ATLANTA, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- Federal agents are taking another look at scores of unsolved killings connected to the civil rights movement in the Southern United States.
The FBI has compiled a list of 39 cases involving 51 victims during 1950s and 1960s that were never investigated by the bureau and had largely faded from memory, The New York Times said Saturday.
The Times noted the cases generally received little media coverage and not much in the way of a criminal investigation, but records were kept by civil rights groups.
A bill pending in Congress would provide annual funding for the investigations, including money for rewards.
The new effort was the result of a letter sent to the FBI following the arrest of a 71-year-man last month for the 1964 slayings of two black teenagers, allegedly by the Ku Klux Klan. The Times said the letter focused on an incident -- the lynching of two black couples in Georgia -- the FBI conceded it had never heard of.
