FBI investigates claim suspects in 1946 Georgia mass lynching may be alive

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

US authorities are investigating whether some of those responsible for one of the American south’s most notorious mass lynchings are still alive, in an attempt to finally bring prosecutions over the brutal unsolved killings.

FBI agents have questioned a man in Georgia about the Moore’s Ford Bridge lynching of 1946, the man told the Guardian. The man was among several in their 80s and 90s named in connection with the incident on a list given to the US Department of Justice by civil rights activists.

Speaking at his home in Monroe, 10 miles west of the lynching site, Charlie Peppers denied taking part in the killings of four African Americans who were tied up and shot 60 times by a white mob.

“Heck no,” said Peppers, 86, when asked if he was involved. “Back when all that happened, I didn’t even know where Moore’s Ford was.” Peppers, who was 18 at the time of the lynching, said: “The blacks are blaming people that didn’t even know what happened back then.”

The Moore’s Ford incident, widely described as America’s last mass lynching, stands out as a particularly brutal case even in Georgia, where more lynchings were recorded between 1877 and 1950 than in any other state, according to the EJI study. The report was the result of almost five years of investigations into lynchings in 12 southern states.

An outraged President Harry Truman ordered a federal investigation and rewards totalling $12,500 – worth more than $150,000 today – were offered for information leading to a conviction. A grand jury was convened and heard evidence for three weeks. Yet no indictments were brought for the killings, which have long been linked to the Ku Klux Klan.

However then-Georgia governor Roy Barnes reopened the state’s inquiry in 2000 and the FBI reopened its own case in 2007. Georgia state representative Tyrone Brooks, who leads an annual re-enactment of the lynching as part of a campaign for justice, said the absence of prosecutions still hurts black residents of the area.

“There is a lot of pain, a lot of frustration and a lot of disappointment,” said Brooks. “Because it has always said – like other cases have suggested more recently – that black lives don’t matter”.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/16/suspects-1946-moores-ford-bridge-georgia-mass-lynching-alive

Edited February 20, 2015 by I AM NOT THAT GUY

[luckytxn 2,264]

Good luck on getting info.