John Conyers: “Mr. Speaker, today is a very important day. What we're doing is recalling a difficult period in American history to…”

“Mr. Speaker, today is a very important day. What we're doing is recalling a difficult period in American history to understand the combined climate at that time that coexisted with fear and violence during the civil rights era. And so we have the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act. The first thing I want to do is try to recapture, for the moment, all those who were not in the Judiciary Committee the day of the testimony, because it moved both Republicans and Democrats and visitors when we had Myrlie Evers, the widow of Medgar Evers, who was himself a victim of the violence that marked the civil rights era, talking to us about Emmett Till and how this youngster's life was taken. And it was one of those moments in judiciary history that we were all electrified by the ability of our witnesses to recapture this moment in our history. It was a remarkable hearing. I commend the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) and others, including the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Lamar Smith, and also I lift up the name of Steve King of Iowa. Everybody was moved by this determination that at this point in American history we are now moving forward at a pace that may not always be recognized, faster than we think. And the reason I say that is that we are now going back into history to make the corrections that law enforcement could have and should have made at that earlier time.”