Calls increase to reopen case in ’64 slayings

The Clarion-Ledger, 12/5/7

The Justice Department should reopen the Mississippi Burning case involving the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers, Southern Poverty Law Center officials said Tuesday.

“The FBI should be focusing its resources on the civil rights-era cases where there were significant investigations at the time of the crimes and where there are suspects who are still alive,” said Richard Cohen, the center’s president.

Justice Department officials are examining more than 100 killings from the civil rights era, names they obtained almost entirely from a list the center gave them earlier this year. Most of those cases were barely investigated at the time.