Posted on 08/29/2009 4:43:42 PM PDT by Main Street
The casket that held the mutilated body of civil rights martyr Emmett Till for 50 years will go on public display in the nation's newest African-American history museum, officials said. The move comes a month after the casket was found discarded at Burr Oak Cemetery near Alsip. Officials with the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture are expected to announce the casket's donation just before a memorial ceremony Friday to commemorate 54 years since Till's murder. Members of Till's family and museum officials -- including its director, Lonnie Bunch III -- are expected to attend the ceremony at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ, the site of Till's funeral. "We are both honored and humbled that the Till family has entrusted this sacred object to the museum for preservation and safekeeping," Bunch, former president of the Chicago History Museum, said in a news release. Simeon Wright, Till's cousin and one of the last people to see Till alive, was surprised to learn about the donation late Wednesday. "If it's true it's great news for the family and for all that happened in Burr Oak. ... I can't think of a better place to put it," Wright said. The casket will be taken to Washington, the site of the new museum, where it will be evaluated by conservation experts and readied for display when the museum opens in late 2015, spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas said. Till's body was originally buried in the casket with a glass top at his mother's request so that the public could see her son's badly-disfigured corpse.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...QQR6fFg?size=l
Politically Correct Macabre.
ma·ca·bre
Pronunciation: \mə-ˈkäb; -ˈkä-brə, -bər; -ˈkäbrə\ Function: adjective Etymology: French, from (danse) macabre dance of death, from Middle French (danse de) Macabré Date: 1889 1 : Having death as a subject : comprising or including a personalized representation of death.
2 : Dwelling on the gruesome.
3 : Tending to produce horror in a beholder.
(They can't print that if it's not true.)
The display of Emmett Till’s body and what was done to him served a legitimate purpose.
Emmett Till was a jerk. Yes, he got a lot worse than he deserved, but he was still a jerk who got killed for trying to show off by being rude and obnoxious.
Again, so as not to be misunderstood, what they did to him was terrible and inexcusable. But he was being a jerk and that’s what got him into trouble.
I’m sure you were NEVER a jerk when you were 14.
He had the misfortune of being in an area of thugs and Fascists.
Oh it serves a purpose. But how was is it legitimate?
Emmett Till was a just-turned-14-year-old *child*, whose only “crime” was allegedly whistling at a white woman. Not touching, not threatening, or even approaching, but whistling.
Just what, exactly, did he “deserve”.
It was legitimate in the same way the video of the death of “Neda” in the Iranian protest was legitimate. Both were visual illustrations of the crimes and violence perpetrated by a certain segment of the respective societies.
Maybe I was in some other way. While I never whistled at nor made disrespectful comments to a married woman, I'm sure I probably did things to anger some adults at the time. And if/when I did, I didn't deserve to be beaten to death for them either.
But if I was murdered by a bunch of thugs for disrespecting one of their wives to show off to my friends, it wouldn't make me less of a jerk for doing it.
There's a common saying about people who act like jerks that goes, "One of these days, he's going to do that to the wrong person." That's what Till did.
Again, as I stated twice in my original post, it doesn't excuse the thugs for murdering him. But it doesn't justify Till's behavior either.
“...violence perpetrated by a certain segment of the respective societies.”
Do you mean violence perpetrated by SOME members of the “majority” segment of this society against SOME members of the minority population? Or do you mean violence perpetrated by SOME members of the “minority” segment of this society against SOME members of the majority population?
He deserved a reprimand and to be told to learn how to respect women, his elders, and other people in general. Depending on his attitude, he may also have deserved a swift kick in the ass.
He certainly didn't deserve to be brutally murdered. But let's not make this kid out to be some kind of model child just minding his own business. He got in trouble for being a jerk in the wrong time, in the wrong place and to the wrong people.
He may have deserved at most a verbal reprimand, by authorised personnel, not some yahoos from the street. And for his murder, the perps that killed him should have been hanged, drawn and quartered.
I must say you are no quitter.
Nope. He got in trouble for not "staying in his place." A white boy who did the same would have been ignored (probably), told off or even punched out. He would not have been severely beaten up or killed.
The murder was a pure assertion of racial privilege. Its purpose was to terrorize other members of the inferior race.
I agree...the Republicans at that time were a mean bunch....mistreated blacks like that all the time (sarc)
And that's exactly what should have happened to Till (The "told off" or "punched out" part).
As you are perfectly well aware, the chance of the perps being Republicans at the time was about the same as the chance of their being Hindus.
He deserved either a verbal reprimand or a kick in the ass, depending on his attitude, by either the woman's husband, or a friend who may have witnessed the incident, or by "authorised personnel" as you put it, if they were there. Or by his own family when told what he had done. And for his murder, the perps that killed him should have been hanged, drawn and quartered.
The perps should have been tried, convicted and sentenced to death by however the state executed capital offenders at the time.
Any word on what exhibits are coming to the Smithsonian White-American museum? Oh wait...
I quit. Emmett Till was perfectly in his right to whistle at another man's wife in front of his friends. Emmett Till was a great American Hero without spot or blemish. He should be immortalized to remind us how mean and evil America is. /sarcasm.
_____________________________________________
Yeah, he was. There is no law prohibiting one from doing exactly that.
The atrocity is closely identified with the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. I remember the movement. This was a horrible crime. After 50 years still important to remember.
But what about what happens today? The Tribune does not care? Why?
Call me racist for bringing up a horrible crime that's as horrible as it gets.. Mutilation, torture, and death is mutilation, torture, and death even if the victim is not related to a just cause -- and white.
Even the one news article that the Tribune did bother to print described the crime as "unimaginable terror."
Yet google web search got just one Tribune hit
site:www.chicagotribune.com Christian Newsom nashville rape murder
I also tried
site:www.chicagotribune.com Christian Newsom -mayor -scoreboard -gavin
“Nope. He got in trouble for not “staying in his place.” A white boy who did the same would have been ignored (probably), told off or even punched out. He would not have been severely beaten up or killed.”
Unless that 5’ 8” “white boy” did the same to a married “black women” after walking into her home in my old Detroit neighborhood (they lived in the back of the store). A severe beaten would have been lucky. But no body would care, particularly the PC press. And a lot of my old neighbors would have said that “stupid white boy” had it coming.
His eventual killers demanded he apologize. He refused to do so and was killed.
Now, this doesn’t justify what happened to Till. He was murdered and his killer(s) should have been executed.
“Hey Joe, Where you goin’ with that gun in your hand?
Goin’ down to shoot my old lady
You know I caught her messing around with another man,
Hey Joe, I heard that you shot your old lady down, (shot her down on the ground)
Yes I did, I shot her
You know, I caught that girl messing around town, (that ain’t too cool, brother)” -Jimi Hendrix, ‘Hey Joe’
Now, a sane person would have apologized profusely to a guy with a gun in his hand. He would have said that he was clearly wrong (which Till was), and that he was very sorry (which Till wasn’t). And that he would never bother his wife again!
But Till did not do any of that. He chose the path of “proud indignation” for sexually harassing the man’s wife both physically and verbally, and then by rubbing the husband’s face in it. Which only agitated the situation even further.
And what did he get for this incredibly insane defiance?!
The same thing many people have gotten for the same behavior; an instant one way trip to the mystic plains, hunting wild bore with their ancestors!
An old “Chinese Proverb”: “A wise person has to know their limitations, especially when they have a loaded gun to their head.”
Now before anybody starts accusing me of justifying what the killer did. I don’t! The killer should have been found guilty and executed. It was murder.
But I am also aware of much more recent cases of the “lynching” of whites here in Detroit and the Metro area, who did absolutely nothing but mind their own business, and were killed anyway, for no other reason than just being white.
And their killers were also acquitted by all black juries, despite the overwhelming evidence; to such an extent that the State of Michigan had to step in and put a stop to these blatant cases of black jury nullification. But the liberal TV networks and black “civil rights leaders” never give a damn about those cases of racist injustice.
As for Emmett Till, as unfortunate as the story is, the facts are, he voluntarily went into their ‘Hood’, and voluntarily ‘dist the brothas’, and he ‘paid’ with his life. Now, where does that type of hometown “injustice” happen all the time, today?? Black Urban America, that’s where!
As for being a “victim”. If I as a white man, and went to Detroit as a stranger, walked into an unknown married black couple’s home, while the husband was out (some testimony said he did more than just whistle), and started to grab and sexually harass his wife. And he soon finding out where I lived, came over to “visit”.
Does any one doubt that he may very well try to kill me? And if he did, would the media call me a “victim”? Let alone, a “victim” of “black racists”?
And NOBODY would name a school after me!
If a white male went into Detroit today, and did the same, he would most likely end up dead. And people both black and white would likely be saying that the white man was a “fool” and should have known better than to pull that. Case closed, on to other more important things!
I’m not justifying this type of behavior. And murder is murder. But common sense tells me never to walk up to an area where black males have guns and knives, sexually harass their wives or girlfriends, and then proudly tell them I f**k their women.
This is something most people, even stone drunk nut cases, wouldn’t do (and would be ashamed of, if they survived to sobered up). But Till wasn’t drunk, and he wasn’t ashamed. He initiated the sexual, verbal, and physical harassment of this married woman in her, and her husband’s own store, which
was the same structure in which they lived. In essence, their own home! And he did it with a clear mind, and with both eyes wide open. He was proud of it, and defiant.
I don’t know any country, race, or culture, where this type of behavior wouldn’t be considered suicidal.
As for all the white Southern jury that found the husband innocent. It was wrong. But we have had cases of the same racism on juries in Detroit going the other direction, and it hardly ranked blurb in the local press, and certainly not a display of the white victim’s coffin anywhere, let along the Smithsonian.
Racism exists among ALL races the world over. And whose racism has the most power depends on which particular race is in the majority and has the power to suppress others.
You might at least mention that the perps tracked him down 4 or 5 days after the whistling, talking or possibly grabbing incident.
IOW, this wasn’t a case of territoriality or of an irate husband defending his wife and getting carried away. It was a case of kidsnapping and cold-blooded, premeditated murder.
The kid’s supposed misbehavior also did not take place in a family’s home into which he’d intruded. It took place in a store.
“... I can’t think of a better place to put it,” ...”
how about six feet deep in the ground.
I hadnt heard about those “white lynchings” in Michigan at all. I have heard about the case in tenn., but the MSM isnt reporting on these black on white hate crimes at all.
You spent a lot of time typing your post and it was very interesting and an understandable, cogent argument that you made.
According to the interview the “perps” gave to LOOK magazine after they were acquitted, they said they did not initially intend to kill him, but wanted to beat him up and teach him a lesson, but he refused to humble himself and he remained defiant, and so they did end up killing him.
While I went of site to review this case, i then clicked on to the Scottsboro Boys case, and came across this very interesting excerpt, which identifies an early link between the Civil rights Movement and communism in America:
“The cause of the Scottsboro defendants had also come to the attention of the American Communist Party. James Allen, who was a party member, Chattanooga resident and editor of the Communist publication Southern Worker, first heard about the case over Chattanooga radio right after the posse stopped the train in nearby Jackson County, Alabama. The Party took a quick interest in the case. “By publicizing the plight of the boys and defending them in court, the Party saw the chance to educate, add to its ranks, and encourage the mass protests not only to free the boys but bring about revolution.”[55] As a result, the Communist Party used its legal arm, the International Labor Defense (ILD), to take up their cases within a week after the guilty verdicts.[56]. The ILD persuaded the parents of the defendants to let them champion their cause.”
Here’s a good column on the man who did more to bring Till’s case to national attention than any other person, Dr. T.R.M. Howard
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-beito28-2009aug28,0,7350355.story
I’ve read the Beitos’ new biography of Howard, and it is excellent.
"Wolf whistle be damned".
If my memory serves me correct, one teen was killed and the two others beaten severely. A large gentleman who was black and a truck driver, rescued the surviving teens. This was about ten years ago. The mayor of Flint was reported as blaming the white teens. He said they were bad kids to be fooling around as they did.
Where was the main-stream press? One guess.
You get it.
Someone else that has bothered to research the case rather than just swallow the liberal take all these years.
Till was much larger than his age and was trying to show off to his country bumpkin cousins.
He went back into the store and asked the wife to be his ‘girlfriend’. I doubt if he used those words.
The wife didn’t wish to cause the young man any trouble and kept her mouth shut. In fact, it was an old black man sitting outside the store who was insulted and tattled to the husband when he got back from a trip.
It became a tragic case of a couple of drunk guys squared off with an obstinate kid and nobody backed down.
How about the White Girl the Savages Butchered in Knoxville?
so it was his casket. where is he now? why was he removed from the casket his mother buried him in? for some reason i cannot get the link to come up. is any of this info in the story?
So I take it you defend Till’s behavior. To each his own I guess.
If a white man had behaved the same, he would have gotten a whipping and lynching too.
The press and others for a matter of something to stir up, had the FBI make further investigation two years ago. They had Till's body exhumed. I don't know what then happened. Now here is the vile, spiteful agenda of the press and others.
The two men who killed Till were dead. The unfortunate and innocent Carolyn Bryant who was simply a frightened woman, trying to get everyone to calm down, was traced and still alive. Certain persons wanted her charged as an instigator of lthe mindless brutal crime. It was widely known locally, she tried to defuse the situation. Till had actually grasped her and tried to kiss her- the press and it's "wolf whistle".
Nobody deserves what happened to her.
As I said, Till was a jerk.
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