Cold-Case Murders From the Civil Rights Movement May Be Solved

By Ericka Blount Danois

Last weekend, more than 70 relatives of people murdered during the civil rights era gathered in Atlanta for the "Never Too Late for Justice" retreat, hosted by Syracuse University College of Law's Cold Case Justice Initiative.

"We need to come together so we can share, hear each others' stories and help heal," says Shelton Chappell (pictured above), whose mother was murdered by four white men who are still walking free. "Just as the families of victims of 9/11 have found a closeness, so can the relatives of people who died by homegrown violence," he said. "This was terrorism, too."

Janis J. McDonald, a Syracuse professor of law and co-director of the initiative, said the project was founded in 2007, after she was contacted by relatives of Frank Morris, a Ferriday, La., shoe-shop owner who was murdered in December 1964. They were frustrated because they could not get anyone to investigate his death.

Morris' shop was set ablaze and gunmen forced him back into the building, where he was burned and later died of his injuries. His case remains unsolved.

Law students, under the supervision of McDonald and co-director Paula C. Johnson pored over thousands of pages of documents and worked with local investigative journalists to find new witnesses. They also pushed for federal officials to investigate his murder.

"We realized that the families were living this daily," McDonald said. "Many of these family members were between 8 and 12 when they witnessed or experienced the loss of their relatives."

She said families are coming for different reasons: Some want to share their stories, others seek to have their relatives' death certificates changed to reflect homicide and others are pursuing justice against the murderers.

"The larger question that our society has never answered is about the role of law enforcement" in some of the deaths, she said. In some cases, they looked the other way and never fully investigated. In others, officers may have participated directly.

The families arrived last Friday for a private, facilitated retreat, which continued on Saturday. There was a public panel discussion that addressed the legal, historical and societal impact of the killings.

McDonald expects more families to come forward as word spreads.

These are the sort of cold-case files that need to be investigated and solved to bring these families closure and fulfill the civil rights mission that so many everyday people and leaders died for.

Watch McDonald and Johnson talk about the Cold Case Justice Initiative here: