The Policing and Social Justice HistoryLab has published “What Happened to Cynthia Scott? A Brutal Murder, Blatant Coverup, and Cries for Justice” on the 57th anniversary of her death. The report, authored by DCC researchers Mix Mann and Brianna Wells, revisits and documents the police murder and police/prosecutorial coverup of a 24-year-old African American woman killed in Detroit on July 5, 1963. The report utilizes the long-hidden Detroit Police Department homicide file, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and other previously unknown archival documents. The murder of Cynthia Scott, and subsequent finding of “justifiable homicide” by the county prosecutor, generated massive protests and was a turning point in the civil rights and anti-police brutality movement in modern Detroit.
Mix Mann and Brianna Wells also will be speaking about their findings today–July 5, 2020–at a rally in Detroit at the site of the Cynthia Scott murder organized by the Black Lives Matter protest organization Detroit Will Breathe.
