Ruling Could Bring Justice to Natchez
A U.S. Appeals Court ruled this week that Ernest H. Avants' 1967 confession to the FBI about his part in the killing of a black farm worker near Natchez, Miss., is admissible in federal court, thus breathing new life into one of several civil rights era murder cases that have been reopened. In the 1960s, civil rights activists recognized the Natchez area as a hotbed of racial violence, says UAB historian Jack Davis, Ph.D., author of "Race Against Time: Culture and Separation in Natchez Since 1930." "With four Klan groups terrorizing the area with impunity, Natchez blacks were slow to respond to the civil rights activism sweeping the South." But the 1965 car bombing of Natchez NAACP President George Metcalfe galvanized the black community into action.
Contact Gail Short, Media Relations, 205-934-8931 or [email protected].
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