The Justice Department’s decision to close its investigation of Emmett Till’s slaying all but ended the possibility of new charges in the teen’s death 66 years ago, yet agents are still probing as many as 20 other civil rights “cold cases,” including the police killings of 13 Black men in three Southern states decades ago.
The department is reviewing the killings of six men shot by police during a racial rebellion in Augusta, Georgia, in 1970, according to the agency’s latest report to Congress. The city best known for hosting golf’s Masters Tournament had been engulfed by riots after a Black teenager was beaten to death in the county jail.
The agency also is investigating the killings of seven other Black men involved in student protests in South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana during the societal upheaval of the late 1960s and early ‘70s. And investigators are looking at cases in which seven more individuals were killed, including a girl in Pennsylvania, the report showed.
Read this story now for free
To continue reading, sign up for our newsletter and get unlimited access to WABE.org
You can select your preferences for news and local content. We will never share your email address. Learn how your newsletter sign-up will support WABE and Public Media
