Jerry Mitchell

Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting

President Donald Trump signed a bill Tuesday that clears the way for the release of previously redacted FBI documents related to civil rights-era killings, many of which went unpunished.

More than 80 students at Hightstown High School in New Jersey were involved in conceiving, writing and lobbying for the legislation.

Their teacher, Stuart Wexler, said as far as he can tell from extensive research, this is the first high school class ever to draft a federal bill that became law.

Jay Vaingankar, 20, who was involved with the bill and is now a student at the University of Pennsylvania, said the bill’s passage reminds us “that even if justice is long delayed, it does not have to mean that justice is denied.”

Trump noted in signing the bill that it did not include the appropriation of additional funds, “which will likely place a significant strain on agency resources. I encourage the Congress to appropriate such funds.”

In the Senate, U.S. Senators Doug Jones, D-Alabama, Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, co-sponsored the legislation. In the House, U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Illinois, shepherded the bill.

Jones knows these cases well. In the early 2000s, he led the successful prosecutions of Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas Blanton in connection with the Ku Klux Klan’s bombing of a Birmingham church that killed four girls in 1963.

Jones said these records can play an important role, not only for the victims’ families but for communities and even relatives of those who committed these crimes.

“An incredible level of healing and reconciliation can accompany knowledge,” he said. “Given the age of these cases and the fact it is highly unlikely that these cases could be resurrected, this is the way to get that healing and reconciliation.”

Wexler said when he told his students in 2015 about how many civil rights cold cases had gone unsolved and how many of those files remained redacted, they were upset.

The bill the students wrote creates an independent review board of experts to analyze and release government files on civil rights cold cases. The bill mirrors The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which cleared the way for releasing thousands of documents related to the assassination.

On Jan. 31, 1964, Louis Allen was fatally ambushed in front of his home near Liberty, Mississippi, not long after he identified the killer of Herbert Lee as a Mississippi lawmaker.

Allen’s grandson, who bears the same name, said he has seen the FBI documents on the case. “The majority of it is redacted,” he said.

Opening the records so that the family can finally learn the truth “would mean as much as it would to a person who grew up in South Africa and had the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” he said.

Even without justice, he said, opening the records would provide “at least a measure of hope that the system has changed.”

Louisiana journalist Stanley Nelson, who has been investigating the 1965 killing of deputy Oneal Moore in Bogalusa, said the bill has the potential to aid investigations of civil rights cold cases “by light years.”

Nelson, who was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his work in reopening the 1964 killing of Frank Morris, said one of the most frustrating things is so many parts of the FBI files are redacted, blotting out the names of suspects or witnesses in cases.

As a result, it “may take months, if not years, trying to figure out who they are and then figure out if they are alive or dead,” he said.

Unredacted FBI files would mean “what has been a constant struggle the last 10 years of my life would suddenly be a struggle no more,” he said.

One of the students who worked on the bill, Risheek Somu, 17, said that “the families were our inspiration for writing the bill. Their stories and cries of justice for their loved ones meant a lot to us and gave us the drive and determination to formulate this amazing bill. It feels extremely rewarding knowing that we have given the families hope to get the justice they deserve through releasing the documents that have been concealed for years.”

Vikram Srinath, 17, believes the bill can help bring reconciliation.

“With the nation being as divided as it is today, a bill that everyone — except for radical racists and those of the like — can sympathize with is groundbreaking,” he said. “For the victims, the fact that they can finally receive closure after years of waiting, and to be a part of that process, the feeling is just indescribable.”

Abigail Nickerson, now a 20-year-old student at Vanderbilt University, said the bill means “we as Americans are not content to forget about racial injustices of the past but are committed to uncovering the truth and achieving justice wherever possible.”

The bill becoming law “has helped restore my faith in our political system,” she said. “We were not large corporations, billionaires or family members of those in power, but concerned citizens with an idea and the willingness to persevere. The fact that we were able to get the attention of our congressmen and see our idea turn into a law proves that there is hope for our political system.”

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