Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke Delivers Remarks at the Civil Rights Division’s Cold Case Convening

I am pleased to talk with you today about the Civil Rights Division’s cold case initiative.

As many of you know, this month marks the 69th anniversary of the trial of the two men who murdered Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi. Despite strong evidence and an in-court identification, those men were acquitted by an all-white jury that deliberated for less than two hours. The men did, in fact, kill Emmett Till. They later admitted it. But both escaped punishment. They — and, apparently, the jury — believed that lynching this 14-year-old child was justified because he was Black and had whistled at a white woman.

The trial of Emmett Till’s killers is one of the most notorious examples of racial injustice common throughout the South — and across the entire country — in the Jim Crow era. Black people were brutally killed, bombed or lynched, sometimes after being accused of crimes they had not committed and sometimes just to keep them “in their place.”

Their families, friends and communities had to suffer the loss of their loved ones as well as the unspeakable pain of imagining their last dreadful moments. But that pain was all too often followed by another type of anguish caused by the indifference, encouragement or even complicity of the criminal justice system. Far too often, local prosecutors, courts and the white community did nothing or, as with Emmett Till’s murder, rendered a verdict that communicated an unmistakable message to the victim’s family: your loved one did not matter. You need only to walk the aisles of the National Lynching Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, to begin to appreciate the toll of this reign of racial terror.

Congress enacted the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act to see if some measure of justice could be achieved for the long-ignored victims of racial violence. The Act allows the department to investigate death-resulting civil rights crimes that occurred on or before Dec. 31, 1979. The Civil Rights Division has taken the lead in investigating these cold cases. Since I became Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, we have enhanced our Cold Case Unit to undertake this work. The unit now has expanded in size and in its capacity to investigate cold cases. In addition, we have the able assistance of two retired FBI agents, whom you will meet here. These investigators meet with survivors, families and witnesses to fully explore the facts surrounding these cold case murders. Working with our colleagues in the FBI and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices across the country, we are committed to investigating cold case murders to determine whether anyone can be brought to justice.

Despite these additional resources, we face formidable hurdles not just in identifying perpetrators but also in prosecuting them. Federal prosecution is often legally impossible because no federal hate crime laws existed at the time of the crime that would have given the federal government jurisdiction over these racial atrocities.

In other instances, the federal government is unable to act because the statute of limitations has expired. In that event, we may refer a case to state and local authorities to see they can prosecute it under a murder statute whose statute of limitations has not expired. When we make those referrals, we stand ready to assist should state or local officials need it. You will hear about one of these cases later today, In re Henry Marrow, which involves a young Black man in North Carolina who was killed after allegedly saying something “offensive” to a white woman. However, state prosecution, too, often proves impossible due to the death of key witnesses and suspects, or the destruction of evidence.

After a full examination of the facts, when cases cannot be prosecuted, we will issue a full report on the crime. In the words of Ida B. Wells, one of this nation’s most staunch antilynching advocates, “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” We hope that official reports, which reflect the Justice Department’s exhaustive efforts to seek justice, at bare minimum, prevent these victims and the tragic ordeals they endured from being lost to history.

We investigate these cases regardless of whether they are infamous or involve men and women whose names are not well known but whose family, friends and community nonetheless mourn their loss.

But let me be clear. We do not limit our cold-case work to cases from the 70s — or even cases from the 40s, 50s or 60s. I want to tell you about a review and evaluation that the Civil Rights Division’s Cold Case Unit is undertaking of the Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the deadliest episodes of mass racial violence in this nation’s history. On May 31 and June 1, 1921, a white mob attacked a then thriving Black community: the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, sometimes referred to as the “Black Wall Street.” When our review and evaluation conclude, we will issue a public report detailing our findings and conclusions pursuant to the Emmett Till Cold Case Act.

The immediate catalyst for the riot was, as with Emmett Till’s murder, the claim that a Black youth had inappropriately engaged with a white woman. The young man, Dick Rowland, was arrested. White men went to the jail to demand that he be released to face mob justice. Members of the Black community assembled at the courthouse to try to prevent a lynching. An altercation broke out. In response, a white mob invaded Greenwood. The mob burned more than 35 square blocks of the community, destroying businesses and homes and killing hundreds of Black men, women and children, although the exact toll remains uncertain. Some suspect that the aim of the white mob was, all along, to appropriate the wealth of the Black community, and that the allegations against Mr. Rowland were merely an excuse.

While this race massacre happened 103 years ago, in 1921, we acknowledge that there are two survivors, Viola Fletcher (Mother Fletcher) and Lessie Benningfield Randle (Mother Randle), and one victim who passed away late last year, Hugh Van Ellis, known as Uncle Red. We acknowledge descendants of the survivors, and the victims continue to bear the trauma of this act of racial terrorism. We have no expectation that there are living perpetrators who could be criminally prosecuted by us or by the state. Although a commission, historians, lawyers and others have conducted prior examinations of the Tulsa Massacre, we, the Justice Department, never have.

We honor the legacy of the Tulsa Race Massacre survivors, Emmett Till, the Act that bears his name, this country and the truth by conducting our own review and evaluation of the massacre. We thus are examining available documents, witness accounts, scholarly and historical research and other information on the massacre. When we have finished our federal review, we will issue a report analyzing the massacre in light of both modern and then-existing civil rights law. We hope to have our overall review finalized by the end of the year.

As civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson has observed, “Somebody has to stand when other people are sitting. Somebody has to speak when everyone else is quiet.”

To its credit, Tulsa has itself launched a new review of the massacre and proposed remedial steps. We will not interfere with this effort but rather hope to include in our review any information Tulsa gathers or steps it takes.

If anyone has materials that are not available in a curated collection, please send that information to our cold case email inbox, using the subject line “Tulsa Race Massacre.”

The primary reason for this convening is to underscore the significance of the Emmett Till Cold Case Act and to encourage everyone, including those in the racial justice and cold case communities, to provide us information about unsolved cases we should investigate. Indeed, we have a specially dedicated cold case inbox, which is monitored daily, so that any member of the public can provide us information. The address, which was in the invitation we sent you, is Coldcase.Civilrights@usdoj.gov. We are particularly interested in unsolved cases from the 70s, the decade added by the Till Act’s reauthorization, as that is the decade in which we are most likely to find living perpetrators to possibly prosecute, along with living witnesses to possibly testify.

I began my comments by talking about the trial of the men who murdered Emmett Till. Emmett Till’s murder, in Money, Mississippi, in 1955, was an important catalyst of the civil rights movement. His mother, Mamie Till Mobley, made the extraordinarily brave decision to let the world see the brutalized body of her son. Emmett’s death was thus widely covered by the media. It shocked the conscience of the nation and led to the civil rights advocacy and activism of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Many of the federal civil rights laws currently enforced by attorneys in my division owe their origins to the resulting outrage and advocacy that followed Emmett Till’s horrific murder.

Understanding the profound influence Emmett Till’s death had upon our country, Congress named in his honor the statute that provides us authority to investigate civil rights era cold cases. We use the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act every time we investigate a cold case murder. But, of course, Emmett Till should not be remembered only as the inspiration for civil rights laws. He should not be remembered only as a martyr, or only as a victim. He was also a son, a nephew, a cousin. He was a child who has been missed and mourned by his family since his death.

We are honored to have with us today a member of Emmett Till’s family, Reverend Wheeler Parker. Reverend Parker is Emmett Till’s cousin. He was present in Money, Mississippi, when Emmett Till went to Bryant’s grocery store and had the fateful interaction with Carolyn Bryant that led to his violent lynching death. Reverend Parker, who was then only 16, was present in Mose Wright’s house days later when white men with guns abducted Emmett. Reverend Parker thus lived through an ordeal which would have crushed the spirit of many of us. His grace in bearing the memory of these events is inspiring, as is his insistence that neither his cousin’s death, nor his life, should ever be forgotten. Indeed, he has recently published his testimony and life story in a book about this topic called A Few Days Full of Trouble. The following lines are from his book:

“Following the 2020 killings of Ahmad Arbury and Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, some young activists were heard saying, ‘This is our Emmett Till moment.’ In his last essay published in the New York Times after his death, representative John Lewis flipped the script when he wrote that Emmett Till was his George Floyd. Many other civil rights and Black Power activists have said that the slaying of Emmett Till marks the beginning of their activism. But what does all this mean? We can't even begin to answer that question without setting the record straight, and taking away a deeper understanding of the Emmett Till moment I lived through and continue to live through every day I live.”

I am deeply honored to welcome Reverend Parker to say a few words about his cousin Emmett Till and the law that bears Emmett Till’s name.