Emmett Louis Till

If you haven't heard of Emmett Louis Till, well let me tell you what I have learned. He was the catalyst to the civil rights movement. I should say it differently, his murder/lynching in 1955 at the age of fourteen was.

What the heck is this about AM? Well, this is Black History month, and I am absorbing what I can. Why? Because my kids are black. Simple enough. They need to know who Emmett Till was and what happened to him. Maybe not at this moment, but sometime in their lives I need to be able to explain to them who this young man was.

I finally saw the riveting documentary tonight. "The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till". Please put it on your Netflix list. I have been wanting to watch it a long time and had the time tonight. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is not gratuitous in what is shown. It is eyewitness accounts with photographs to tell the story. The only picture I warn you about, the picture of Emmett's body post mortem. Please know he was beaten, tortured and shot. It is not pretty at all. He was 14.

I won't completely rehash the story. He was a young boy, born in Chicago, visiting relatives in Mississippi. He didn't know he needed to mind his p's and q's in Mississippi. I didn't know that in 1955 in Mississippi a black person could not even speak to a white person. You nodded or shook your head. I didn't know that when purchasing an item, black people could not even touch the hand of a white person, which was an issue if giving or receiving change. Guess what happened when prankster Emmett whistled at a young woman? He could do that in Chicago, he didn't realize he couldn't do that in Mississippi. He lost his life.

I give my hats off and honor to Emmett Till's mother. Her son's body was almost buried in Mississippi when she called that off. She spent a lot of money bringing her son's body back to Chicago only to discover she couldn't get the casket open. Wonder why those folks in Mississippi wouldn't let the casket be opened? She almost took a hammer to it until her funeral director defied his orders and said he would get it open for her. Well it is horrifying. She also insisted on having an open casket funeral. Insisted on it. Good for her. She insisted that this not be brushed away. If you see the post mortem picture, she obviously and painfully was making a statement. Her son's death/murder would not go unnoticed. That took a lot of guts. I can't imagine walking by that casket, which most of the black community did at the time, and seeing his battered body up close. The black and white picture alone was enough for me.

What is amazing to me in this documentary--there is a family member of Emmett Till's that still to this day insisted on her face being shadowed so you couldn't see her. The producer gave the simple explanation "she still resides in Mississippi". Amazing.

I also hadn't realized what a pivotal role Medgar Evars played in the efforts to prosecute the murderers, which was a farce of a trial. Medgar Evars was murdered a few years after this trial. That will be another post someday.

Great historical documentary. I recommend it highly. I'll let you know what else I come across this month.