International Human Rights & Law Part II
Accountability for Human Rights Violations
The Final Solution
12 million people killed by the Nazis (6 million European Jews)
Nuremberg Trials
Germany had killed 100,000+ German civilians (mentally, ill, handicapped, elderly)
3.5 million Russian POWs
500,000 Roma (Gypsies)
Questions derived from trials:
How do we prosecute crimes of this magnitude?
Prosecute military leaders?
Persercute civillian leaders?
Prosecute those who actually carried out atrocities?
Proposals for accounting Nazis:
Russia Proposal
Execute all 50,00 German Officers (Premier Joseph Stalin of the USSR)
Show trial
U.S. Proposal
Insistence on the judicial process of some like (President Henry Truman)
Prosecutors and defense attorneys
Independent judge
Examinations and cross-examination
Britain Proposal
No juries, no separate prosecutor
judge= prosecutor
Trial an investigation by a judge
Nuremberg Trials– Final Model
No jury- independent judges to decide
Each allied country (USA, USSR, France, Russia, Britain) names a judge and a prosecutor
4 judges, 4 prosecutors
Chief Prosecutor: Judge Robert Jackson of the U.S. Supreme Court
U.S. selection for the Muremberg Judge: former Attorney General Francis Biddle
Key Precedent: Command Control Theory
Military leaders are liable for what their troops do
Actual control of troops
Comaders knew or did nothing to prevent or prosecute
1474: 1st international war trial
German knight & commander accused of allowing his troops to rape, pillage, and murder
Convicted by 27 judges of the Holy Roman Empire and executed
Classic Charge of War Crimes
Crimes committed by the military
In times of war
Against the military or civilians of a hostile country
Include
Killing civilians in an occupied territory
Killing POWs
Enslaving civilians for forced labor
Gaps
Crimes the Nazis committed against German citizens (especially German Jews)
Crimes the Nazis committed against civilians in countries allied with Germany (Italy, Hungary, Romania)
Mass killings outside the scope of the war
New Charge: Crimes Against Humanity
Inhumane acts committed against the civilian population
Murder, extermination, enslavement
Civilians as well as the military could be charged
Limitation: crimes had to be planned and systematic (single offense did not qualify)
The indictments
22 Nazi leaders indicted (civilian and military)
Highest ranking: Hermann Goering (2nd in command to Hitler)
Included generals, admirals, political leaders, and civilians who ran the arms industry
German Defenses
(1) The Goering Defense
This was a show trial with no jurisdiction and was merely “victor’s justice” … He and his fellow Germans could only be tried under German law
Jacksin’s Response
“If these men are the first war leaders of a defeated nation to be prosecuted in the name of the law, they are also the first to be given a chance to plead for their lives in the name of the law”
(2) The Ex Post Facto Defense
Things the Germans were charged with were not crimes under international law at the time they happened
This is retroactive prosecution
You can’t be charged with something that wasn't a crime when committed
Jackson’s Response
“There is no injustice in punishing defendants for something they knew was wrong even if the action was not specifically covered by international law”
(3) The State Crime Defense
It was the German state that committed these crimes… not individuals
Jacskson’s response
“Individuals commit atrocities… individuals must be prosecuted”
*command control theory: leaders are responsible for what their subordinates do
(4) Superior Orders Defense
We were only following orders
The defense of lower-level officers and soldiers who carried out atrocities at the command of superior officers
Jackson’s Response
“This is not a defense… lower level soldiers are to be prosecuted for the offenses they commit, whether or not they have been given orders”
“There is an obligation to disobey orders when they involve committing a human rights violation”
Nuremberg Trial Verdicts
11 condemned to death
3 life sentences
3 given prison terms
3 found non-guilty
Nuremberg Trial Legacy
It was victor’s justice… But with due process of law (something Nazis never gave the victims)
Imperfect justice, but justice
Individuals at the highest level of government can be prosecuted for human rights violations by an international tribunal
Following orders is no longer a defense
Both civilians and the military can be prosecuted
Command control theory is now an established part of international law
This first time film was used as evidence
First-time simultaneous translation was used (introduced by a small company called Xerox)
Called the most significant trial ever
UN Convention Against Genocide
UN adopts it on December 9, 1948 (one day before the UDHR)
Meant to address crimes perpetrated against entire peoples
A direct result of the Nazi Holocaust
Convention: binding treaty
Lifetime project of one man: Rafael Lemkin
Lemkin personally coins the term
Spends decades trying to make it part of international law
Attempts to make it one of the changes at the Nuremberg Trials were unsuccessful
Convinces UN to make it the first major human rights treaty (one day before UDHR)
Lemkin spends the rest of his life trying to get the USA to ratify it
The long fight of Senator Proxmire
Becomes a great advocate of the U.S. ratification of the Genocide Convention
For 19 years, gives daily speeches in the U.S. senate
Genocide: the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group
Missing political groups
Countries that ratify the treaty pledge to prevent as well as prosecute genocide
Little done with the Genocide Convention for over 40 years (a result of the Cold War)
Cambodian Genocide by Pol Pot
Pol Pot attempts to turn Cambodia into a completely agrarian country and eliminate all Western education & influence
“Purges” Cambodia with genocide that takes the lives of almost 3 million people
Children are encouraged to inform on their parents and even kill them
Communist North Vietnam finally intervenes to stop “The Killing Feilds”
1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall ends Cold War
But genocide breaks out in the early 1990s in Ex-Yugoslavia
Balkan War breaks out in 1991
Serbia: orthodox Christian majority
Croatia: Catholic majority
Bosnia: Muslim major
Serbian army and Serb parliamentarians try to both expand Serbia and ethnically cleanse it
“Ethnic cleansing” is not only an “effect” of the conflict but becomes its very goal
Expelling Craots and Bosnian Muslims through systematic rape, torture, and murder
Between 1993 and 1995 over 13,000 people were massacred, many in UN “safe havens”
3.5 million refugees
60,000 rapes of Muslim women
Concentration camps are once again present in Europe
“Rape camps” established in Bosnia
Rape suddenly emerges as a weapon of war
July 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8000 Muslim men and boys supposed “UN safe haven”
Sadly, the international community does little to stop the killing
U.S. & NATO afraid of “Viet Nam” repeat
European countries even refuse to accept Balkan refugees
The international community decides to prosecute rather than prevent the genocide
ICTY was established in 1993 in the Hague
Unlike Nuremberg not “victor’s justice: (Balkan War was still ongoing)
International Criminal Tribunal for Ex-Yugoslavia
Mandate of the ICTY
Violations of the Geneva Conventions
War Crimes
Crimes Against Humanity
Genocide
Similar to Nuremberg
Being a govt official does not give immunity
Superior orders not a defense
Command Control Theory applicable
Different from Nuremberg
11 judges of 11 different nationalities
There is an appeals process
No death penalty
Problems with the ICTY
Initially only lower-level soldiers prosecuted
Tribunal has no enforcement (police) powers
International powers that created ICTY send mixed political signals (1995 Dayton Peace Accords)
Successes with the ICTY
Genocide prosecuted for the 1st time
Customary international law strengthened (countries that commit war crimes and genocide can be punished0
Rape is considered torture crime against humanity
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
April- July 1994: an estimated 1 million Rwandans murdered (Tutsies and moderate Hutus)
Interhamwe death squads set up roadblocks nationwide
Genocide by machete
West fails to intervene
Clinton to U.S. State Department: “Call this ‘genocide-like’ rather than genocide”
Only Paul Kagame and the guerilla Rwandan Patriotic Force (RPF) finally stops the genocide
Kagame was elected Vice President and then President in the newly democratic Rwanda
UN set up ICTR in Arusha, Tanzania
Prosecuted same crimes at ICTY
Developed even more case law prosecuting rape as genocide
Has access to highest-level accused leaders
Akayesu case
Former mayor given 3 life sentences for genocide and rape (command control theory)
Kambada case
Former prime minister of Rwanda found guilty of genocide (1st time in history a head of government was convicted of genocide)
Successes of the ICTR
Has convicted the “biggest fish”
Greatly adopted case law on rape as genocide
Still prosecuting Huti television & radio broadcasters for genocide propaganda
Criticisms of the ICTR
“Neo-Colonialism” - ICTR has primary over Rwandan courts
Failure to prosecute alleged RPF atrocities
Disproportionate sentences compared to Rwandan courts
Gacaca “Grashland” Courts
Meant to relieve Rwanda’s overburdened prison system after the genocide
Tribal model… presided over by village elders
Victims confront perpetrators at the local level
Restorative justice predominates
The International Criminal Court
ICTY & ICTRr= ad hoc tribunals (have minted jurisdiction to address a specific human rights situation)
Soon there is a call by the world community to have a permanent international criminal tribunal
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
March 1998 Visit of President Clinton to Rwanda
First did not want to call it genocide and did not want to intervene and send troops
Ended up going to Rwanda and apologized for not intervening
June 1998: Rome Conference - 5 weeks long
160 nations participate
Result: Rome Statute for an International Criminal Court (ICC)
ICC Treaty approved 120- 7
China, Libya, Iraq, Israel, Qatar, Yemen… and USA voted against it
Clinton signs… one week later Bush “unsigns”
Required 60 countries ratify by April 2002
Treaty enters into force July 1, 2002
As of 2024, 124 countries have ratified treaty (including Canada, Great Britain, all of Latin America, and all of Western Europe)
China, Russia, India, USA continue to refuse
ICC now operative in the Hague
18 judges drawn from ratifying nations
Judges and chief prosecutor serve 9 yr terms
Prosecutors & defense attorneys drawn from states party to the treaty
No two judges from the same country
Victims have their own attorneys
Jurisdiction of the ICC
Importantly, ICC only complementary jurisdiction
Can only hear cases where countries are unable or unwilling to prosecute grave victims
ICC Treaty defines both situations
Inability= total or substantial collapse of the national judicial system
Unwilligness= requires a showing that national proceedings were undertaken in bad faith
Charges at the ICC
Genocide
War crimes
Crimes Against Humanity
Aggression (not yet defined)
Jurisdiction of the ICC
Three ways to trigger ICC Jurisdiction:
By State Party to the treat
Crime occurs in their country
Their national commits the crime
By the UN Security Council
By ICC prosecutor ( if 3 judges approve)
ICC Cases
Have focused on Africa
Indicted 40 people
Lubanga Case
Thomas Lubanga (DRC)
The 14-year sentence included exploitation of child soldiers and forced marriages
Bashir Case
President Omar Bashir (Sudan)
Ex-president of Sudan accused of Darfur genicide… deposed in 2019 jailed on corruption charges
Kony Case
Joseph Kony (Uganda)
Lord’s Resistance Army atrocities
Fugitive
Invisible Children campaign
ICC Politics
Russia now stands accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity
2024- ICC Chaeif Prosecutor Karim Khan applies arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar
Arrest request for Sinwar
Hostage-taking
Murder
Sexual violence
Arrest Request for Netanyahu
Civilian targeting
Starving civilians as a weapon of war
Note: neither arrest warrant has been issued
Truth Commissions
A middle ground between prosecutions and social amnesia (forgetting)
Used when prosecutions are not immediately possible
30+ countries have used this in transitional justice situations
Argentina (Nunca Mas)
Military dictatorship of 1976-1983
The fiasco of the 1982 Falklands War leads to the discrediting of the military regime
Argentina returned to democracy in 1984 but the military was still powerful
Argentina prosecutes the junta leaders
Question: what do we do with the thousands of others who committed torture and murder?
Established a truth commission (first of its kind)... made up of 10 prominent citizens
The commission was given 9 months to investigate the 30,000 forced disappearances
Did not have subpoena power
But compiled 50,000 pages of documents from interviews and eyewitness accounts
Revealed that the military had operated over 340 torture centers
Identified 1300 military officials involved in torture or disappearances
President did not release the names publicly
But list was leaked to the press and published
No other prosecutions were possible at the time
But the truth became known and could no longer be denied by the military
Did a great deal to restore accurate historical memory
Eschraches
Public justice
Mostly theatrical
Would ask questions like
“How does it feel like to live next to a torturer”
Brazil
Non-official
Long dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985)
Torture and disappearances
No event like the Falklands War to force the military out
Gradual return to democracy
1979 Amnesty Law passed by the military
Meant to look objective- offered amnesty to anyone accused of political crimes
Law ultimately leads to the very kind of truth-telling it was meant to suppress
Lawyers are allowed to take files of political prisoners for 24 hours to fill out amnesty application
They discovered that details of torture were included in each prisoner’s file
Amazing human rights protection evolves
Two religious leaders put together a secret project documenting the military use of torture
Lawyers spend 3 years checking out files overnight for amnesty applications
Warehouse in San Pablo has Xerox machines running 24 hours a day
Over a million pages of court documents hidden in a warehouse
Showed how the Brazillian military had tortured and how Brazillian courts had accepted this
1985: “Brasil Nunca Mais” appears in Brazilian bookstores overnight
Documented 282 types of torture
Confirmed doctors had been present
Names 44 known torturers
Became #1 bestseller in Brazilian history
Chile
Pinochet was in power from 1973-1990
Finally forced out in 1989 plebiscite
But finally protected by Amnesty law he had passed
No prosecution for anything that happened before 1978
Truth Commission given 9 months to work
But only allowed to look at human rights violations that resulted in death
Identified close to 3000 victims
Commission relied on the records of the Vicariate of Solidarity and evidence
Most important to the victims: Chilean Government acknowledged the role it had played in massive human rights violations
But no prosecutions and no attention to torture
Chileans continue to encounter their torturers on the streets, at church, and in shopping malls
One torture victim: President Michelle Bachelet
2nd Truth Commission in 2005
Finally addresses torture
The result of thousands of torture victims encountering their torturers on the streets
Victims' and torturers names not disclosed
South Africa
The apartheid state in South Africa ended in 1994 with the inauguration of Nelson Mandela
Has to confront over 50 years of massive human rights violation
Creates Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Based on the native African concept of ubuntu (where there are wrongs, everyone suffers and requires reconciliation and forgiveness)
Led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu
TRC Creates Amnesty Process
2 requirements
Politically motivated crime
Full disclosure by perpetrators
TRC goes for 3 years
7000 cases and public hearings
A great deal of truth- but less reconciliation
The general public is satisfied but victims are not
The Pinochet Case
When Pinochet stepped down he had created layers of immunity for himself
Amnesty law prohibiting prosecutions for crimes that occurred from 1973-1978
Had immunity as Senator for Life
Truth Commission could only investigate cases ending in death
All this meant to guarantee that neither he nor the military would ever be brought to justice
But the international legal landscape was changing
Universal Jurisdiction being introduced
The ability to prosecute the worst human rights offenders wherever they are found
Based on old English piracy laws: pirates can be hung by whoever finds them
A number of countries add universal jurisdiction to their laws in the 1990s
Spain
Denmark
France
Israel
Belgium
Netherlands
Germany
These countries allow their national courts to prosecute human rights violations that had occurred in other countries
Many state officials (such as Henry Kissinger) are very alarmed
In the early 1990s, Chilean torture survivors living in Spain began to file lawsuits against Pinohet
Judge Baltasar Garzon was put in charge of investigating their cases
Garzon begins tracking Pinochet's travels
Learns that Pinochet visited Great Britain frequently as an arms dealer and for shopping and medical trips
And to visit his good friend Maggie Thatcher
Garzon knows that Britain has ratified the Convention against Torture… and also has an extradition treaty with Spain
Garzon waits until Pinochet visits England for back surgery in 1998… and issues an arrest warrant for him on charges of torture
Pinochet is arrested by Scotland Yard detectives
Case becomes a two-year international legal battle
Goes all the way to the Law Lords (Britain’s Supreme Court)
First time in Convention Against Torture has been tested in national courts
Pinochet remained under house arrest in the UK
Maggie Thatcher very sympathetic to him
March 2000: CAT upheld by the law lords
But Britain decides Pinochet is too ill to face trial in Britain or Spain
Chooses instead to return him to Chile to face trial in his home country
Pinochet boards the plane in a wheelchair…
But once in Chile, walks off the plane and the Chilean military embraces him as a hero
But Chile had changed in the 2 years that Pinochet was away
Chilean Supreme Court revokes his immunity
He is indicted on charges of torture and forced disappearances
1973 Caravan of Death (helicopter death squad)
New Judicial interpretation on the investigation of forced disappearances in Chile
Until the body has been found, the case is one of kidnapping and not covered by amnesty law
The military must disclose where the body is or face prosecution
Pinochet claimed dementia in 2001 to avoid prosecution
Chilean court rules has suffered speech and memory loss is too sick to face trial
But Pinochet has resigned as Senator for Life and retired from public life
2003 radio interview with Univision in Miami… Pinochet laughs and jokes about escaping prosecution - has no memory or speech problems!
2004: Chilean Supreme Court revokes Pinochet’s immunity
Resumes prosecution for war crimes and torture
Adds new charge of financial corruption
Pinochet was under house arrest on Dec. 10, 2006 (Human Rights Day)!
Maggie Thatcher died in 2013
The Pinochet Case legacy
Heads of state can be prosecuted for torture
The Convention Against Torture really is binding… countries must prosecute torturers, or deport them to a country that will
Universal jurisdiction has real teeth!
UN Convention Against Torture (CAT)
173 countries have ratified it since 1984
Both Britain and the USA ratified CAT
Establishes universal jurisdiction for the prosecution of torturers
Tortuers can be prosecuted wherever they are found
No Statute of Limitations on Torture
No sovereign immunity (you cannot order torture as a head of state and enjoy immunity)
Countries not willing to prosecute a torturer must extradite the suspect to the country with jurisdiction
Racial Justice and Human Rights
2020 brought long-standing issues of racial justice to the forefront
The acute human rights violations that haunt America: racial lynchings:
lynching= extra-judicial killing, often done publicly by a mob, and involving death by public torture
An act of racial terror
Over 4000 people were lynched between the end of the Reconstruction era (1877) and 1950
Vast majority of lynchings were in the American South
Viewed by whites as an “unwritten law”
A means of social control
Fixation with the safeguarding the purity of white women
Most often not under the cover of darkness or secretly
Not simply acts of “mob hysteria”
Rather quite public and deliberate
Postcards made and widely circulated
1893 Lynching of Henry Smith Paris, Texas
Black laborer Henry Smith was implicated in the death of a four-year-old white girl
Smith described as “inoffensive” and “free-minded” by townspeople
Smith flees town for Arkansas
National manhunt ensues
Smith was captured in Arkansas
Posse taken from Paris to take him back from Arkansas
Upon his return to Paris, Texas 15,000 were waiting for him
Greatly publicized
Tortured with white-hot soldering irons for an hour
His cries were recorded with an early gramophone and played in movie theaters
Burned alive before the crowd
Smith’s death by torture met with national and international revulsion
Governor of Texas issues mild rebuke
Southern newspapers defend the spectacle
Lynching horrifies investigative journalist Ida B. Wells and sparks international crusade
Born into slavery, Wells was educated as a teacher and journalist
Black newspaper she operated in Memphis burned to the ground by white mob
Wells crusades against lynching for the next 40 years… Denounces U.S. hypocrisy
Following the lynching of Henry Smith, Wells documents lynchings nationwide in “The Red Record”
Engages in national and international speaking tours exposing the U.S. brutalities
The Waco Horror (1916)
Waco, Texas a thriving city in 1916
Oil, cotton, and cattle money pour in
Home of Baylor College, an opera house, and numerous churches
City promotes itself as “The Athens of Texas”
The murder of an English immigrant woman changes this city's image forever
Suspicion falls on 17-year-old black farmhand Jesse Washington
Washington and his entire family arrested
Washington promised that if he confessed he would not be lynched
The illiterate teenager signs a confession he cannot even red
He is dragged from the courtroom to a crown of almost 10,000 people to be lynched
As he is dragged to the city square, Washington is brutally assaulted
The crowd strips him, cuts off his ears, toes, and fingers, and castrates him
A chain is hung on a tree where he is attached
Washingon is doused with coal oil and repeatedly dipped into a fire at the base of the tree
Washington tries escaping and climbing a tree
He is lowered back into the fire
Washington’s remains are then dragged through town by horse
Citizens later complain that this act of dragging the body through the community makes their stomachs turn
Washington’s hour-long torture and burning were meticulously recorded by the city’s photographer from the window of the mayor’s office
Photos of the cold publicly as fast as they could be reproduced
National Revulsion at the brutal lynching is immediate and vehement
Waco— and Texas and the U.S.--- are condemned internationally
A very young civil rights organization is particularly licensed
Bith of NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)
White activists in NYC the founders of what would become the NAACP
Was initially A local NYC endeavor by progressive Jim Crow laws
This would soon change dramatically
W.E.B. Du Bois was recruited in 1910 to become director of NAACP Publicity & Research
Du Bois one of the leading black intellectuals in the United States
Becomes editor of “The Crisis” NAACP newspaper
Renowned for documenting and exposing the U.S. lynchings
Du Bois determined to investigate the public lynching of Jesse Washington and to prosecute the leaders of the lynch mob
But understand that investigating it will be very challenging (and dangerous)
Du Bois settled on an undercover investigator
White suffragette Elizabeth Freeman
Freeman travels as a supposed news reporter who wants to show Waco’s side of the story
She manages to interview police, political leaders, ministers, and everyday citizens
The more she learns, the more horrified becomes…. Even learns the names of the lynch mob leaders
Du Bois begins with photos of Waco’s supposed “cultured” sized
And then jolts the readers nationwide by showing lynchings
Du Bois and NAACP use the racist photos to expose them… internationally
Attempt repeatedly to mount prosecution of lynch readers… unsuccessfully
Du Bois reminds Texans they were currently being protected from Pancho Villa by black “Buffalo Soldiers”
NAACP expands its anti-lynching campaign nationwide
Becomes the leading voice of the U.S, black community
Especially famous for fighting legal battles
Perhaps the most famous NAACP Special Counsel— Thurgood Marshall
Fights decades-long legal battles to combat Jim Crow Laws
Wins Brown v. Board of Education (1954) (outlawing separation in public schools)
In 1967 appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court
A Florida NAACP Hero: Harry T. Moore
Born in the Florida panhandle
Educated in Jacksonville after his father’s death
Becomes a school teacher in Mims (Brevard County)
Joins the young NAACP
Ultimately became a leader in the Florida NAACP, enrolling 10,000 new students
With the help of Thurgood Marshall, filed a lawsuit protecting the disparity between black and white teaching salaries
Then takes on much more dangerous work: protesting lynchings and police brutality
Is fired from his teaching job and blacklisted statewide as an educator
Then dedicates himself to investigating and publicizing KKK lynching in Florida
Does so at the very same time the KKK glowing significantly in Florida
Moore and his wife are receiving death threats
On Christmas Eve 1951, their house in Mims is dynamited as they slept
The blast kills both Moore and his wife
The FBI investigated but without success
KKK involvement suspected but murder remains unsolved
The Emmett Till Case
Emmett Till was a young man who grew up in Chicago Illinois
He was 14 years old when in the summer 1955, he left chicago to visit relatives in Money, Mississippi
Had a reputation as a jokester
Till stays with family of his sharecropper relative, Moses Wright
A long with 7 other young African Americans, visited Young’s Grocery & Meat Market to buy candy one evening
There he allegedly wolf-whistles at owner’s wife, Carolyn Bryant
Till’s Missisisppi relative are fearful for him
Three nights later he is abducted at 2:30 AM from his relatives’ cabin by two armed white men
Roy Bryant
J.W. Milam
Both suspected of war crimes
Till is driven to remote barn where he is beaten beyond recognition
Then shot in the head, taken to Tallahatchie River, and thrown in after being bired to a cotton gin with barbed wire
Till’s badly mutilated body soon discovered
His mother demands the body be returned to her in Chicago
Mamie Till is appalled by what she finds
Mamie Till determined to show the world what had been done to her child
She insists an open casket funeral
One of the 100 most influential photos of all time
Over 50,000 people paid their respects
Courageously, Moses Wright files charges against Bryany and Milam Mississippi
They are outraged that they are charged with murder of a black
Moses Wright and Mamie Till both testify at trial, under heavy protection
It takes only 45 minutes for al white, male jury to acquit on all counts
Look Magazine celebrity writer Whilliam Bradford Huie rushes to Mississippi to get exclusive story
“The Approved Killing” article gets lots of attention
Remarkably, Bryant and Milam confess to the killing
Engage in amazing victim blaming:
“He claimed he was as good as us”
“You bastards, I’m not afraid of you”
Branford Huie’s piece was initially seen as a heroic piece of investigative journalism
Later shows he manufactured facts
Paid Milam & Bryant $4000 for movie rights… helped them to get away with murder
But Till’s death leads to the modern civil rights movement
His memory inspires Rosa Parks
The Emmett Till case was reopened in 2004
Found Carolyn Bryant at 80 years old
Was seen as potentially an accessory to murder
Never had enough evidence
Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act of 2020
Named after Emmett Till
Makes lynching a hate crime
2022 Hollywood Movie “Till”
Anti-Racism NGO’s
The Southern Poverty Law Center
Co-founded by Morris Dees in 1971
Begins with pro bono poverty law cases
Combating segregating practices
Wrongful convictions
Voting rights
Focus changes to combatting the KKK
Klanwatch
Tracks Klan activity and bank accounts
Direct Mail skills of Morris Dees leads to major fundraising
Landmark civil suit Donald v. United Klans of America
KKK sued as criminal organization
Version of command control theory
Target: Imperial Wizard Robert Shelton
Main defense was that he never directly gave orders
Donald and SPLC must show:
Klan had a military structure where subordinates took orders from leaders
There was a pattern of violence resulting from Klan leadership
Conspiracy charge: Shelton’s UKA philosophy was crucial in motivating Henry Hayes and Tiger Knowles to murder Michael Donald
Landmark $7 million victory and KKK forced to turn over its headquarters to Donald
Congressman John Lweis: “It is the strongest thing in modern times… for an all-white jury in Alabama to send such a message”
SPLC uses this legal strategy against numerous hate groups
Klanwatch becomes Hatewatch
Issues annual hate report and map
But controversy follows
Dorris Dees’ cult of personality ploys increasingly criticized
Klan cases: “like shooting fish in a barrel”
Pursue white supremacist groups
Growing opposition to Morris Dees from SPLC comes to a head in 2019
Dees was fired by the organization he founded aimed allegations of sexual harassment
The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI)
A new civil rights NGO founded by attorney Bryan Stevenson
“Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done”
Dedicated to combating the legacy of slavery and lynchings
This includes mass incarcerations and the death penalty
Headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama
Legal mission: provide representation to prisoners who have been wrongfully convicted or without resources for a fair trial
Gram v. Florida (2010)
Children are different from adults*
Supreme Court prohibits life without parole for children (under 18) convicted of non-homicide crimes
Additional focus on historical memory
Lynching soil project… community remembrance project
National memorial for peace and justice
2018: Legacy museum