Mo. activist pushes FBI to probe hate crimes cases

By Sheila EllisJuly 13, 2009
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A Kansas City man who was the driving force behind an effort to bring civil rights-era offenders to justice is preparing to meet with Attorney General Eric Holder to jump-start efforts to find criminals because “people are dying and memories are fading.”

Alvin Sykes is widely credited with the idea behind the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which authorized up to $135 million over 10 years for investigations of civil rights-era killings and established a permanent cold case unit in the Justice Department.

The law is named for the black 14-year-old boy from Chicago who was lynched for whistling at a white woman while visiting relatives in Mississippi in 1955. Sykes persuaded the Justice Department to re-investigate Till’s case in 2004. No one has been convicted.

Sykes plans to meet with Holder to urge him to focus more energy on finding witnesses, victims and evidence before it’s too late. The meeting with Holder had been set for Tuesday, but the two sides are rescheduling because Holder will be traveling.

“People are dying and memories are fading,” Sykes said in an interview last week with The Associated Press. “The president of the United States and the U.S. attorney general need to step up to the plate and tell this country that we mean business and that this is not just show.”

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