Month: July 2016

by Mary Rupert

The U.S. Senate passed the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Reauthorization Act of 2016 last night.

The bill passed by unanimous consent, said Alvin Sykes, a human rights activist in Kansas City, Kan., who has been working for its passage. Next, it will go to the House in September, where U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-3rd Dist., will be a co-sponsor.

Sykes, president of the Emmett Till Justice Campaign, was involved in the passage of the original Till bill, which went into effect in 2008 and allows federal prosecutors to investigate and prosecute unsolved racially motivated crimes from the civil rights era, pre-1969. That bill expires after 10 years.

The new Till bill extends the law and makes it permanent, according to Sykes. The 1969 time limit on investigating unsolved crimes that are racially motivated also is removed, he said, and racially motivated crimes from any time can now be investigated if it passes.

“We certainly believe that the bill is going to pass ultimately,” Sykes said today.

Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri put a lot of energy into this bill, Sykes said. The bill had almost equal bipartisan cosponsorship, he added.

“I look at it as a reflection about the power of dialogue, and when you couple that with getting beyond partisanship and working toward common ground, that you can achieve just about anything,” he said.

In a time when there is so much partisan polarization, to be able to get this through in a bipartisan way with a statement of unanimous consent is very encouraging and inspiring, Sykes said.

The Emmett Till bill was named after a Chicago, Ill., teen who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 for allegedly flirting with a white woman. Unlike 1955, federal investigators will be able to become involved in investigating racially motivated crimes.

“The (Till) family was very happy,” Sykes said. “It’s another example of how the poison that came out of Emmett Till’s death nearly 60 years ago continues to turn into the medicine of justice for countless people throughout the country.”