May 04, 2005

'Til there is Justice for Emmitt
by Lorraine Berry

This is what American terrorism looks like: The mangled face of a young African-American boy named Emmitt Till.

The images of Emmitt Till have haunted me for years. For those of you who don' t know the story, this from today's Chicago Sun-Times.

The story began innocently enough: In 1955, Till traveled from Chicago to Mississippi to spend the summer with relatives. His mother, Mamie Till Mobley, was reportedly apprehensive about letting her outgoing son spend the summer in Jim Crow Mississippi. Her worst fears were confirmed.

In August of 1955, while at a convenience store in Money, Miss., Till apparently whistled at and "sassed" a young white woman behind the counter. Three days later, Till was abducted at gunpoint from his great-uncle's home and savagely beaten, shot dead and dumped in the Tallahatchie River. Till's decaying body, attached to a 70-pound cotton gin fan fastened to his neck with barbed wire, was found three days after his abduction.

Acquitted men later bragged
Two white men, one of whom was the husband of the woman behind the counter, were acquitted of the murder by an all-white jury despite their admission they were the ones who abducted Till. The defendants later bragged about the murder in a Look magazine article, which included gruesome details about Till's slaughter.

Today, 50 years later, I still want justice for a young man who dared to whistle at a white woman. At a young man from the north who couldn't understand why his cousins were so terrified of white people. For a mother who insisted that Emmitt's coffin be open, so that the world could see what had been done to her son.

Today, the FBI announced that it would exhume Emmitt's body to gather more evidence. Perhaps someone will be charged with the crime. May this latest chapter bring some peace to those of us who still hope for justice for Emmitt.

The Death of Emmitt Till by Bob Dylan

"Twas down in Mississippi no so long ago,
When a young boy from Chicago town stepped through a Southern door.
This boy's dreadful tragedy I can still remember well,
The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till.

Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up.
They said they had a reason, but I can't remember what.
They tortured him and did some evil things too evil to repeat.
There was screaming sounds inside the barn, there was laughing sounds out on the street.

Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a bloody red rain
And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain.
The reason that they killed him there, and I'm sure it ain't no lie,
Was just for the fun of killin' him and to watch him slowly die.

And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial,
Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till.
But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit this awful crime,
And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind.

I saw the morning papers but I could not bear to see
The smiling brothers walkin' down the courthouse stairs.
For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free,
While Emmett's body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea.

If you can't speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that's so unjust,
Your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt, your mind is filled with dust.
Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood it must refuse to flow,
For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low!

This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man
That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan.
But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could give,
We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live.

Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

Posted by in Civil Rights, Conspiracy, Democracy, Extremists, History, Law, Racism, Terrorism, Violence
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