Family members of Emmett Till are urging the U.S. Attorney General to implement the law that allows prosecutors to re-investigate civil rights murder cases. MPB's Alexis Ware reports on the Emmett Till Civil Rights Crimes Act.
"When we heard about the news about Emmett Till and that was about the worst thing. I'd seen a lot of bad things but that was the worst thing I could have heard of."
That's Willie Blue. He was 16 living in Charleston when Emmett Till was murdered in 1955 in Money-- just a few towns over.
"That let all of us young boys, teenage boys know what kind of trouble we were really in."
Till was a 14-year-old boy from Chicago who was kidnapped, tortured and killed for whistling at a white woman. Now, decades later, the woman Carolyn Donham is saying she wasn't telling the truth.
Deborah Watts, the cousin of Emmett Till, is now pushing Attorney General Sessions to enforce the law allowing civil rights cases to be investigated.
Watts spoke to MSNBC. She says simply passing the law isn't enough.
"The implementation of the bill needs to take place. There are other families out there that have no justice. They don't know the truth about some of their loved ones that have been murdered. There's been no adjudication there's been no answers. So, they deserve that."
For Watts, enforcing the law will require communication between the families and the justice system.
"We need to develop a master plan where we have open lines of communications with the justice department also the ability to work with them as appropriate and within the law."
Watts says she's confident in the commitment of the Attorney General to work together and find a pathway to justice.
