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.
Two days after the Big Lie, the woman’s husband, Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J. W. Milam, went to the home of Emmett’s uncle, Mose Wright, where Emmett was staying for the summer vacation. Both Bryant and Milam were heavily armed. These full-grown men kidnapped this 14-year-old child and took him away. He would never return to his great uncle’s home. The spirit of Emmett Till is still rising.
These grown White men beat this child, mutilated his body, shot him in the head, tied a huge heavy piece of cotton gin metal around his neck, and threw him in the Tallahatchie River. Emmett had died a horrible death, but that would not be the end. The spirit of Emmett Till is still rising.
There was a brazen attempt to immediately bury Emmett’s 14-year-old mutilated body because law enforcement wanted the corpse to be out of sight, out of mind. But his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, insisted that his mutilated body be shipped back to Chicago. Law enforcement refused, and it took all she and other local Black people could do to get the dead body from law enforcement. The body was shipped to Chicago, but that would not be the end. The spirit of Emmett Till is still rising.
There was a trial of Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam. The trial was September 19, 1955, just 21 days after the kidnapped and mutilated body was found. The rush was to put the horrible situation out of sight and out of mind. Two Black men, Mose Wright and Willie Reed, in the face of certain death, summoned the courage to testify at the trial. Both had to leave Mississippi immediately after and hide for years up north. It took the jury less than an hour to find these two grown White men not guilty of kidnapping, mutilating, shooting, and dumping this 14-year-old Black body in a Mississippi river. This, too, was not the end. The spirit of Emmett Till is still rising.
Before the body was shipped, local White law enforcement issued orders that the casket not be opened under any circumstances. However, Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, insisted on a public funeral with an open casket. The mother said, “I want the world to see what they did to my boy.” And tens of thousands saw the mutilated body. It was a terrible sight to the eyes. Jet Magazine ran a photo of the mutilated body on its cover, and other media spread it all over the world. But this was not the end. The spirit of Emmett Till is still rising.
People were deeply touched all over the country and beyond. Black people were graphically reminded of the long history of state-sanctioned White supremacy lynchings in these United States. More than 5,000 have been documented. After the funeral, Mamie Till Mobley took to the road, traveling all over this country sharing the story of the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till. One of the places she visited was Montgomery, Alabama. But the spirit of Emmett Till rose up from the dead and reached out. And the spirit of Emmett Till is still rising.
The rising spirit of Emmett Till touched Rosa Parks in December of 1955. She refused to get up and give her seat on a public bus so a White man could sit down. She was arrested and jailed. Black women at Alabama State University immediately initiated a boycott of the bus company. Ministers and other leaders, touched by the spirit of Emmett Till, pushed the boycott. Almost no one rode the buses. It went on for more than a year. The boycott was a powerful success. Martin Luther King, Jr. emerged as a national leader. The spirit of Emmett Till is still rising.
Bruce Boynton was touched by the rising spirit of Emmett Till in 1958. He refused to follow segregation practices and ordered a hamburger and cup of tea in a White restaurant in a Richmond, Virginia bus station. He was arrested and jailed. His case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declared segregation in interstate travel unconstitutional. On February 1, 1960, the rising spirit of Emmett Till touched four college students: Ezell Blair, Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain, and Joseph McNeal. and they started the sit-in movement at lunch counters in Greensboro, North Carolina. It spread to Nashville, Tennessee, and all of the Southern United States and beyond. By March 31, the sit-in movement was active in 55 cities and 13 states. The spirit of Emmett Till is still rising.
On May 4, 1961, the spirit of Emmett Till touched the Freedom Riders organized by CORE. It commenced with Blacks and Whites riding on the same buses, sitting beside each other traveling through the Deep South. The buses and riders were violently attacked by White supremacists in Rock Hill, South Carolina. John Lewis and Albert Bigelow were two of those beaten. They were attacked again in Anniston and Birmingham and Montgomery, Alabama. Diane Nash and other college students from Nashville, Tennessee, also touched by the spirit of Emmett Till, resumed the Freedom Rides when CORE called them off because they were too dangerous. They were placed in the worst prison in Mississippi. The spirit of Emmett Till is still rising.
The spirit of Emmett Till touched youth all over the country, some of whom organized SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordination Committee) on April 13, 1960 at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. The spirit spread to the following: Rock Hill South Carolina; Albany, Georgia; Philadelphia, Mississippi; New Orleans, Louisiana; Selma, Alabama; and many other places. Young people faced death daily, and some died, but they never stopped. The spirit of Emmett Till is still rising.
The spirit of Emmitt Till touched high school students in Selma, Alabama and Birmingham, Alabama. It touched other leaders in Marion, Alabama through the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson and Selma, Alabama with Bloody Sunday. The spirit of Emmett of Till continues to this day with the Black Lives Worldwide Movement of 2020. The spirit of Emmett Till is still rising.
EPILOGUE – Real history continues to impact us long after the historical event. Even terrible things meant for bad can be turned to good. The lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till happened 66 years ago but still impacts us to this day. The spirit of Emmett Till is still rising.
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