The more things change, the more they stay the same. Racially motivated murders of young Black Americans across the U.S. is not a new or rare phenomenon. For too long this brutally fatal manifestation of the madness of American racism has persisted in the face of public horror and disgust.
Aug. 28 marked the 60th anniversary of the death of 14-year-old Emmett Louis Till, who was abducted, beaten and murdered near Money, Mississippi for allegedly whistling at a white woman.
At the time, Mississippi led the nation in the number of lynchings, according to records kept by the Chicago Tribune. The brutal death of the teenager visiting from Chicago served as inspiration for the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which began in December 1955, four months after Till’s death.
The current Black Lives Matter movement that continues to gain momentum and support throughout the nation also engenders vivid memories from the past. The anniversary of Till’s murder and the subsequent not guilty verdicts that were given to Till’s confessed White killers stand as a painful reminder that systemic racial injustice in the U.S. has been a long-term reality for Black America.
We have to credit the raw courage of Till’s beloved mother, Mamie Till Mobley, for not allowing her son’s murder to go unnoticed throughout the nation and world. Mobley was a strong mother and she refused in the face of enormous pressure to keep her son’s casket closed at his funeral in Chicago.
Mobley resisted the advice of the funeral director and insisted the casket carrying the badly mutilated body of her son remain open for public viewing. She said, “I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby.” And that is exactly what happened. Jet magazine and hundreds of Black-owned newspapers across the country put the horrible picture of Emmett Till’s crushed face on the front page of their publications. Millions of Black Americans and others responded with calls and demands for justice for Till and his family.
Mobley was also a staunch civil rights activists and leader. I remember she once said to me, “We have to keep on fighting for freedom no matter what obstacles they may put in our path. We have suffered too much to let anything or anyone take us backwards as a people.” Her words are still true and relevant today.
As we are now preparing for the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March: Justice Or Else! on Oct. 10 in Washington, D.C., the legacy of Till and the piercing truth of the long life and struggle of Mobley still scream out to this day to demand justice and equality for Black America and all those who have been victimized and oppressed by racism and injustice.
Recently, at Till’s gravesite in the Burr Oak Cemetery near Chicago, there was a memorial service organized by the Mamie Till Mobley Memorial Foundation. Airickca Gordon-Taylor, co-founder of the foundation and a relative of Till, stated, “I see many parallels with what happened to Emmett, you can connect the dots…. Our family, we had dealt with injustice for 60 years. We never had justice for Emmett Till’s murder.”
Yes, the dots are being connected. The Black Lives Matter (movement) is growing and the memory of what happened to Till serves as an important reminder. Geneva Reed-Veal, the mother of Sandra Bland, the young Black American woman who was arrested in Texas and found hanged in a jail cell just a few weeks later, was also at the Till’s gravesite memorial. Black Lives Matter. Till’s life still matters.
Benjamin Chavis Jr. is the president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association.
