Researchers aim to shed light on civil rights cold cases with ties to Ga.

DECATUR, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - A small cohort of researchers will continue their work reviewing Civil Rights-era cold cases, thanks to a bipartisan bill championed in part by Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff.

The Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board, a team of researchers assembled to research and review racially motivated killings between the 1940s and 1980s, was first established in 2018. Many of the cases have ties to Georgia.

The concept for the review team was originally crafted by an AP government class at Hightstown High School in New Jersey, who realized many important documents that shed truth on old Civil Rights-era crimes were difficult to get through traditional channels.

Bringing their proposal to Congress, it ed with bipartisan . The bill was signed by President Donald Trump at the end of his first term, and of the team – including two Emory researchers – were seated under President Joe Biden’s istration.

Last month, with the help of a bipartisan group of senators, Ossoff ed legislation that will extend the board’s work through 2027.

The goal of the work isn’t to necessarily solve the crimes. In conjunction with the FBI, Department of Justice and National Archives, the team sorts through pages of documents – over 1,500 of them tied to 15 cold cases and 20 victims so far – to release previously redacted or missing information, painting a more complete picture of the crimes.

“Clearly it was a fertile area for research,” said Hank Klibanoff, an Emory professor and member of the cold case review team that spent decades researching and reporting on the Civil Rights movement.

“We are just trying to get the paperwork released so that people can reach a judgement on what it is,” he said. “Not ‘whodunnit’ – it’s not about how it happened. It’s really something that’s much larger than that: seeing the patterns across the South.”

Klibanoff and his colleague, Gabrielle Dudley, are both part of the small team and both happen to work at Emory. Dudley, an archivist and chair of the school’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, says it’s about transparency and offering comfort and clarity to surviving family of the victims.

“Eighty years went by before they had answers. This is deeply emotional work, this is deeply important work that we’re doing,” she said. “The work that we’re doing is going to impact the way that American history is being told going forward because now people will have more information about what happened during the Civil Rights movement and in ways that may show that our country did not do justice to these victims and to their families, unfortunately.”

The team will release documents on another nine cases this month. For those they’ve already worked on, the documents tied to each case are ed to a public portal for anyone to access.

One of the cases the team recently released records on was that of Crispon Herbert Charles, Jr.

The 21-year-old New Orleans veteran got into a family disagreement on July 4, 1949. Police were called, and after an alleged scuffle with officers, Charles was shot seven times as he sat in the back of the police car.

On July 11, 1949, a grand jury issued a vote of “no true bills.” According to FBI files, a stenographer was not present at the proceedings and thus no transcript of the minutes from the hearing exists.

The stories differed between police and witness testimony, including Charles’ father, who was there when arresting officers killed his son. The case was reopened later that year.

Louisiana attorney James McCain made a request to the district attorney on the basis of four new witness statements that indicated that Charles Jr. was “wantonly and unnecessarily killed.” In his letter, McCain wrote, “Charles at the time was in the automobile and was shot six or seven times by the policeman, who stood on the outside and shot into the car. Charles had no weapon of any kind.”

The FBI dropped the case and the outcome of civil action filed by Charles’ family is unknown.

But research by the Civil Rights review team uncovered new documents they were able to present to Charles’ surviving family, including his niece, Wanda Charles, a Gwinnett County teacher.

New newspaper clippings, documents, and even a picture of Crispon Charles brought Wanda a new type of relief and comfort.

“Now that I have something tangible, I can see it, share it with my family, digest it,” said Wanda. “When I used to talk about this story I would weep with hopelessness. But now, the more that I tell this story, and the more that I learn, I recognize that I am full of hope now. I am full of hope for a brighter tomorrow.”

For decades, an oral history of Crispon’s killing was all the family had – records were too heavily redacted or too difficult to obtain – until the board took on the case.

“Now we actually have evidence that yes, indeed, it did happen, yes indeed, it did happen the way I told you that it happened, that the story is true, that I didn’t make anything up,” said Wanda. “It is there in the evidence.”

Since learning more about her uncle’s case, Wanda has founded a literacy nonprofit named for him. A few weeks ago, she provided books to over 200 Gwinnett County fifth graders and spoke to their class about the importance of righting civil wrongs.

“For me, discussing it has brought a lot of healing to me,” she said. “Many times things are buried. But now I believe that we are in a new arena, we’re in a time for reconciliation, and I am happy to be a part of it.”

To see all 15 cases the board has worked on, click here.

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