KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A local historian said he is proud that he fulfilled a promise and had a part in getting a civil rights bill passed.

The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Act passed in the U.S. Senate on Sept. 24.

It creates two positions in the justice system to find, investigate and prosecute suspects in the civil rights era murders from 1970 and earlier.

The bill is named for a 14-year-old African-American boy who was beaten and hanged in Mississippi in 1955 for looking and whistling at a white woman. His body was thrown into the river.

Alvin Sykes has spent years trying to make the bill happen.

"There had to be some sense of justice," Sykes said. "I couldn't see it, that there were all these families still out here, not having gotten justice or truth about their loved ones."

Sykes interviewed Till's mother and promised her before she died that he would help find the killers of many unsolved murders.