Emmett Till's spirit is still with us. It began to rise in August 1965. Fourteen-year-old Emmett was on summer school vacation from Chicago, Illinois. He was brutally lynched on August 28, 1955. He would die an ugly brutal death. But his spirit would rise. And the spirit of Emmett Till is still rising.
It all started with a Big Lie. Even if the Big Lie were true, there was no reason for Emmett Till to die. Big Lies are usually excuses to do terrible things. What was the Big Lie? It was that this 14-year-old Black boy whistled at a White woman in a grocery store or said something out of the way to her. Like most Big Lies, it grew and got bigger and more destructive. By the time of the trial, the Big Lie was that he grabbed the White woman around her waist and spewed forth obscenities. Whatever the size of the lie or the truth, there was absolutely no reason for Emmett Till to die. The spirit of Emmett Till is still rising.
