Episode 2: The Letters

As part of its Cold Case Initiative, the DOJ compiled a list of cases to look into. As of 2008, Mississippi — where Emmett Till was murdered — had the largest number of cases. James meets Walter Henry, a Black FBI agent who worked in a field office there and was tasked with investigating many of these crimes. One name from the list, a Black serviceman who was killed by a white police officer in 1962 following an altercation at a bus station, offers some insight into how civil rights era killings were handled. The man’s son recollects how his family carried with them the trauma of his father’s death and how the FBI’s re-examination of the case still impacts them today.