Prosecuting Jim Crow's Ghosts: The Racist 'Past' Lives

Abstract

Background: The FBI, which once covered up anti-Black crimes committed by its racist "informants" in the Deep South -and its own crimes against activists in the Black Freedom Movement - now vows to leave no stone unturned in a review of I 00 cold-case murders in Dixie. Although justice delayed is better than murder with total impunity, there is also the danger dial white America will conclude that racism is finally a problem of the "past," to be buried with the dead. Meanwhile, institutional racism is alive and well, daily defom1ing and limiting the life-prospects of millions.