Twas’ down in Mississippi not 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. Bob Dylan, ‘The Death of Emmett Till’
On August 28, 1955, a 14-year-old had traveled to visit relatives during his summer vacation from Chicago, Illinois, to a small Mississippi Delta town called Money.
Al McFarlane and I would have been 8 years old or close to it. Quite a few of us growing up in the segregated neighborhoods of Santa Fe Place in Kansas City were firmly instructed by our parents not to look at the Jet Magazine bearing the shocking, painful, and frightening picture of his disfigured body lying in a glass shielded open coffin. I stayed on punishment for months for disobeying Daddy’s very wise advice, but I was determined to find a copy of the one of two Black magazines Black folks had thanks, to Johnson Publications out of Chicago.
I did see the horrible picture, and the off and on nightmares lasted for years. Like the image of George Floyd on that dreadful May 25, 2020 day, that picture of Emmett Till seldom disappeared.
Unsuspectingly, Till had violated an unwritten code for a Black male interacting with a white female in her family’s grocery store. Several nights later, the woman’s husband and half-brother, armed, came to Till’s great uncle’s house and kidnapped Till. He was beaten and mutilated before they shot him in the head and sank his body in the Tallahatchie River. The body was anchored by an old industrial fan.
In September of 1955, Roy Bryant and J. Milam were acquitted of the murder. The next year, the two publicly admitted in an interview with Look Magazine that they killed Till. Double jeopardy laws protected them from a repeat prosecution. This Jim Crow lynching of the young Chicago native sparked the first phase of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
Another lynching happened 65 years later in here Minneapolis at the corner of 38th and Chicago. Murdered at the hands of a police officer, this brutal death also shocked the world and broke decent, compassionate, and passionate people’s hearts.
But this time, there was a different outcome surprisingly from the predominantly white jury. The world was introduced to an undeniable truth superbly presented by an astute Attorney General and a powerful team of lawyers. A conviction and a Federal Civil Rights trial still in preparation suggested days of reckoning ahead. It was a partially cloudy day, but believe it or not, the sun began to shine.
The recent CBS broadcast of Women of the Movement tells the story of Till’s mother, Mamie Till Moberly, and how she, to the very end, sought justice and accountability for the innocent life taken from her and from the world.
Conversations with Al McFarlane co-host, Dr. Bravada Garrett Akinsanya, founder and CEO of the African American Child Wellness Institute (AACWI), said, it wasn’t just one Black lynching or a single aberration. “It was true that for Black male youth especially, danger lurked in the shadows. We know the truth, unearthed by a mother determined to keep alive in her child’s memory, and by the televised execution of a man whose last word was “Mama”, she said. “Love, hope, and faith must remain our guides, no matter the forces against our people.”
“On the one hand, they evade accountability for the Transatlantic slave trade and the genocide of Native Americans and the stealing of their land,” McFarlane said. “Then they flaunt a certain brazenness, an arrogance, with intentional terrorizing of Black people into submission. a certain intention of putting it in front of black people therefore terrorizing us into a certain submission.”
Akinsanya said “Those of us who work in the field of mental health know that the abuse, control, and power model is prevalent. The literary genius and civil rights icon, James Baldwin wrote about how scary it was to live in Black America because we must face the reality of a prolonged state of anger. But before anger comes fear, shame, hurt, and disappointment. Often there is isolation, emotional abuse, feeling less than valued, gender discrimination, and intimidation.”
“These terrorizing and harmful attacks play out in our behaviors,” she said. “I grew up in a small town in Texas. I saw the KKK in their white robes. I saw the burning crosses and was even pulled over by police officials,” she said.
Akinsanya explained that Till came from a place where he felt it was okay to be Black. “He came from a place where it was okay to just be a kid and have no fear. Sadly, Black parents and caretakers are required to have “The Talk”, explaining that for Black people, there are different rules and that we have to be hyper vigilant.”
A renown clinical psychologist, Dr. B describes this daily grind as painful, often traumatizing, requiring self-preservation, and having to expend far too much energy that could be directed into more positive and fruitful endeavors.
Deborah Watts, the cousin of Emmett Till, works earnestly to keep the memory of this young man alive and that of his mother, Mamie, whose work had yet to be completed. Watts created the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation to move the work forward. “It’s about Emmett Till’s Legacy and about sisterhood, keeping this mother’s iron-willed determination on course to effect change. We must continue concerted efforts expeditiously.”
Mamie Till Mobley’s courageous insistence on an open-casket funeral showed the world more than her son’s mutilated body. Her decision delivered a relentless focus on American systemic racism. It illuminated the limitations and vulnerabilities of American democracy.
George Floyd’s murder did the same and we’re at the same place where we’ve been for so long.
We face the same demons today.
What will we tell our children?
“We can no longer internalize our pains and suffer in silence. We must find ways to come together and support one another,” says Dr. Oliver Williams, a professor of social work, a mental health clinician, and a frequent participant in the Healing Circle. “We must find detours around the barriers they continue to erect. And as Dr. B. suggests, we must have ‘courageous conversations.’”
May the eternal flame of hope and the memory of Emmett Till forever burn.
