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...
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