The racial breakdown of the jury for the trial for Ahmaud Arbery's killing recalls an ugly history in America

The possibility that three White men accused of chasing and killing Ahmaud Arbery may be acquitted had Georgia residents tense and anxious when this week's approval of a nearly all-White jury in the men's trial became a reminder of why Black people mistrust the criminal justice system.

Scholars and law experts said the racial breakdown of the jury for the trial for Arbery's killing is reminiscent of the Jim Crow era and quickly drew comparisons with the aftermath of Emmett Till's death.

"Here some 65 years later, we've advanced to the point of having potentially one Black juror who will sit on this jury," said Daryl D. Jones, an attorney with the Transformative Justice Coalition, referring to the 1955 trial in which the two men arrested in Emmett's slaying were acquitted by an all-White jury.