美国继续调查民权运动时期谋杀案

 

The United States will continue to investigate unsolved murders of black people during the civil rights period.

President Barack Obama recently signed into law a bill that continues a 2008 law requiring the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the crimes.

The bill’s sponsor is Congressman¹ John Lewis of Georgia. Lewis, a civil rights leader during the 1960s, suffered a skull² fracture when he was beaten by police in 1965 during a civil rights march in Alabama.

When the bill was first approved in 2008, Lewis hoped it would provide a “full accounting³” of murders and other violence during America’s civil rights era. Most victims were African-Americans, but non-black supporters of civil rights also were targeted.

Progress Has Been Slow

In a 2015 report, the Justice Department said little progress had been made.

The department said it investigated 113 unsolved cases dating from 1934 to 1967. The department said it completed 105 of the investigations⁵.

The department reported that bringing criminal charges in any of the cases is “unlikely.”

The Justice Department report said federal power is limited. It said federal hate crime laws took effect too late to apply to murders during the civil rights period.

It also said investigating old cases is difficult because “witnesses die or can no longer be located,” people forget what they saw, and “evidence is destroyed or lost."

One Successful Prosecution⁶

The Justice Department pointed⁷ to its successful criminal case against James Ford⁸ Seale. He was found guilty of federal kidnapping charges 42 years after prosecutors⁹ said he tortured and killed two black teenagers near the Mississippi-Louisiana border in 1964. Seale died in 2011. But that case was filed before the 2008 law took effect.

The department points to a successful state prosecution of a civil rights murder case after the law’s passage.

Lewis said the new law passed by Congress and approved by President Obama improves the 2008 law. It requires the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation⁴, or FBI, to work with civil rights groups and universities to find evidence.

The new law directs federal officials to work together with state and local law enforcement offices.

As supporters of the law point out, many crimes targeting blacks and other civil rights workers in the 1950s and 1960s were not investigated by local police agencies.

“Investigators can now work to discover the truth and to seek justice under our legal system for the families of these victims,” said Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina. “Every American is worthy¹⁰ of the protection of our laws.”

The bill is named for Emmett Till. Till was a 14-year-old African-American from Chicago. He was brutally¹¹ murdered in 1955 while visiting family in Mississippi. Reports at the time said some whites were angry over reports he had flirted¹³ with a white woman.

An all-white jury in Mississippi found the two white men charged with Till’s murder not guilty.

Dark Period in Modern American History

Congressman John Conyers of Michigan said the Emmett Till Act is an effort to bring to justice people responsible for crimes from one of the darkest periods in modern American history.

Law students at Syracuse University in New York have joined the investigations. Led by two professors, Paula Johnson and Janis McDonald, Syracuse law students found 196 possible cases for criminal charges.

McDonald is disappointed that the Justice Department has not moved on any of the 196 cases. She said the new law extends the time in which crimes can be investigated past the original deadline of 1969 by 10 years.

Her hope is that the new Trump¹⁴ administration will want to show the public its willingness to fight racial injustice¹⁵ by bringing charges against people who escaped charges in the past.

Johnson said that, when she and McDonald travel, they often hear from “relatives who believed they lost loved ones due to racial violence.”

“We take their claims seriously and conduct our own investigations and we’ll continue to do so,” Johnson said.

Words in This Story

skull fracture - n. a blow to the head strong enough to break a bone in the cranial portion of the skull

accounting - n. a report of what happened

locate - v. to find

file –v. to give a document to an official for consideration

brutally - adv. done in an extremely cruel or harsh way

flirt¹² - v. to behave in a way that shows an attraction for someone but is not meant to be taken seriously

due - v. required or expected to happen

conduct - v. to do something

1 Congressman   

n.（美）国会议员

参考例句：

• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman.他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。
• The congressman is meditating a reply to his critics.这位国会议员正在考虑给他的批评者一个答复。

2 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

3 accounting   

n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表

参考例句：

• A job fell vacant in the accounting department.财会部出现了一个空缺。
• There's an accounting error in this entry.这笔账目里有差错。

4 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

5 investigations   

（正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究

参考例句：

• His investigations were intensive and thorough but revealed nothing. 他进行了深入彻底的调查，但没有发现什么。
• He often sent them out to make investigations. 他常常派他们出去作调查。

6 prosecution   

n.起诉，告发，检举，执行，经营

参考例句：

• The Smiths brought a prosecution against the organizers.史密斯家对组织者们提出起诉。
• He attempts to rebut the assertion made by the prosecution witness.他试图反驳原告方证人所作的断言。

7 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

8 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

9 prosecutors   

检举人( prosecutor的名词复数 )； 告发人； 起诉人； 公诉人

参考例句：

• In some places,public prosecutors are elected rather than appointed. 在有些地方，检察官是经选举而非任命产生的。 来自口语例句
• You've been summoned to the Prosecutors' Office, 2 days later. 你在两天以后被宣到了检察官的办公室。

10 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

11 brutally   

adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地

参考例句：

• The uprising was brutally put down.起义被残酷地镇压下去了。
• A pro-democracy uprising was brutally suppressed.一场争取民主的起义被残酷镇压了。

12 flirt   

v.调情，挑逗，调戏；n.调情者，卖俏者

参考例句：

• He used to flirt with every girl he met.过去他总是看到一个姑娘便跟她调情。
• He watched the stranger flirt with his girlfriend and got fighting mad.看着那个陌生人和他女朋友调情，他都要抓狂了。

13 flirted   

v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She flirted her fan. 她急速挥动着扇子。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• During his four months in Egypt he flirted with religious emotions. 在埃及逗留的这四个月期间，他又玩弄起宗教情绪来了。 来自辞典例句

14 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

15 injustice   

n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利

参考例句：

• They complained of injustice in the way they had been treated.他们抱怨受到不公平的对待。
• All his life he has been struggling against injustice.他一生都在与不公正现象作斗争。