President Obama signs 'emmett till bill' to reopen unsolved civil rights cases

Justice will finally be served…

Before leaving office in January, President Obama has signed a legislation that allows the Department of Justice and the FBI to reopen unsolved civil rights crimes from the 1960’s and earlier. 

The Emmet Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act got its name from the 14-year-old Chicago native who was kidnapped from his uncle’s home in Mississippi and brutally lynched in 1955 by two white men for whistling at a white woman.

This bill was created to seek justice for racially-motivated crimes.

According to TheHuffingtonPost.com, the bill was first introduced by activist Alvin Sykes in 2005 after promising Till’s mother that he would pursue her son’s case after the two men were acquitted, USA Today reports. 

The new 2016 version of this bill will call for “the full accounting of all victims whose deaths or disappearances were the result of racially-motivated crimes” and for authorities to hold criminals accountable. The law summary also states that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI will keep families regularly informed about the status of the investigations as well as making case information accessible to the public.

The original bill that was signed in 2007 that was set to expire next year, limited any investigations before 1970. With this new bill it is allowing more cases to be opened in the hopes of bringing justice to so many families.