Remember Emmett Till?!

August 1955: Missing for three days, Emmett Till's body was found in the Tallahatchie River. Expressing horror at the criminal brutality, whites thought blacks would not complain. While visiting relatives in Mississippi, Emmett was beaten to a pulp, shot through the head and thrown into the river by Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam. Local lawyers refused to defend them. Insisting justice would be done, the media and public officials proclaimed, "all decent people were disgusted with the murder."

Emmett's mother, Mamie Bradley shipped Emmett's body to Chicago, where she held an open-casket funeral so "all the world could see what they did to my son." Thousands of blacks across the country heard about the case and were horrified by pictures published in Jet Magazine.

Labeled a lynching, the sheets came off and five prominent lawyers defended Milam and Bryant. Whites supported the murderers. Only blacks came forward as witnesses. Defense Attorney John Whitten told the all white jury, "Your fathers will turn over in their graves if Milan and Bryant are found guilty and I'm sure that every last Anglo-Saxon one of you has the courage to free these men in the face of that outside pressure."

In Emmett's mother's words, "Two months ago I had a nice apartment in Chicago. I had a good job. I had a son. When something happened to the Negroes in the South I said, 'That's their business, not mine.' Now I know how wrong I was. The murder of my son has shown me that what happens to any of us, anywhere in the world, had better be the business of us all." Source: http://www.watson.org/emmett.htmlmailto:lisa@www.watson.org

From Emmett Till to Amadou Diallio

by John Burl Smith

Epitomizing, the ultimate vulnerability of a black man in America, Emmett Till was classically etched into my consciousness. Inexorably drawing me to the conclusion, slavery never ended; brutal and inhumane acts leave indelible marks, like wagon tracks on an unpaved Mississippi road after three days of rain. While spending the summer, as I had many times in Mississippi, this handsome black youth, unintimidated about talking to flirtatious white girls, enraged local white men. After killing him, they bragged, "this is a lesson to any nigger who dares insult a white woman." Remembering occasions when no one was around, giggling white girls tempted gullible black boys with walks through the bushes, I wondered if this girl was game or bait?

Emblematic of Amadou Diallo, a mockery of a trial acquitted the two white murderers. Typifying today, African Americans hoped Mississippi whites would give Emmett Till the justice in death he never received in life. Then as now, judges, prosecutors, jurors and lawyers see the defense of a black man as a professional risk not worth jeopardizing community standing and career aspirations. It is that simple. When Judge Joseph Teresi instructed the jurors six separate times, "A person who acts in self-defense is not guilty of any crime," we were assured of a not guilty verdict for the police in the murder of Amadou Diallo.

The KKK symbolized white retribution then; today it is the media shaping opinions. O. J. Simpson's verdict is a case in point. Immediately, the shrill cry of talking heads set off a firestorm of criticism regarding the trial. Singling out Judge Ito, Johnny Cochran and particular jurors for harsh comments, they declared "it was jury nullification." The media made the jury's disagreement with white sentiment a miscarriage of justice. Painting the face of crime black, media pundits have made us all Amadou Diallo. Personifying Ray Lewis in Atlanta, the Atlanta Journal Constitution is on a crusade, saturating the community with prejudicial articles and photographs daily. Dead 45 years, Emmett Till hangs over Amadou Diallo's denial of justice in 2000. Recalling details surrounding his death, imagine the four police officers black and Diallo was a white German immigrant.

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