Bush signs Emmett Till bill into Law
President Bush signed the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act this Tuesday after the Senate unanimously passed the measure last week. Senator Cochran, an original cosponsor of the bill, praised its passage. Read the article below for more details.
Bush signs Till measure to create special unit
Jerry Mitchell • jmitchell@clarionledger.com • October 8, 2008
President Bush signed a bill into law Tuesday that would create a cold-cases unit to prosecute unpunished crimes from the civil rights era.
The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act will give the Justice Department $10 million a year to examine civil rights killings from before 1970 and $3.5 million to help local law enforcement conducting such investigations.
“We’re happy the president has now made the Till bill the law of the land,” said Alvin Sykes of Kansas City, architect of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act. “These perpetrators will now be the subject of the most comprehensive criminal manhunt in this country’s history.”
The bill is named after Till, an African-American teenager from Chicago who was beaten and killed Aug. 28, 1955, after he reportedly wolf-whistled at a white woman in Money. An all-white jury in Tallahatchie County acquitted Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, who went on to confess their involvement to Look magazine.
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Tags: bush signs bill into law, civil rights case, cold cases bill, Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act
