The United States will continue to investigate unsolved murders of black people during the civil rights period. President Barack Obama recently signed into law a bill that continues a 2008 law requiring the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the crimes. The bill’s sponsor is Congressman John Lewis of Georgia. Lewis, a civil rights leader during the 1960s, suffered a skull fracture when he was beaten by police in 1965 during a civil rights march in Alabama. When the bill was first approved in 2008, Lewis hoped it would provide a “full accounting” of murders and other violence during America’s civil rights era. Most victims were African-Americans, but non-black supporters of civil rights also were targeted.