LDF Calls for Congressional and United Nations Investigations into Suspicious Deaths of Black People in the United States

Today, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) submitted letters to Congress and to the United Nations urging officials to take immediate action to examine the growing number of suspicious deaths of Black people in the United States and potential racial bias in the failure to conduct adequate investigations by state and local law enforcement and other officials. The letters call on Congress to create a congressional commission and asks the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance and Independent Expert Mechanism to advance Racial Justice and Equality in Law Enforcement to conduct thorough and unbiased investigations into the series of suspicious deaths of Black individuals across the country.

In the letters, LDF President and Director-Counsel Janai Nelson reminds Congress and the United Nations about the United States' longstanding history of dehumanizing and devaluing the lives of Black people in the United States, from chattel slavery and lynchings to more recent attacks on Black girls and women and Black transgender people.

"Given the well-documented legacy of racial terror against Black people in the United States, resulting in countless suspicious deaths and disappearances, federal resources must be invested in both transparent and accurate data collection and to conduct a rigorous inquiry to ensure that our past history of widespread targeted Black killings is not recurring. LDF urgently and respectfully requests Congress to create a commission to investigate the recent and growing number of suspicious deaths of Black people in the United States to ensure the equal safety and protection of all residents regardless of race," the letter to Congress reads in part. The letter urges that the results of a commission's findings be made public to inform potential local, state, and federal remedies.

The letter to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance requests that body conduct a similar investigation and "also requests the U.N. Independent Expert Mechanism to advance Racial Justice and Equality in Law Enforcement to evaluate whether American law enforcement is failing to investigate these deaths due to racial bias, and if so, recommend remedies."

Read the letter to Congress here.

Read the letter to the United Nations Special Rapporteur and Independent Expert Mechanism here.

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Founded in 1940, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is the nation's first civil rights law organization. LDF's Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the Legal Defense Fund or LDF. Please note that LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957-although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights.