Emmett Till, Mike Brown, and a New Movement for an Old Law

The Huffington Post ^ | August 28, 2014 | Zachary Norris, Executive Director, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights

[2ndDivisionVet]

Despite progress over the last century, for black people this country has failed to ever make good on its earliest and most basic democratic protection: the 14th Amendment. When the 14th Amendment was enacted, it was meant to provide equal protection to all under the law. But if a black person can be gunned down and left in the street for over four hours with no disciplinary action taken against the government representative responsible, what does "equal protection" mean? Redeeming the promise of the 14th Amendment is as relevant today as it was when first enacted.

On August 9, 2014, Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed 18-year-old Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. On August 28, 1955, two white men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, killed 14-year-old African-American Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi after Till reportedly flirted with a white woman. An all-white jury summarily acquitted Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam. Just months later the two men talked with a reporter and admitted to torturing, killing, and mutilating Till.

Till's mother Mamie Till Mobley heroically insisted on a public funeral with an open casket to show the world the brutality of what happened to her son. The funeral and images focused national and international attention on lynching and the apartheid character of American life under Jim Crow, and ignited the modern civil rights movement.

Similarly, the killing of Mike Brown by Darren Wilson has sparked a new movement to end police violence and the "New Jim Crow," the mass criminalization of black people in particular, and of communities of color more broadly. The killing has sparked protests across the country and more than 5,000 people attended Brown's funeral. But to be successful, this new movement must succeed in advancing a very old demand and promise....

[2ndDivisionVet]

Zachary Norris, Co-Director

Zachary is an attorney from Oakland, California. He is formerly a Soros Justice Fellow and the director of Books Not Bars, a campaign of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. For 7 years, he worked to build California’s first statewide network for families of incarcerated youth. The campaign contributed to efforts to close 5 youth prisons in the state, passed legislation to enable families to stay in contact with their loved ones and defeated Prop 6 -- one of the state’s most destructive and ineffective ballot measures. He attended the Labor Community Strategy Center’s National School for Strategic Organizing in Los Angeles, California, is a former board member at Witness for Peace and Just Cause Oakland and is a graduate of Harvard University and New York University School of Law.

So Zachary thinks it's still 1955? He's 37 years old, so he knows nothing first-hand about it. Will they still be dragging out these young men's names in 2114?

[Darteaus94025]

Young black men get gunned down every Friday and Saturday night in Chicago, St. Louis, New York and. Los Angeles. Scores of them.

Zachary Norris does not care about them because their deaths do not give him a reason to blame whitey.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

How come everytime a thug gets killed invariably someone has to bring Emmet Till into the picture? This is about the 3rd article this week I saw mention Emmet Till and Michael Brown in the same sentence. HOW the hell is a thug like Michael Brown equal to a black kid in 1955 Mississippi who was lynched by Democrats because he talked to a white democrat slut? Same with the attempted murderer Traydmark Martin ™ , attempts to kill George Zimmerman because Zimmerman had the audacity to walk in Martins general direction for a block, and suddenly Traydmark Martin ™ is "Emmet Till". Unreal.

[RginTN]

sigh, Obama is _resident, Holder is AG and this guy writes of the new Jim Crow?

Wait there is a New Jim Crow and its victims are Conservative Constitutionalists targeted by the IRS, Repubican politicians targeted by leftist prosecutors and Journalists working to uncover abuse of power by the Obama regime being targeted by the DOJ.

[RedHeeler]

Great photograph. He is certainly an enterprisingly opportunistic young man. Angela Davis is proud, no doubt.

[Smokin' Joe]

Thanks for the bio, there. "Soros Justice Fellow" told me all I really needed to know. I remember when Jim Crow left town, and for about three years, there was hope. Kids in school wanted good grades, wanted to succeed, wanted to go to college.

The communists were busy undermining all that, and after the riots of the late '60s what had been seen as the ticket to success was just 'acting white'. The 'Great Society' took over as the family breadwinner, and a rudderless generation fathered the next...who fathered the next...

Democrats and Marxists (there used to be a difference) have done incredible damage, not just to Black society, but to America as a whole, but the current crop of Marxist Democrats are rubbing salt in old wounds, and tearing open the scars they left last time.

[Smokin' Joe]

It’s enough to make you wonder if Emmett was really up to something, the way they keep comparing him to thugs.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

Seriously, it’s either that or these idiots have absolutely no concept of reality whatsoever. They did the same thing with Trayvon Martin, over and over and over and over and over comparing him to Emmet Till. Trayvon Martin was an attempted murderer, he tried to bash George Zimmermans head in and in front of witnesses, and quite frankly Zimmerman is lucky he survived because a lot of head injuries like that result in death from bleeding on the brain. How the hell is that like Emmet Till? Are they not telling us something?

[umgud]

Due to blacks propensity to crime, there will always be more interaction between them and the law. This interaction generally won’t work out in their favor.

[WKB]

Find the missing link in the Mississippi ping

[SECURE AMERICA]

When the 14th Amendment was enacted, it was meant to provide equal protection to all under the law. But if a black person can be gunned down and left in the street for over four hours with no disciplinary action taken against the government representative responsible, what does “equal protection” mean?

Well it means you are an idiot that has made some assumptions and ran with them instead of waiting for the facts. No one was “gunned down” under any circumstance. A person was shot by an armed police officer during an altercation. An investigation will and is taking place as it should. But that does not fit your political agenda does it?

[Altura Ct.]

Emmett Till?

Screw Emmett Till. When these whiners start lamenting people such as Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian or any of the other multitudes of whites brutalized by blacks we can talk but otherwise...FU.

[driftless2]

About twenty black males are murdered by other black males every day. A white police officer shoots and kills ONE!!! black male about once a week. The latter number is a little speculative because I can’t find the numbers separating black cops from white cops in this matter. Black cops might actually shoot more black males than white cops shoot black males.

[Scoutmaster]

Screw Emmett Till?

The killers of Christopher Newsome and Channon Christian were all convicted (all convicted) and are serving time. One has a death sentence. Another has a life sentence without parole.

The killers of Emmett Till were acquitted by an all-white jury and promptly bragged about how they killed him. When blacks returned to the courtroom after lunch, the county sheriff would welcome them with a loud "Hello, N*ggers!" (if you believe the FBI and countless other contemporary reports).

Newsome and Christian were victims of convenience, out parking in Newsome's car. Till's murder was planned for four (?) days, and Till was the target. His murderers kidnapped other young black men until they found Till.

Till's murderers admitted they kidnapped him and drove him bound in the back of a pickup truck some 70 miles, but claimed they let him go. That was the only alibi.

Till's body was found with a .45ACP hole behind his right ear, most of his face blown off, his right eye gouged out, pistol whipped, beaten, with a broken arm, a broken leg, and a 70-pound weight tied to him with barbed wire, then thrown in the Tallahatchie River.

The defense argument? The face was so destroyed that the body could not be identified as Till.

I lament the death of Christopher Newsome and Channon Christian, but Emmett Till's death was planned and brutal, his killers were acquitted by an all-white jury, his killers bragged about it after the verdict, and nobody served any time.

I can see the difference between 1955 Mississippi justice for a 14-year old black boy and justice for Newsome and Christian's killers.

[chesley]

Democrats and Marxists (there used to be a difference)

Yeah, the old Democrats were just foos.

[Altura Ct.]

Blah, blah, blah.

I can see the difference between 1955 Mississippi justice for a 14-year old black boy and justice for Newsome and Christian's killers.

I'm sure you can. Most black apologist can. Black on white crime is no less brutal but folks like you want to act like it is an atrocity that has no equal. This whole Brown and Treyvon circus are keen examples of this BS.

I lament the death of Christopher Newsome and Channon Christian, but Emmett Till's death was planned and brutal

Newsome and Christian were victims of convenience

Lament? - So this a 'random' crime which somehow makes it less brutal and noteworthy? Suffocation, bleach, being burned with gasoline, beaten with a table leg and raped notwithstanding.

Certain elements trot Till out like he is Mother Mary and everyone else is not worthy particularly if they are white.

[Scoutmaster]

Those who killed and tortured Newsome and Christian are ALL in prison. Look it up.

Those who killed, and admitted torturing and killing, Emmett Till walked free. The woman that Till was accused of making improper comments to didn't even testify at the trial.

Justice in many parts of the country was different for a case involving a white man and a black man in 1955. Any educated person with an open mind knows that.

I said 1955, but I'll also add 1964 and the murders (by acting county and city officials) of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner for trying to register Mississippi blacks to vote.

Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin don't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Till, Newsome, and Christian. Neither Brown nor Martin died for any greater cause, it appears they died as a result of their own thuggery. And on the subject of Emmett Till, he wasn't the Civil Rights martyr that Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner each were.

And where in the name of Jerry Garcia did you get the idea that I think white on black crime is a greater atrocity than black on white crime?

[Conscience of a Conservative]

It’s not worth arguing with Alturas Ct. Check out the posting history - every post is about race, and would fit right in over at Storefront.

[Conscience of a Conservative]

Stormfront, that is.