Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder told black prosecutors in Memphis that the Civil Rights Division is “back and open for business” — a swipe at the Bush administration, which tried to dismantle it. (Read Holder’s speech, delivered near the spot where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, here.)

Then on Monday, civil rights activists emerged from a meeting with Holder in Washington to say he’s expressed a commitment to pursuing ”cold cases” against 1960s-era civil rights offenders that have languished for years.

Alvin Sykes, the driving force behind the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, told reporters that perpetrators “should understand that this attorney general means business.”

The legislation, which was enacted last year, authorized up to $135 million over 10 years for investigations of civil rights-era killings. It also created a permanent cold case unit in the Justice Department. Congress, however, has not yet approved funding, though some money is included in the House and Senate appropriations bills for the DOJ now pending.

For a bit of background on the unsolved crimes bill, and the case of Emmet Till, who was beaten and shot to death in 1955 after he allegedly whistled at a white woman, click here.

And some quick stats, as reported by The Chicago Tribune: According to the FBI, there are more than 100 unsolved civil rights killings that occurred before 1969 that are under review. Since 2007, there have been 28 arrests and 22 convictions, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a watchdog group that tracks hate crimes.

Sykes, who spoke on the sidewalk outside the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building on Constitution Avenue, was joined by Haskell Slaughter Young & Rediker’s G. Douglas Jones. As U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, Jones successfully re-opened and prosecuted the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing of 1963.

Jones emphasized the urgency of putting the law into motion. “Each day that passes, we lose potential defendants,” he said. Evidence falls through the cracks, he said. In some instances, apathetic law enforcers let investigations languish or abandoned them outright, forcing investigators of today to “reinvent the wheel,” Jones said.

Jones downplayed concerns about funding, saying it would come in time, and he and Sykes said they were heartened by Holder’s receptiveness. ”If you are a perpetrator…and you’re still out there, we and the federal government are coming after you,” Sykes said.