Al Sharpton Visits Gravesite of Thurmond Relative

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who recently learned of his family's link to the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, a segregationist who later softened his stance before he died in 2003, traveled to South Carolina to visit the gravesite of a Thurmond relative who once owned one of Sharpton's ancestors as a slave. The civil-rights leader said his blood ties were "probably the most shocking thing in my life." Sharpton is now urging all black people to explore their ancestries despite "the ugly things it might reveal." Sharpton's trip to this rural town also included a visit to a cemetery where slaves were buried in graves marked only by small stones. Read more.

Civil-Rights Cold-Case Investigations Re-Examined

Weeks before the 1965 march in Selma, Ala., Jimmy Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old black man, was beaten and shot to death by white state troopers during a local voting-rights demonstration in nearby Marion, Ala. The trooper who killed Jackson was never identified and no charges were ever brought against him. Now, it's possible the case may be reopened as part of a federal push to investigate unsolved crimes of the civil-rights era. Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., said, "You worry it's a little too late because so many of these cases are so old, but the reality is better late than never." Authorities have also re-opened the case on Emmett Till, the black teenager who was beaten and shot after whistling at a white woman in the Mississippi Delta, but as of last week the case is now closed. The local prosecutor announced that a grand jury failed to return an indictment. Read more.