The NY Times reports…
After dropping out of high school, he studied law at the public library, then used his knowledge to reopen cold cases, including Emmett Till’s murder.
Alvin Sykes, who left high school in eighth grade, completed his education by reading legal textbooks at the public library and later used his vast knowledge of the law to pry open long-dormant murder cases from the civil rights era — including the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till — died on March 19 at a hospice facility in Shawnee, Kan. He was 64.
The cause was complications from a fall two years ago that had left him partly paralyzed, said Ajamu Webster, a longtime friend.
Though he never took a bar exam, Mr. Sykes was a brilliant legal and legislative operator whose admirers included City Council members, politicians and U.S. attorneys general from both parties.
“Alvin Sykes was a superb attorney, better than I ever was,” David Haley, a Kansas state senator, said in an interview. “I’ve watched him argue the law in front of appellate court judges. He understood the law innately.”
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