THE
BOY IN THE RIVER
In August 1955 the dead body of a 14 - year -
old black boy, named Emmett Till, was found floating in the Tallahatchie River
in Mississippi. In this year, compared to the post - Reconstruction period,
when thousands of blacks were murdered, lynching was more a rare incident. But
this lynching contributed to the occur of the civil rights movement.
Till was killed in Money, forty - three years
before James Byrd Jr. was murdered in Jasper, also outnumbered by the white man
who murdered men. The reason why Emmett Till was murdered is, that he has
returned the gaze of a white woman, who was walking on the street, and that he
didn't look away like black man were supposed to do. Carolyn Bryant told her
husband Roy, that a black boy had flirted with her. In the middle of the night
Roy Bryant and his brother seized Emmett from his great - uncle's home. They
drove off, bludgeoned him, shoot him, and threw him into the river.
Emmett's great - uncle Mose Wright testified
against Bryant and his brother, after that he fled Mississippi for his life.
But Bryant and his brother J.W. Milam were declared not guilty by an all -
white jury. A month later Milam even confessed the murder with impunity,
because he felt enough public approbation. That was not surprising for the apartheid
South, but the rest of the country looked at Mississippi justice and shuddered,
because Emmett Till's mother had brought the dead body of her son to Chicago
and had allowed his open coffin to be put on display for four days.
What has changed since 1955 and the lynching of
Emmett Till? There is a greater civility. In Jasper members of the murderer of
James Byrd have asked forgiveness of Byrds relatives, and a sister of the dead
black man has spoken of reconciliation. There is a cause for relief, because a
jury of 11 whites and one black in a small Southern town could come to the same
moral conclusion, the same definition of justice.
Things have changed, but there is still racial
terrorism though whites and blacks now monitor their attitudes about race.
There are still killers walking around free, who were never accused and
sentenced. Sometimes one might be led to surmise, that the Klan has given up
white uniforms for blue ones. But there are cases in which there is still time
to make good on history. Perhaps in the case of Emmett Till's mother, who is
still alive. The murderers of her only son, who she has mourned over 44 years
are now dead. She could never get them indicted on lesser charges, she never
got their apologies. She has demanded reparations from the state Mississippi,
which has never responded. It should.
