Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) released the following statement commemorating the 44^th anniversary of the murders of three young civil rights workers – James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner – in Nashoba County, Mississippi.

“On June 21, 1964, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were brutally beaten and murdered by a gang of KKK members because of their work to register black voters in rural Mississippi. It took decades, but in 2005, the ringleader in these brutal killings was finally brought to justice and will live the rest of his life behind bars. But while Edgar Ray Killen was eventually convicted for the murder of these three young men, many of these heinous Civil Rights era crimes remain unsolved, and their perpetrators remain unpunished. 

“It is our responsibility to right the wrongs of the past and bring to justice the people who perpetrated crimes based solely on racial hatred, which is why I will continue to fight for the passage of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act in the Senate. While we cannot bring back those who died at the hands of racist criminals, we can at least reaffirm our nation’s commitment to seek the truth and work to make equal justice a reality.”

Dodd is the author of The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, a bill that would provide the Department of Justice and the FBI with the ability to reopen Civil Rights-era criminal cases which have gone cold. The bill was approved by the House of Representatives last year by a vote of 422 to 2 and is currently pending before the Senate.