On August 28, 1955, Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old black boy from Chicago supposedly whistled at a white woman in a grocery store. The murder of this 14-year old Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi sparked the Civil Rights Movement. The crime sound clarion calls for a nation to wake up – just look at the photo. Till’s mutilated corpse circulated around the country mainly because of John Johnson who published the gruesome photographs in Jet magazine, a predominately African American publication. The photo drew intense public reaction.
Till didn’t understand or knew that he had broken an unwritten law of the Jim Crow South until three days later, when two white men dragged him from his bed in the dead of night, beat him brutally and then shot him in the head. That night the door to his grandfather’s house was thrown open and Emmett was forced into a truck and driven away never again to be seen alive again. Till’s body was found swollen and disfigured in the Tallahatchie river three days after his abduction and only identified by his ring.
Till’s body was sent back to Chicago, where his mother insisted on leaving the casket open for the funeral and having people take photographs because she wanted people to see how badly Till’s body had been disfigured. This courageous mother was famously quoted as saying, “I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby.” Up to 50,000 people viewed the body.
On the day he was buried, two men — the husband of the woman who had been whistled at and his half brother — were indicted of his murder, but the all white male jury from Money (some of whom actually participated in Till’s torture and execution) took only an hour to return ‘not guilty’ verdict. The verdict would have been quicker, remarked the grinning foreman, if the jury hadn’t taken a break for a soft drink on the way to the deliberation room. To add insult to injury, knowing that they would not be retrial, the two accused men sold their stories to LOOKMagazine and gleefully admitted to everything.
Elsewhere in Mississippi at the time things weren’t going terribly well for blacks either. Just before Till was murdered, two activists Rev. George Lee and Lamar Smith were shot dead for trying to exercise their rights to vote, and in a shocking testimony to lack of law and order, no one came forward to testify although both murders were committed in broad daylight.
The next year, Clyde Kennard, a former army sergeant, tried to enroll at Mississippi South College in Hatiesburg in 1956. He was sent away, but came back to ask again. For this ‘audacity’, university officials — not students, or mere citizens, but university officials — planted stolen liquor and a bag of stolen chicken feed in his car and had him arrested. Kennard died halfway into his seven year sentence.
But times were slowly a-changing: Brown vs. Board of Education was decided in 1954. Three months after the Till murder Rosa Parks would refuse to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Sit-ins and marches would follow, and soon the civil rights movement itself would be in full-swing. It’s been over sixty-years since the events of that fateful night and I simply cannot find the words to describe this heinous crime that has yet to receive justice.
I’ll end by sharing these words by Maya Angelou: “history, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective!
Melissa Harris-Perry sends an open letter to America titled “This Country Is No Place for Young Black Men” in Reaction to the shooting death of Jordan Davis (RIP). Like the murders of Trayvon Martin and Emmett Till, as Melissa mentions, are just three prime instances in which they were killed because they “looked” threatening. In good conscience is this a reason to “Stand Your Ground”?
The fact is; they are not threatening at all and I allege racial profiling at its core. This is a powerful message of conscience to be considered. And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective…
We as African Americans understand, as Richard Pryor famously said, when it comes to justice what we find is JUST-US! This statement could not be more profound today as it relates to some of the news stories that involve African Americans, namely the recent murder of the young child Trayvon Martin.
Frankly, this case takes me back nearly sixty-years when another young black child was murdered where the culprits did not receive due justice. I wonder if the story would be different if the victim was white and the shooter was black. I think we know the answer to that!!!
But I read a piece today written by Mr. Jonathan Capehart and like him I had the same questions that he asked in this article. First, he asked, what was Zimmerman’s relationship with the Sanford, Fla., police department? Then he asked why was Zimmerman portrayed as a volunteer neighborhood watch captain when he was not part of a registered neighborhood watch program? Further he asked, did the Sanford Police Department ever warn him about his activities in this unofficial capacity?
When you consider that Zimmerman was known to have placed, as it was reported, 46 calls to that department between Jan. 1, 2011, and the Feb. 26 shooting; did the Sanford police have specific orders on how to deal with him? Did they have a file on him? Did they have him on any kind of special watch list?
To these questions, the Police Chief said, “we don’t have the grounds to arrest him.” Yet, Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense was sufficient justification to not arrest him. My next question was why did Chief Lee accept Zimmerman’s self-defense plea on its face? Did the police run a background check on Zimmerman? Did his previous arrest, for resisting arrest without violence, raise any red flags with police? Did Lee attempt to establish probable cause? How did he go about it? Was Zimmerman tested for drugs or alcohol? If not, why not? Was Zimmerman’s gun confiscated? Was it tested? Where is that gun now?
These are all valid questions that demand answers.
Now, here are a few questions that come to mind with respect to the crime scene. What did police do with Trayvon’s body at the scene? What did police do with Trayvon’s body once taken from the scene? Why was it tested for drugs and alcohol? What did police do with Trayvon’s personal effects? Where is his cell phone? Did police try to contact Trayvon’s 16-year-old girlfriend, who was talking to him during the initial moments of the confrontation with Zimmerman and who tried several times to call him back? Hmmmm!
So as you can see there are many more questions than answers and frankly a thorough investigation would have answered these questions. Thankfully, the Department of Justice has decided to review the case to ensure that some of these questions are answered – maybe. There is such a thing as right and wrong; some things are right and some things are wrong. When you look at the aforementioned questions in this case that are unanswered – it stinks of wrong. Oh, and for sure racism!!!
There are so many more questions than answers and I pray we get them answered, and justice is served. With that said, I would suggest that you compare this to little Emmitt Till and recall the Peril’s Of Justice.
We’ve witnessed another sad day in America’s history to which I extend my condolences to the families of the dead and wounded. On Saturday in Tucson, Arizona where the savage murders that took the lives of a federal judge, a nine year old child, seriously wounding a Congresswoman and many others was simply a despicable act of terrorism. But what is disturbing is that I have not heard anyone from the right who screamed “Terror” for much of the last decade use the word.
I want to commend Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik, who is leading the investigation into the shootings, for his honesty. He did not mince words in saying that vitriol spewed, mostly by Republicans, contributed to the tragedy in Tucson. He said, “There’s reason to believe that this [suspect] may have a mental issue. And I think people who are unbalanced are especially susceptible to vitriol… People tend to pooh-pooh this business about all the vitriol we hear inflaming the American public by people who make a living off of doing that. That may be free speech, but it’s not without consequences.”
America has a long history of such tragic situations. There was the Oklahoma bombing, the murder of an abortion doctor, and the Holocaust museum shooting in recent memory. If we go back to the 1960’s, there was assassination after assassination: Dr. King, President Kennedy, his brother Bobby, Medger Evers, Malcolm X – get my point. No! Well the common thread linking such acts of violence were WORDS used by those who possessed views from an ideologically extreme perspective.
These self-righteous Tea Baggers and conservatives whose been doing what is tantamount to yelling fire in a crowd don’t seem to understand that what they are saying has a dangerous impact upon society and unstable individuals. Words are powerful and there are some in our society who are not equipped to understand that these people are making a living by using this divisive speech causing some to take much of this vitriol literally. It might even be a more sinister reason; playing to the hatred and bigotry that exists.
Let me start at the top with the new leader, a man who cries at the drop of a dime might have shown some emotion over this tragedy, if for no other reason than there was a nine year old innocent child killed, but there were no tears. During his remarks at a news conference Sunday, “the newly elected House speaker was as dry as tumbleweed,” said Courtland Milloy. Why had the man who cries just by thinking about the welfare of children not shed a tear over the death of a 9-year-old girl in that rampage?
We’re talking about a rampage that arguably can be contributed to the insane vitriolic language that the right has spewed since President Obama, an African American, began campaigning and was elected. It is Obama’s opponents who carried guns to his speeches and cited Jefferson’s line that the tree of liberty “must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
Mr. Speaker told the National Review just last year that then-Rep. Steve Dreihaus (D-Ohio) “may be a dead man” because he voted for President Obama’s health-care law. “He can’t go home to the west side of Cincinnati”. Stephen Broden, a tea party-backed former Texas GOP congressional candidate, has said, “Our nation was founded on violence. The option is on the table… I don’t think that we should ever remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms.”
Rep. Michelle Bachmann said, “I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax, because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us, having a revolution every now and then is a good thing, and the people – we the people – are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country.” Then there was Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate in Nevada, who suggested “Second Amendment remedies”. These are just a few examples of discord that creates such a charged political climate which can cause an unhinged person to act in horrendous ways with dire consequences.
Am I suggesting that the shooter’s motive in this case could have nothing to do with the statements of these people – possibly! But, no one should be surprised when misguided ideologues start showing up at town meetings armed with assault rifles – or at supermarkets with handguns. Remember, the Tea Party rallies when they gleefully brought them to where the president was speaking.
The conservative leadership must finally take on their fringe when it uses language that intimates threats of bloodshed. That means more than just highly general statements praising civility. I am all for and support the right to bear arms. However, I am also sane enough to know that everyone who buys a gun should have one. Its kinda like you have the right to jump off a bridge but that does not mean it is a good idea.
There is one statement that I will leave you with and it’s from the Congresswoman who struggles for life today. “We’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list,” she said, “but the thing is that the way she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize there are consequences…”
It's been said that there are no words that have not been spoken and no stories that have never been told but there are some that you cannot forget! "Legacy - A New Season" is the perfect complement to that statement.
It is the sequel and the continuation of "Just a Season" and a stand-alone story rich in history on a subject rarely explained to children of this generation concerning the African American struggle.
Just a Season is a luminous story into the life of a man who, in the midst of pain and loss, journeys back in time to reexamine all the important people, circumstances, and intellectual fervor that contributed to the richness of his life...
“Knowledge is power and power produces an understanding that education is the single most important ingredient necessary to neutralize those forces that breed poverty and despair.” — John T. Wills
Melissa Harris-Perry sends an open letter to America titled “This Country Is No Place for Young Black Men” in Reaction to the shooting death of Jordan Davis (RIP). Like the murders of Trayvon Martin and Emmett Till, as Melissa mentions, are just three prime instances in which they were killed because they “looked” threatening. In good conscience is this a reason to “Stand Your Ground”?
Thought Provoking Perspectives
MURDER IN MONEY
Till didn’t understand or knew that he had broken an unwritten law of the Jim Crow South until three days later, when two white men dragged him from his bed in the dead of night, beat him brutally and then shot him in the head. That night the door to his grandfather’s house was thrown open and Emmett was forced into a truck and driven away never again to be seen alive again. Till’s body was found swollen and disfigured in the Tallahatchie river three days after his abduction and only identified by his ring.
Till’s body was sent back to Chicago, where his mother insisted on leaving the casket open for the funeral and having people take photographs because she wanted people to see how badly Till’s body had been disfigured. This courageous mother was famously quoted as saying, “I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby.” Up to 50,000 people viewed the body.
On the day he was buried, two men — the husband of the woman who had been whistled at and his half brother — were indicted of his murder, but the all white male jury from Money (some of whom actually participated in Till’s torture and execution) took only an hour to return ‘not guilty’ verdict. The verdict would have been quicker, remarked the grinning foreman, if the jury hadn’t taken a break for a soft drink on the way to the deliberation room. To add insult to injury, knowing that they would not be retrial, the two accused men sold their stories to LOOKMagazine and gleefully admitted to everything.
Elsewhere in Mississippi at the time things weren’t going terribly well for blacks either. Just before Till was murdered, two activists Rev. George Lee and Lamar Smith were shot dead for trying to exercise their rights to vote, and in a shocking testimony to lack of law and order, no one came forward to testify although both murders were committed in broad daylight.
The next year, Clyde Kennard, a former army sergeant, tried to enroll at Mississippi South College in Hatiesburg in 1956. He was sent away, but came back to ask again. For this ‘audacity’, university officials — not students, or mere citizens, but university officials — planted stolen liquor and a bag of stolen chicken feed in his car and had him arrested. Kennard died halfway into his seven year sentence.
I’ll end by sharing these words by Maya Angelou: “history, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective!
The Whole Story
Purchase “Just a Season” today !!!
Legacy – A New Season
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