[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 54 (Tuesday, March 31, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E825-E827]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO ALVIN SYKES

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. DENNIS MOORE

                               of kansas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 31, 2009

  Mr. MOORE of Kansas. Madam Speaker, on April 24th, the Olathe, 
Kansas, Human Rights Commission will pay tribute to Alvin Sykes, a 
tireless crusader for civil rights within the Kansas City metropolitan 
region, who recently persuaded the U.S. Congress to approve, and 
President Bush to sign, legislation establishing a permanent ``cold 
case'' unit in the U.S. Department of Justice to review approximately 
100 unsolved murders, including the notorious killing of 14 year old 
Emmett Till in Mississippi in 1955. Both as chairman of the Emmett Till 
Justice Campaign and as a leader of numerous other struggles for human 
rights and racial justice in the Kansas City area, Alvin Sykes has 
received much-deserved national attention for his efforts, as is 
detailed in two articles from USA Today and wolfmanproductions.com, 
which I am including with this tribute. I join with the Olathe Human 
Rights Commission in paying tribute to this important leader within the 
Kansas City community and I know that all members of the U.S. House of 
Representatives join with me in celebrating this tireless activist for 
social justice.

                            [From USA Today]

            Perseverance Pays Off for Civil Rights Activist

                           (By Laura Parker)

       Washington.--Alvin Sykes holds none of the standard 
     credentials to wield influence in the power corridors of this 
     political city. He is a 51-year-old high school dropout with 
     no steady job.
       Yet senators listen to him. Prosecutors return his calls. 
     As a self-made civil rights activist, Sykes persuaded the 
     Justice Department to re-investigate the 1955 slaying of 14-
     year-old Emmett Till, and he deserves a fair share of the 
     credit for the department's recent decision to review as many 
     as 100 old murders in 14 states.
       Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced the 
     investigation as Congress prepares to vote on a bill that 
     would set up a permanent cold case unit in the Justice 
     Department to probe those old crimes.
       Last year, Sykes, as chairman of the Emmett Till Justice 
     Campaign, persuaded his then-home-state senator, Jim Talent, 
     R-Mo., to introduce the bill. Since then, Sykes and other 
     civil rights leaders have helped sell it. Although Talent 
     lost his seat in last fall's election, the bill--which 
     authorizes $11.5 million to fund the unit--has new sponsors 
     and has gained momentum in both houses and parties.
       ``He reflects the spirit of the civil rights movement, 
     where ordinary people found a way to make a difference,'' 
     says Brenda Jones, spokeswoman for Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., 
     whose beating during a protest march through Selma, Ala., in 
     1965 helped propel the Voting Rights Act through Congress. 
     Lewis is sponsoring the House version of the Till bill.
       Sykes is described by those who know him as tenacious and 
     informed. ``He's a very pragmatic man,'' says Donald Burger, 
     a retired Justice Department mediator who met Sykes in the 
     1970s during battles to desegregate Kansas City, Mo., 
     schools.
       U.S. Attorney Jim Greenlee of Mississippi's northern 
     district in Oxford had never heard of Sykes when Sykes asked 
     him in 2004 to reopen the Till case.

[[Page E826]]

       The case was legendary. Most of the principals were dead or 
     old and in poor health. The statute of limitations on 
     applicable federal laws had expired. Only state charges 
     related to murder or manslaughter remained possible.
       Sykes arrived in Oxford armed with a legal argument that 
     laid out why the FBI had jurisdiction to proceed with a new 
     federal probe. ``He was extremely informed and very logically 
     presented why it should be looked into,'' Greenlee says.
       Sykes grew up poor and sickly in Kansas City, the product 
     of a 14-year-old mother and a father he never knew. ``When I 
     first met him, he was in his casket,'' Sykes says of his 
     father. ``I was 27.''
       Prone to schoolyard fights, Sykes dropped out of school in 
     the ninth grade. Although he once dreamed of becoming a 
     lawyer, he got most of his education from the public library. 
     To support himself, Sykes found a job managing a local R&B 
     band, Threatening Weather.
       After campaigning to desegregate Kansas City schools, he 
     helped persuade Missouri legislators to lower the age of 
     jurors from 21 to 18, thus widening the pool of potential 
     jurors.
       He also persuaded the Justice Department to re-investigate 
     the mysterious death of a black teenager in Kansas City in 
     1985.
       Although the report was inconclusive, the federal 
     involvement helped calm local residents, who had been 
     skeptical of the local police investigation, Burger says.
       He adds: ``That would never have happened if it hadn't been 
     for Alvin.''
       Sykes' major achievement involved the 1980 murder of a 
     local jazz musician named Steve Harvey, who was beaten to 
     death with a baseball bat. The man charged with the murder 
     had been acquitted.
       Sykes thumbed through library law books and found an 
     obscure federal statute that essentially said a person 
     couldn't be deprived of his use of a public facility because 
     of race. Using contacts he had made at the Justice Department 
     during the school desegregation struggle, Sykes contacted 
     Richard Roberts, the attorney in the civil rights division 
     who was looking into the Harvey case.
       ``He said, `Send me everything you've got,' '' Sykes says. 
     In 1983, Roberts won the conviction of Raymond Bledsoe on 
     federal civil rights violation charges. He is now serving a 
     life sentence.
       ``He didn't just call once,'' says Roberts, now a federal 
     district judge in Washington, D.C. ``Ordinarily, people who 
     want to know about a case will go to their local U.S. 
     attorney. I was struck by the fact that Sykes did not rest 
     with that. He pressed forward with more research on his own. 
     His questions to me were pointed and showed someone who had 
     done his homework.''
       The murder of young Emmett Till, who was killed in 
     Mississippi after whistling at a white woman in a store, 
     galvanized the civil rights movement.
       Although Till's killers were known--Roy Bryant and J.W. 
     Milam were acquitted a month after Till's death and later 
     confessed in an interview with Look magazine--subsequent 
     investigations centered on whether the men acted alone. Trial 
     testimony suggested that Bryant's then-wife might have been 
     with her husband and brother-in-law when Till was abducted.
       Sykes pored over library law books and consulted with his 
     Justice Department contacts. They steered him to a 1976 
     opinion by Antonin Scalia, then an assistant attorney general 
     and now a Supreme Court justice, that gave the federal 
     government jurisdiction to conduct further investigation into 
     President Kennedy's assassination. The same opinion was used 
     to investigate Martin Luther King Jr.'s murder.
       ``Even if the statute of limitations had run out, it meant 
     that there could be an investigation for Till,'' Sykes says.
       A Mississippi grand jury last month declined to indict 
     Bryant's ex-wife, Carolyn Bryant Donham.
       To Sykes, that doesn't mean the end of the Till case. He 
     says he made that promise to Till's mother, Mamie Till 
     Mobley, before she died in 2003.
       The FBI has compiled 8,000 pages of notes and interviews. 
     Now Sykes wants the Justice Department to publish a report of 
     the investigation.
       ``I made that pledge to Mrs. Mobley before she died that we 
     would get the truth out,'' he says.

                     [From wolfmanproductions.com]

              Alvin Sykes: Self-Made Civil Rights Activist

       Alvin Sykes holds none of the standard credentials to wield 
     influence in the power corridors of Washington, D.C. He is 
     not a lobbyist or an attorney, nor did he graduate from a 
     prestigious college. In fact, he is a high school dropout.
       Yet senators listen to him. Prosecutors return his calls. 
     As a self-made civil rights activist, Sykes persuaded the 
     Justice Department to re-investigate the 1955 slaying of 14-
     year-old Emmett Till, and he deserves a fair share of the 
     credit for the department's recent decision to review as many 
     as 100 old murders in 14 states.
       Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced the 
     investigation as Congress prepares to vote on a bill that 
     would set up a permanent cold case unit in the Justice 
     Department to probe those old crimes.
       Last year, Sykes, as chairman of the Emmett Till Justice 
     Campaign, persuaded his then-home-state senator, Jim Talent, 
     R-Mo., to introduce the bill. Since then, Sykes and other 
     civil rights leaders have helped sell it. Although Talent 
     lost his seat in last fall's election, the bill--which 
     authorizes $11.5 million to fund the unit--has new sponsors 
     and has gained momentum in both houses and parties.
       ``He reflects the spirit of the civil rights movement, 
     where ordinary people found a way to make a difference,'' 
     says Brenda Jones, spokeswoman for Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., 
     whose beating during a protest march through Selma, Ala., in 
     1965 helped propel the Voting Rights Act through Congress. 
     Lewis is sponsoring the House version of the Till bill.
       Sykes is described by those who know him as tenacious and 
     informed. ``He's a very pragmatic man,'' says Donald Burger, 
     a retired Justice Department mediator who met Sykes in the 
     1970s during battles to desegregate Kansas City, Mo., 
     schools.
       U.S. Attorney Jim Greenlee of Mississippi's northern 
     district in Oxford had never heard of Sykes when Sykes asked 
     him in 2004 to reopen the Till case.
       The case was legendary. Most of the principals were dead or 
     old and in poor health. The statute of limitations on 
     applicable federal laws had expired. Only state charges 
     related to murder or manslaughter remained possible.
       Sykes arrived in Oxford armed with a legal argument that 
     laid out why the FBI had jurisdiction to proceed with a new 
     federal probe. ``He was extremely informed and very logically 
     presented why it should be looked into,'' Greenlee says.
       Sykes grew up poor and sickly in Kansas City, the product 
     of a 14-year-old mother and a father he never knew. ``When I 
     first met him, he was in his casket,'' Sykes says of his 
     father. ``I was 27.''
       Prone to schoolyard fights, Sykes dropped out of school in 
     the ninth grade. Although he once dreamed of becoming a 
     lawyer, he got most of his education from the public library. 
     To support himself, Sykes found a job managing a local R&B 
     band, Threatening Weather.
       After campaigning to desegregate Kansas City schools, he 
     helped persuade Missouri legislators to lower the age of 
     jurors from 21 to 18, thus widening the pool of potential 
     jurors. He also persuaded the Justice Department to re-
     investigate the mysterious death of a black teenager in 
     Kansas City in 1985. Although the report was inconclusive, 
     the federal involvement helped calm local residents, who had 
     been skeptical of the local police investigation, Burger 
     says.
       He adds: ``That would never have happened if it hadn't been 
     for Alvin.''
       Sykes' major achievement involved the 1980 murder of a 
     local jazz musician named Steve Harvey, who was beaten to 
     death with a baseball bat. The man charged with the murder 
     had been acquitted.
       Sykes thumbed through library law books and found an 
     obscure federal statute that essentially said a person 
     couldn't be deprived of his use of a public facility because 
     of race. Using contacts he had made at the Justice Department 
     during the school desegregation struggle, Sykes contacted 
     Richard Roberts, the attorney in the civil rights division 
     who was looking into the Harvey case. ``He said, `Send me 
     everything you've got,' '' Sykes says. In 1983, Roberts won 
     the conviction of Raymond Bledsoe on federal civil rights 
     violation charges. He is now serving a life sentence.
       ``He didn't just call once,'' says Roberts, now a federal 
     district judge in Washington, D.C. ``Ordinarily, people who 
     want to know about a case will go to their local U.S. 
     attorney. I was struck by the fact that Sykes did not rest 
     with that. He pressed forward with more research on his own. 
     His questions to me were pointed and showed someone who had 
     done his homework.''
       The murder of young Emmett Till, who was killed in 
     Mississippi after whistling at a white woman in a store, 
     galvanized the civil rights movement.
       Although Till's killers were known--Roy Bryant and J.W. 
     Milam were acquitted a month after Till's death and later 
     confessed in an interview with Look magazine--subsequent 
     investigations centered on whether the men acted alone. Trial 
     testimony suggested that Bryant's then-wife might have been 
     with her husband and brother-in-law when Till was abducted.
       Sykes pored over library law books and consulted with his 
     Justice Department contacts. They steered him to a 1976 
     opinion by Antonin Scalia, then an assistant attorney general 
     and now a Supreme Court justice, that gave the federal 
     government jurisdiction to conduct further investigation into 
     President Kennedy's assassination. The same opinion was used 
     to investigate Martin Luther King Jr.'s murder.
       ``Even if the statute of limitations had run out, it meant 
     that there could be an investigation for Till,'' Sykes says.
       A Mississippi grand jury last month declined to indict 
     Bryant's ex-wife, Carolyn Bryant Donham.
       To Sykes, that doesn't mean the end of the Till case. He 
     says he made that promise to Till's mother, Mamie Till 
     Mobley, before she died in 2003.
       The FBI has compiled 8,000 pages of notes and interviews. 
     Now Sykes wants the Justice Department to publish a report of 
     the investigation.
       ``I made that pledge to Mrs. Mobley before she died that we 
     would get the truth out,'' he says.

[[Page E827]]



                          ____________________