Can there be justice in civil rights cold cases?
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The DOJ's Civil Rights Cold Case Division isn't working. It's time to open up the investigations.
Wharlest Jackson was just like any other husband and father, trying to earn a living to support his family. Transcending the limits facing black men in 1960s Mississippi, Jackson became a factory foreman. But Jackson wanted more, he wanted a more egalitarian future for his children and thus served as the treasurer for the local chapter of the NAACP.
In Mississippi, even two years after the Voting Rights Act passed, this was dangerous. The Silver Dollar Group, which consisted of Klansmen who believed deeply in violence, sought to put an end to any form of black integration and social elevation. On Feb. 27, 1967, in Natchez, Mississippi, Wharlest Jackson was killed by a car bomb many now believe was orchestrated by the Silver Dollar Group.
After his murder, the FBI generated more than 10,000 pages of documents to identify the suspects, but the files were never released and the murderers never charged.
Today, almost 50 years later, the FBI still hasn’t solved the Jackson murder or more than 100 similar cases. If any justice is to be served and closure brought to the victims’ families, the government must “crowdsource” the investigation and allow the public to review the raw case materials. Investigative reporters, local prosecutors and historians are the last, best chance to resolve these crimes.
But right now, that is nearly impossible thanks to archaic laws that restrict the release of case materials. Without reforming this system and providing the public access to these files, Jackson and many other victims will never receive the justice they deserve.
The most important prerequisite to approaching any civil rights case is having the necessary background information, texts and transcripts to use as evidence. To obtain these pieces of text, one must fill out a Freedom of Information Act request, which is a formal request to the federal government for a certain document or group of documents. Though this process may seem straightforward, it is actually extremely inefficient and time-consuming.
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