Remember Emmett Till...

The white woman who accused 14 year old Emmett Till of whistling at her, leading to his horrific lynching has passed away: https://apnews.com/article/emmett-till-carolyn-bryant-donham-1bcfff1c5a29484270d66b224422f112

I think Emmett Till and his mother are the ones who deserve to be remembered:

After his brutal murder, his mother chose to have an open-casket funeral for him back home in Chicago so people could see the true horror of what was done to him. This was a major galvanizing event in the Civil Rights movement as the horrors of racism were on clear display.

If you go to DC, in the Smithsonian African American History Museum, there is a sectioned off room serving as a memorial to Emmett Till. It is very powerful.

Thank you for posting this. 

We talked about him last night at dinner.  My daughter brought him up, I think she learned about him recently in school.  The shocking thing to me is that my In Laws, both teenagers when it happened, did not seem to know anything about it.

Good riddance.  I won't say any more.

In reply to Beer Baron :

I’d second that. 

Decades later and we still have barely moved the needle...

vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) said:

Decades later and we still have barely moved the needle...

Emmett Till was a 14 y.o. boy who was the victim of a brutal, premeditated murder undeniably due to his race. I will not share here the things that were done to him or the state his body was found in. It's easy to look up. It was truly horrific.

There wasn't anything ambiguous, or in-the-moment, or taken too far, or anything like that about what was done to him and how.

The two men who murdered him were acquitted by an all-white jury.

Terrible things still happen, but not on this same scale. We have moved the needle a LOT. But it had a really long way to go, and still has a fair degree more that we need to move it.

This story and many others are so sad. His mother showed so much strength and courage having an open casket funeral.

I appreciate this thread but I'm surprised it isn't considered political given that a lot of people do not believe events like his death and the reason he was killed should be taught anymore. It burns me up.

In reply to yupididit :

We can get into partisan arguments about whether the blue donkeys or red elephants is stupider and more wrong about the policies they want to push to shift things in this country. We can trade jibes about the legacies of controversial celebrities.

No good faith argument can possibly be made that Emmitt Till was anything other than an innocent 14 y.o. boy who was lynched because of the color of his skin.

In reply to Beer Baron :

I agree there. 

yupididit said:

This story and many others are so sad. His mother showed so much strength and courage having an open casket funeral.

I appreciate this thread but I'm surprised it isn't considered political given that a lot of people do not believe events like his death and the reason he was killed should be taught anymore. It burns me up.

I can't imagine how much fortitude it took for her to have that casket open.  Powerful woman, and a horrific murder.  Even worse that the murderers were acquitted.

Beer Baron said:

 

Terrible things still happen, but not on this same scale.

I disagree it's just that most people can't talk about these things for decades.  It's safe to discuss things that happened lifetimes ago.  Discussing the issues of today and their causes is largely unacceptable.  
 

This story is horrific.  But horrors happen everyday in the world and this country and no one really cares.  

yupididit said:

This story and many others are so sad. His mother showed so much strength and courage having an open casket funeral.

I appreciate this thread but I'm surprised it isn't considered political given that a lot of people do not believe events like his death and the reason he was killed should be taught anymore. It burns me up.

I thought her biggest display of strength and love was going in person to get her son's remains.  The real story is almost always worse then what you can find in print.

Evil knows no limit.

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:

Beer Baron said:

 

Terrible things still happen, but not on this same scale.

I disagree it's just that most people can't talk about these things for decades.  It's safe to discuss things that happened lifetimes ago.  Discussing the issues of today and their causes is largely unacceptable.  
 

This story is horrific.  But horrors happen everyday in the world and this country and no one really cares.  

While I agree that the intent of something similar is still in the soul of people, the actions have been curtailed a lot. There is no way people would get away with this so easily there days. We have a long way to go, but in the last few years, both general public and police have been held to account for their actions. 

In reply to Beer Baron :

I remember that room. His story is a true tragedy. Bryant needs to, not be remembered, but to remember what she did. 

I'd like to believe she's burning in the underworld now. 

In reply to alfadriver :

Sadly things happen today that go unprosecuted that I'd be hard pressed to call anything but pure evil.  I'm not going to drag examples into this thread out of respect for the horrific event.  I'd say you need to check alternate news sources more though in response. 

In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :

Well, go ahead with you assumptions. That's what you do so well. 

I would tend to agree that there are and always will be truly evil people in this world who are capable of truly horrific things (this incident being a prime example, what happened in Buca another).    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre

I would tend to disagree it is as bad as it has always been, at least in the US.  Certainly there is horrific things can and still will happen, but societal pressures and just general attitude has clearly shifted a lot in this country (and many others), if for no other reason the government (laws) and society in general do not support it (as was clear in this case).  Law enforcement is of course generally for more effective (lots of cameras certainly help)

It was, in general (this case is clearly not an example) far easier to just randomly do horrific things in the past (e.g. kill and dump people) and have little fear of being caught.  Anything that happens now days, is far more likely to result in someone being caught at least. Of course, news of it will be distributed to the entire country almost immediately which can create a bit of skewed perspective.  Normalize these events for population level, and I think the difference would be stark (but very hard to compile).

Unfortunately, I cannot really say the same for the world.  There are still some truly midlevel level things that still happening with regularity in parts of the world.  You may not think things are perfect here (which they are not and never will), but it can get FAR worse.

I am of course a great proponent of knowing the past and learning from it, so thank you for posting this.  Although I have to admit, I am slightly disturbed / conflicted as to why it is news, I could not care less that that woman died.  

mblommel said:

I'd like to believe she's burning in the underworld now. 

It may take her a day or 2 to get there, but she will arrive.