rights Movement.

The proposed legislation, originally introduced last year, is co-sponsored by Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Reps. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Kenny Hulshof (R-Mo.).

SPLC Report
Spring 2007