Valena Mann
Mandate for revision of Emmitt Till Case
We may decry the color-prejudice of the South, yet it remains a heavy fact. Such curious kinks of the human mind exist and must be reckoned with soberly. They cannot be laughed away, nor always successfully stormed at, nor easily abolished by act of legislature. And yet they must not be encouraged by being let alone. They must be recognized as facts, but unpleasant facts; things that stand in the way of civilization and religion and common decency."
W.E.B. Du Bois --
The Souls of Black FolkThe judicial system in Mississippi would have people believe that Mr. Emmett Till received a fair trial. This trial was far from fair, it was prejudiced its proceedings should be re-examined. There are many reasons why his case can and should be re-opened. The fact that it hasn't been is an indication of the satisfaction of both the state and federal judicial system with the not guilty verdict the men received. There is documentation that leads to the belief that there were more than two men involved in this crime. The Memphis Commercial Appeal mentioned on September 1st, 1955 that the Sheriff had orders issued for the arrest a third person, but nothing was ever done or heard about regarding that person.
George E. Curry, an editor of BlackPressUSA.com, published an article on May 11, 2004 which raises another interesting point. Since Bryant and Milam were charged with murder and the jury members did not object to death as a punishment, federal statute 18 U.S.C. 3282 says that "an indictment for any offense punishable by death may be found at any time without limitation". This means that Till's case has the legal sanction to be re-opened.
Mr. Till's trial was an exploitation by the American court system. The flagrant disregard and lack of determination to thoroughly investigate this crime are grounds that warrant immediate scrutiny of not only the Mississippi judicial system, but also of the methods of racial integration in America. Racially motivated violence has been silenced within America for far too long and Mr. Till's case is just one such example.
There is someone, possibly more than one person, who should be held responsible for this crime. Since Bryant and Milam were found not guilty, then it is necessary to look elsewhere for accountability. Who or what else can be held accountable? What about the Mississippi judicial system? The unfair treatment of African Americans in Mississippi is well documented and so too is documented the way the judicial system condoned their maltreatment What about the Federal Bureau of Investigation for their deliberate lack of involvement? Who ought to be held responsible for the death of Mr. Till?
While on vacation visiting family in Money, Mississippi on August 24, 1955, Mr. Emmett Till was encouraged by his peers to go into the town grocer and say something to the white woman behind the counter. Till went in the store, purchased some chewing gum. What was said after his purchase is unclear. The woman, Carolyn Bryant, declares he made a lewd sexual remark, while his peers state that he said something like "goodbye baby". At 2 a.m. on August 25, Till was forcefully taken from his Uncle's home and never returned. Three days later, Till's body surfaced in the Tallahatchie River.
Soon after, the trial started and five days later, an all white jury declared the two men indicted for the crime, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, as being not guilty on the grounds that the prosecution did not prove beyond doubt that the body found in the river was Till's body. Four months later, the two men both confessed to the crime for $4,000 to a news reporter working for Look magazine. Frequent requests from Mrs. Mamie Till-Mobley to the FBI before, during and after the trial to investigate the murder of her son fell on deaf ears. For the next 48 years, Mrs. Till-Mobley became an educator by lecturing on civil rights and working with youth.
It is important to look at the historical events which laid the groundwork for an incident such as Till's murder to occur. With the onset of slavery, several objections to the enslavement of Africans were expressed to Americans. For instance, German settlers in Pennsylvania drafted the well known Germantown Protest of 1688 which came to have legal and constitutional implications, indicative of Americans turning concerns of revolt by the Africans into legal discourse. Rather than recognizing the potential severity of enslaving a people, Americans chose to use this protest as means to make illegal and unconstitutional every possible thing that an African American could do to escape slavery. An example is one of the "black codes" implemented in South Carolina whose legal content permeated American slave states. The gist of the code was that any slave attempting to escape would be killed. (Hall, et al.37-40)
The year of 1712 was monumental. In addition to two major slave rebellions in New York City, a man by the name of William Lynch delivered a speech in Virginia whereby he taught his methods of sustaining slaves to slave owners. In his speech, he mentioned several different tactics for slave owners to use in order to ensure the longevity of slavery. Among all others, the most important tactic employed was the demarcation of the African American man and woman. Furthermore, Lynch described in great detail the necessary process of breaking the mind of the African American woman.
He described ways to break the natural dependency that woman has on man for protection of their family. By abusing the man in front of the woman, Lynch thought that image of man being a strong provider and protector would be broken, causing the woman to feel alone. In this way, she would rear her male children to be "mentally weak and dependent, but physically strong" (3) for fear of the way they would be treated and she would raise her female children to be independent like her. The term lynching is derived from William Lynch.
Another significant point of interest of is the infamous act of lynching. Lynne Olsen, author of Freedom's Daughters: Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830-1970, offers insight on lynching that occurred in Mississippi:"Mississippi was the poorest, most backward state in the Union. Its blacks lived and worked in conditions mimicking slavery and were made to understand that, for them, equality and freedom were unattainable dreams. As bad as the records of other Southern states were in regard to racial outrages, Mississippi's was worse. It had the largest number of lynchings, the most lynchings of women, the worst mob atrocities. Nearly six hundred blacks were known to have been lynched in Mississippi between 1880 and 1940. The actual number may have been far higher." (200)
Lynching was used purely to scare and keep African Americans in an inferior status in America. While there were accounts of few white people who endured the same fatal abuse, hands down this was a tactic set in place and used specifically for African Americans.
Lynching took place for many years. Many occurred without public mention such that only those who endured the loss of a loved one endure the memory. The thought of lynching makes me queasy because the word itself brings to mind beaten men and women with a rope tied around their neck and hanging from a tree branch. In high school, I learned the etymology of the word picnic and I have yet to use the word since. During the time of lynching, when someone was going to be lynched, white families would prepare for it by packing a meal and putting it into a basket. They would pick out a good viewing location and lay out blankets on the ground. In the early stages of lynching, it was referred to as "picking a nigger", or for short "pic-a-nig". The term evolved into "picnic" and over the years, the word picnic has evolved as well: maintaining certain aspects of its original meaning and discarding the more heinous aspect.
That lynching took place for such a long period of time speaks to the mentality of American leaders. These were people supposedly bound by religious tenets and yet allowed acts of violence like this to be swept under the rug and hushed up. The legal sanctioning of these acts perpetuates one of two mentalities in the minds of African Americans. On one hand some African Americans remained in a subservient status and were too afraid to seek justice and on the other hand some African Americans were adamantly opposed to further enduring these atrocities. Despite the strength that these African Americans had, various laws prevented them from being able to attain their inherent rights as humans.
After the war in 1865, the South had no choice but concede defeat to the United States Army. People like Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, did not want to follow the new laws of South which, in addition to freeing African American slaves, granted them equal rights as whites. The Ku Klux Klan came into existence because Southern whites felt that the newly freed slaves were causing havoc. On a website documenting the history of the KKK, Woodrow Wilson is quoted as having said, "It [KKK] saved civilization on this continent."
By 1867, the popularity and membership of the KKK spread across the majority of the South, though it lacked structure and organization. In an attempt to get more organized, the then leader of the KKK asked General Robert E. Lee to head the organization. Lee's age and poor health kept him from obliging the request, but he offered the support of his militia as long as his assistance with the KKK was inconspicuous. This notion of being unnoticeable caused the KKK to adopt the pseudonym "Invisible Empire". Lee also recommended that the Klan ask a younger general, Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest agreed to lead the organization because he believed in their cause and in their attempts to help members of the community.
In 1869, Forrest broke up the KKK because he believed "[KKK] had strayed from its original mission and had instead grown increasingly violent and antagonistic." Two years later in 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant signed "The Klan Act and Enforcement Act". The act declared the KKK to be an illegal terrorist group and the use of force was recommended to ensure the dismantling of the organization. Though most of the KKK was diminished, in 1882 the Act was declared unconstitutional. The KKK resurfaced in the media at the same time the Civil Rights Movement began to take shape.
During this time, several civil rights laws were incorporated into the United States Constitution. For example, the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, was countered by various states establishing "black codes". These codes were established with the intent to prohibit African Americans from fully exercising their civil rights. In 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment was passed to further counter the "black codes". "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States … [nor] deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, [nor] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws". (United States Constitution, 14th Amendment.) It wasn't until 1964, however, that the enforcement of the 14th Amendment by the federal government permeated the individual states. By this time, it was too late for Mr. Till.
Christopher Metress, in his book, The Lynching of Emmett Till: A documentary Narrative, explores a plethora of news and magazine articles during the time of the Mr. Till's trial. The Memphis Commercial Appeal reported that on the first day of trial, the defendant's sat with them. The children were disruptive and the defendants were allowed to smoke cigars. The children were even given candy as if to reward their behavior. Another article published in the Jackson Daily News on the second day of trial declared, "If justice is done, it will have been done despite the steady flow of slanted and reckless copy which has come from the trial scene." (Metress, 60)
On the third day of trial, Mose Wright, Mr. Till's uncle took the stand. He identified both Bryant and Milam as the men who came to his home at two a.m. and took Mr. Till. The defendant's attorney's tried to make Wright appear incompetent and inconsistent exemplified by several questions they asked him while he was on the stand. The transcripts document the way the defense attorney asked a series of questions regarding statements they said the witness made. For example:
"Q: Didn't you tell the defense the only reason you could tell that the body was Emmett's was that it was smooth-faced and had no whiskers?
A: I did not make that statement."(Metress, 74)On the fourth day of the trial, the Washington Afro-American reported that 18-year-old Willie Reed testified having seen Milam entering the barn where Mr. Till was murdered on August 28th. Shortly after going inside the barn, he said her heard "human screams". (87) Five other African American witnesses were there to testify that they saw Bryant and Milam at the barn that night.
By the fifth and final day of trial, the Cleveland Call and Post did a write up on the verdict with the headline "Mississippi Jungle Law Frees Slayers of Child". Here is a brief excerpt:
"An all-white male jury of sharecroppers demonstrated here Friday that the constitutional guarantees of 'Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness' do not apply to Negro citizens in their state. The mockery of the sacred constitutional guarantees was made by the 12 sharecroppers in 65 [actually 67] short minutes of deliberation in the outmoded, antiquated Sumner, Mississippi courtroom where they returned the verdict of 'not guilty' against two white men charged with the August 28 killing of 14-year-old Emmett (Bobo) Till." (Metress, 111)These news articles illustrate the beginning of the humiliation that Mrs. Till-Mobley would endure during the next forty-eight years. Mrs. Till-Mobley repeatedly sent requests to the FBI to investigate her son's case and she never received a response. How is it possible for a state to sincerely rectify a problem of such magnitude? Philip Hallie, once a professor at Wesleyan University proposes an interesting notion.
Philip Hallie, a former philosophy professor, contends that institutionalized cruelty impedes on the self-respect and dignity of victims. In his interpretation of cruelty, Hallie explicates that unequal power relationships are imperative when trying to maintain a controlling relationship. Additionally, it is necessary to realize that once the victim, if at all, is able to regain his strength and self-respect, then institutionalized cruelty will end. He argues that the opposite of institutionalized cruelty goes beyond the termination of the cruelty. While within the confines of cruel actions, it is necessary for the victimizer to be actively abusive either physically or mentally towards the victim; thus the opposite of that is to be actively helpful and kindhearted.
In order to give sound reasoning for his claim, Hallie expounds on his understanding of positive and negative ethics. He argues that a positive ethic would entail doing actions to benefit others while a negative ethic would incorporate not doing harmful actions towards others or towards one's self. While a positive ethic requires one to go out of their way to do something solely for the benefit of another, a negative ethic necessitates the mentality that since one is not doing anything wrong then that is all that is required of them.
Hallie further goes on to say that an additional component to the sustentation of institutionalized cruelty is humiliation. He states that humiliation, in any shape and to any degree, is a way to severely degrade the victim and to keep them in their place, sort of speak. Causing the victim to feel less than human virtually ameliorates his sense of dignity and enables the victimizer to gain complete control over his victim. Over many years of degradation, the reality of the relationship between the victim and the victimizer becomes masked.
Hallie's perspective allows me to apply his theory of cruelty to the bondage of African Americans. For hundreds of years African Americans were enslaved for the purpose of being servants in any degree to which their owners deemed necessary. When African Americans were declared a "freed" people, African Americans were only free in theory, but never actually free. In the four hundred years, give or take, of the horrendous treatment endured by African Americans, it is unlikely to assume that the intention to give African Americans genuine freedom, freedom from enslavement and unjust treatment, was seriously taken into consideration.
African Americans endured beatings, lynchings, separation from their mothers and ultimately from their heritage, and unjustifiable murder for hundreds of years. This sort of degradation and cruelty cannot dissipate at the juncture society decides to come to its right mind and remove their reigns. When African Americans were declared "free" their life was virtually worse compared to what it had been, for they had to survive in a milieu that failed to embrace them, in fact they had to survive in an environment that reviled them. African Americans were overtly denied the American way of living until more recent decades. I would even go so far as to say that this deprivation is existent today, only more covertly.
In applying Hallie's theory that the end of cruelty is not enough to be considered kind, I have come to the realization that African Americans have yet to be on the receiving end of kindness from the founders and officials of American society. African Americans were freed, but then what? It may sound cynical but what in the world happened to the forty acres and a mule? That would have been an obvious attempt to be kind to African Americans, and yet many people have been opposed to the idea. I think it would show African Americans that America is concerned about their well-being and that America wants to assist African Americans in being able to stand strong on their own feet. So yes, African Americans were freed, but have yet to be offered kindness.
So how can the state rectify the Mr. Till's case? Firstly by doing now, what they should have done in 1955 what their profession calls of them: to intently investigate his murder with a blind eye to race. And secondly the state ought to apologize profusely, first to the remaining family members of Mr. Till and additionally make a public apology for the insufficient performance during his trial. Their apology should be formal and should be presented in the most official manner. Mississippi can employ Hallie's notion of kindness by offering to establish a school, a library, a hospital, a recreation center for children, or something in honor and name if Mr. Till. Mr. Till was known to have wanted to play baseball professionally. The state could re-name or create a baseball field in his name. The point is if the state tried hard enough, they could find an appropriate way to apologize for the lack of justice served in the name of Mr. Emmett Louis Till Jr. Question is, are they really concerned enough to try?
African Americans are the more likely to be targeted by hate crimes than any other ethnic group. "In 1996, 4,831 out of the 7,947 hate crimes reported to the FBI happened because of race, with two-thirds targeting African Americans. Furthermore, the type of crime committed against this group has not changed much since the 19th century; it still includes bombing and vandalizing churches, burning crosses on home lawns, and murder." (Texas NAACP)
Feelings of vulnerability, anger, depression, physical ailments and learning problems, and difficult interpersonal relations are all symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. All of these things can occur as a result of a hate crime. Dr. Herek, a psychologist, and his colleagues found that some hate crime victims have needed 5 years to overcome their ordeal. Meanwhile, victims of non-bias crimes experienced a decrease in crime-related psychological problems within 2 years of the crime.
"Like other victims of posttraumatic stress, hate crime victims may heal more quickly when appropriate support and resources are made available soon after the incident occurs." (Dr. Herek) Hate crimes are message crimes, according to Dr. Jack McDevitt, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston. He says that they are different from other crimes because the offender is sending a message to members of a certain group that they are unwelcome in a particular neighborhood, community, school, or place of work.
There is not an easy solution for this problem. Some African Americans following the notions of Martin Luther King Jr. believe that there is a way to that African Americans can be successfully integrated into America. As of yet, this has remained a tumultuous process. Other African Americans, in agreement with the ideas of people like Marcus Garvey and Malcom X proffered that African Americans could create and sustain a nationalistic society. Many people, irregardless of race, disagree with this notion because they think that dividing ethnicities will further exacerbate problems of race. America will never know whether this conjecture is true unless 'black' nationalism is successfully tried over the course of at least two decades. Integration thus far has worked only minimally. What more can be lost? It seems that there is only room for improvement.
According to Alphonso Pinkney, author of Red, Black and Green, historical circumstances and the specific social conditions of a country determine the form in which nationalism manifests itself. (2) He also says that cultural self-determination often precedes the demand for political self-determination. It is important that any ethnic group have the drive within their culture to support itself and to perpetuate the well-being of its people. This is the foundation upon which political self-determination must be based.
James Turner, author of "The Sociology of Black Nationalism", gives his definition of 'black' nationalism:
"The desire of blacks to control their own destiny through control of organizations and instutions […] group unity in a common community […] resistance to oppression […] ethnic self-interest and race pride […] revaluation of self." (26-27)It is interesting that many people are opposed to the notion of African American nationalism. Based on Turner's definition, it is hard to see how anyone can complain about people trying to accomplish goals such as these. Malcom X made the statement that he did not want to live or want to be in the surroundings of those who did not care to be in his (or those like him) presence. In 1787, a group of about eighty African Americans from Boston petitioned the state legislature for money to go back to Africa. "They were anxious to leave America because they found themselves in very disagreeable and disadvantageous circumstances." (Quarles, 96)
In 1955 when Mr. Till was murdered, nearly two hundred years later, that sentiment had not changed.
William Van Deburg, author of Modern Black Nationalism: From Marcus Garvey to Louis Farrakhan, has reprinted the Universal Negro Improvement Association's (UNIA) Declaration of rights of the Negro peoples of the world. It was originally written in 1920 by the UNIA, headed by Marcus Garvey. Section seven states "We are discriminated against and denied our equal chance to earn wages for the support of our families and in many circumstances are […] paid smaller wages than white men." (25)
Section seventeen states "Whereas the lynching, by burning hanging or any other means, of human beings is a barbarous practice […] we therefore declare any country guilty of such atrocities outside the pale of civilization." (26) In the year 2000, Metress points out that a teenage boy was lynched in his front yard one night. He had a white girlfriend. Why is it wrong for anyone to not want to be associated with a society that performs these acts of hatred? To know that Mr. Till was horribly murdered in 1955 is astonishing. To know that violence like this occurs in the 21st century is appalling; disgusting.
I am of the opinion that you cannot force anyone to do what they don't want to do. If America is not hell-bent on changing is ways to accommodate all of its citizens so that everyone not only has a sense of security and protection, but also has a sense of equal opportunity to achieve one's aspirations, then other options should be sought. How many times does one burn himself with fire before learning that one is not immune to its ramifications? Put a shock collar on a dog and it too will soon learn its wrath. Soon enough, just the sight of the collar will cause the dog to act differently. This is not to say that African Americans ought to shy away from America, just the opposite. African Americans need to take a closer look at the harm that has been done, and make the collective choice to make a change. Integration, 'black' nationalism or even moving back to Africa - whatever the change it needs to come quickly. Although, thus far one out of three methods for social harmony has already been tried, it seems that a new method should be embarked upon.
WORKS CITED1. Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. Bantam Books Publishing, New York. Introduction by Henry Louis Gates. Copyright: 1989. Original publication: 1903. pgs. 63-64.
2. Till-Mobley, Mamie and Benson, Christopher. Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America. The Random House Publishing Group, New York. Copyright: 2003.
3. Metress, Christopher (Editor). The Lynching of Emmett Till: A Documentary Narrative. University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville. Copyright: 2002.
4. Olson, Lynne. Freedom's Daughter's: The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830-1970. Simon & Schuster, Inc. Copyright: 2001. pg. 200.
5. Hall, Kermit L., Wiecek, William M. and Finkelman, Paul. American Legal History: Cases and Materials. Second Edition. Oxford University Press, New York. Copyright: 1996. pgs. 37-40.
6. Madison, James H. A Lynching in the Heartland: Race and Memory in America. Palgrave Publishing, New York. Copyright: 2001.7. Lynch, William. "How To Make A Slave". www.thetalkingdrum.com/wil.html . Copyright: 1998-2003.
8. Hallie, Philip. From Cruelty to Goodness. The Hastings Center. (This article was given to me in an Ethics course at CSUEB in 2003.)
9. KKK website. Author and date website created is not made available. http://www.kkk.bz/index1.htm.
10. Hate Crimes. http://www.texasnaacp.org/hatec.htm#racial. Texas NAACP. Last updated on 10/23/99.
11. Van Deburg, William L. (Editor). Modern Black Nationalism: From Marcus Garvey to Louis Farrakhan. New York University Press. Copyright: 1997.
12. Pinkney, Alphonso. Red, Black and Green: Black Nationalism. Cambridge University Press. Copyright: 1976.
13. Turner, James. "The Sociology of Black Nationalism". The Black Scholar, December 1969. Pgs. 26-27.
14. Quarles, Benjamin. The Negro in the Making of America. MacMillan, New York. Copyright: 1964. p.96