President Obama Authorizes Emmett Till Act To Reopen Unsolved Civil Rights Cases

Barack Obama has only a few weeks left in his presidency and he’s making several attempts to actually make America great again.

The current POTUS signed legislation that allows the FBI and the Department of Justice to reopen civil rights cold cases prior to 1970.

The Emmett Till act was first introduced in 2005 by Alvin Sykes, an activist who investigated unsolved murder cases of African Americans that occurred during the Civil Rights era. The act was later signed into law in 2008.  At the time this allowed the FBI to pursue civil rights cold cases prior to 1980. Over 100 unsolved cases were reopened. The amended bill, which officially signed into a law on December 16 after passing through Congress on December 13.  The new bill means more cold cases can be reopened, including those that occurred during the peak of the Jim Crow era. According to USA Today, killings that weren’t included originally but could be included under the new bill would be the 1970 killings of two students on the Jackson State University campus — Phillip Gibbs, a 21-year-old junior, and James Earl Green, a 17-year-old student at Jim Hill High School.

The Emmett Till act was named after 14 year old Emmett Till who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi after he allegedly flirted with a white woman in 1955.  Sykes vowed to Till’s mother that he would help fight for justice for her teenage son.