The Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board just got a crucial boost from the U.S. Senate, which approved a bipartisan reauthorization that would give the panel more time to pry open once-sealed government files. The board’s years of work have already produced roughly 40 publicly released cases and thousands of pages of FBI and DOJ records, documents that in some families’ eyes finally spell out how loved ones were killed decades ago.
Senate action and what it would change
According to Congress.gov, the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Reauthorization Act (S.1510) passed the Senate on Dec. 15, 2025, and would broaden and extend the board’s statutory authority. Sen. Jon Ossoff has been a public champion of the measure and described the push as an effort to pursue “justice and truth” for families, per Ossoff's office. The bill was sent to the House in mid December and, as of the latest congressional record, has not yet cleared the lower chamber.
Files released and where to read them
The review board has been steadily authorizing releases. Since its first tranche in October 2024, the agency says it has published about 40 cases totaling more than 9,000 pages of records. The board’s Jan. 29, 2026, update lists the most recent postings and explains how the FBI and DOJ files are being made available online.
Individual case files, including a 69-page packet on the 1945 death of Hattie DeBardelaben, are accessible through the National Archives’ Civil Rights Cold Case Records Portal. That portal serves as the public pickup point for the government documents that the board reviews and votes to release.
Family reaction and the toll of truth
For families, the new access can land like a gut punch. Ellenwood resident Mary DeBardelaben told CBS News Atlanta she sat and cried when the National Archives notified her relatives that the files on her grandmother were being opened.
Short excerpts from those records describe law enforcement officers beating Hattie DeBardelaben in her yard in 1945. “They killed her by the way they hit her in her own yard,” her granddaughter said in the CBS interview, summarizing what the family had to absorb from the official account.
Board co chair Hank Klibanoff told the station the team is working to “excavate the records and get them released,” reviewing materials alongside the FBI, the Department of Justice and the National Archives. The process is bureaucratic and methodical, but for descendants, it can feel brutally immediate.
Why lawmakers say more time is needed
The Review Board was created by Congress in 2018 and, under current law, must wrap up its work no later than January 2027, according to the board. Board members and supporters argue that deadline could leave scores of cases unreviewed and out of public reach.
The Senate bill would extend the board’s tenure and clarify its authorities. It also includes provisions aimed at helping state and local governments transmit their own records for inclusion in the federal collection, according to the bill text on Congress.gov.
Memory, memorials and the scale of racial terror
The releases are arriving in the middle of a broader national reckoning with racial terror. The Equal Justice Initiative documents more than 4,400 racial terror lynchings between 1877 and 1950 and created the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery to honor those victims. EJI’s research underpins the memorial and its markers.
Several families say the board’s newly opened files are filling painful gaps in local memory. In Autauga County, for example, Hattie DeBardelaben’s name does not yet appear on a local monument, a detail noted in reporting by CBS News Atlanta. The federal records now online could help communities decide whom they recognize and how.
What comes next
With Senate approval secured, the pressure is now on the House to act on the reauthorization bill and lock in more time for the board’s work. While lawmakers debate, historians, local advocates and descendants are already combing through the documents that have been released, reshaping how communities understand long buried episodes.
In some places, those files are prompting new calls for accountability and public memorials. In others, they are simply giving families something they never had before: an official record that names what happened and who bore the responsibility.
