https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/18/alleged-witness-to-1965-of-minister-james-reeb-admits-she-lied
I remember those days. When I was in college, I tutored underprivileged African-American children in a program organized by a couple of ministers in Birmingham to tutor underprivileged children of all races. Those of us who tutored the African-American children didn't go around talking about it outside the group because it would literally have put our lives at danger if the Ku Klux Klan or other racists found out about it, just for tutoring children.
Miranda Bryant in New York
Tue 18 Jun 2019 14.54 EDT
The 1965 murder in Alabama of minister James Reeb provoked a national outcry and contributed to the passage, a few months later, of the Voting Rights Act. But more than 50 years on, the case remains unsolved.
However, an investigation by NPR has uncovered fresh evidence from the civil-rights era cold case – including the identity of an attacker who says he took part in the beating, but who was never charged.
Reeb, a white Unitarian church minister from Boston, was sevrely beaten along with two other ministers on a street corner in Selma, Alabama, where he travelled in support of black voting rights. Reeb, 38, was taken to hospital after the attack, but died from his injuries two days later.
A few months after Reeb’s death, Lyndon Johnson cited the minister’s name as he introduced the Voting Rights Act, the landmark piece of legislation designed to end discrimination that led to huge increases in the registration of black voters and black elected officials.
Three men were charged over Reeb’s death but were later acquitted by an all-white jury.
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