Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office Emmett Till Cold Case Investigations and Prosecution Program

The New Orleans Emmett Till Project, Undoing Jim Crow Cold Cases Initiative (UJCCCI), has been working to identify, research and catalog cold case Civil Rights homicides and is now applying for a continuation grant to augment its existing Project with the following elements.  In addition to continuing to uncover eligible cases and assess their suitability for prosecution, UJCCCI would like to expand its remit to encapsulate a class of Civil Rights violations - the unsolved homicides of LGBTQ+ victims - in particular, those who were killed during the late 1970s.  It has become clear over the course of this Project, that an active collaboration with the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) will greatly enhance the quality and end product of this project, as well as provide the best opportunity for sustained reform on the part of New Orleans’ institutions.  Therefore, UJCCCI and NOPD have preliminarily agreed to designate mutual liaisons, and to work together on researching, sourcing and digitizing cold case files in NOPD’s archives.  NOPD and UJCCCI also plan to co-present some cold cases to the local community and to work together to design and develop a joint NOPD-UJCCCI training module based on UJCCCI’s cold cases.  

In addition to continuing to gather individual witness testimony and interview victim’s family members, UJCCCI plans to initiate a series of public listening events as follows: 1) Community Listening Sessions in various New Orleans Public Libraries that are designed to elicit public testimony and information about potential new cases; and 2) Emmett Till Cold Case Acknowledgement Hearings at City Hall, where UJCCCI, the District Attorney’s Office (OPDA) and NOPD - together with family members - present the specifics of local cases to city government and members of the general public.  In response to calls from community members, UJCCCI also plans to issue an RFP for a mental health service provider who can provide specialized care for community members, witnesses and victims of intergenerational trauma at every stage of the project, from initial interview to formal public presentation and/or prosecution.  

Lastly, in order to make the project’s Final Report and Dataset as broadly accessible as possible, UJCCCI will partner with City Archives (in New Orleans Public Library) to design and build a public-facing Emmett Till website, together with data exhibits such as interactive mapping displays, which will be accessible to the public and downloadable at the click of a mouse.