 | Racial Reckoning: Prosecuting America''s Civil Rights Murders Subjects: Trials (Murder) -- United States -- History; Civil rights movements -- United States -- History; African Americans -- Civil rights -- History -- 20th century; United States -- Race relations; Few whites who violently resisted the civil rights struggle were charged with crimes in the 1950s and 1960s. But the tide of a long-deferred justice began to change in 1994, when a Mississippi jury convicted Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers. Since then, more than one hundred murder cases have been reopened, resulting in more than a dozen trials. But how much did these public trials contribute to a public reckoning with America's racist past? Racial Reckoning investigates that question, along with the political pressures and cultural forces that compelled the legal system to revisit these decades-old crimes. Romano Renee C. : Renee C. Romano is Professor of History, Comparative American Studies, and Africana Studies at Oberlin College. |
