MetaFilter posts tagged with CivilRights and emmetttill

Any and all acts deemed necessary

marxchivist — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 21:50:43 -0800

The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission was created in 1956 by the Mississippi Legislature in the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. The Commission's express purpose was to "do and perform any and all acts and things deemed necessary and proper to protect the sovereignty of the state of Mississippi, and her sister states." In other words, it was an official tax-funded agency to combat the activities of the Civil Rights Movement. Their records are now online. [MI]

"That's his hazel eye," Mrs. Till said. "Where is the other one?"

kirkaracha — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 13:30:47 -0800

That big .45 jumped in Big Milam's hand. The youth turned to catch that big, expanding bullet at his right ear. He dropped. In Money, Mississippi on August 24, 1955, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant abducted 14-year-old Emmet "Bobo" Till, tortured him, shot him in the head, and dumped his body in the river for whistling at a white woman. Emmett's mother insisted on an open-casket funeral so people could see what had happened to her son. On September 15, 1955, Jet magazine published photos [NSFW] of Emmett's corpse, which brought the case national attention and helped ignite the civil rights movement. On September 23, 1955, an all-white jury acquitted Bryant and Milam after deliberating for about an hour. Milam and Bryant confessed in a January 24 , 1966, Look magazine article. Milam died in 1980 and Bryant died in 1990. After reopening the case in 2004 based on new evidence that more people may have been involved, the Justice Department closed the case today without filing any new charges. [more inside]

Look Magazine

stupidsexyFlanders — Fri, 14 May 2004 11:56:05 -0800

Emmett Till's murder case has been reopened, nearly fifty years after the killers' acquittal. Don't I mean alleged killers? No, the cretins happily confessed all to a national newsweekly after their trial. A thousand details here, and a couple more in the subsequent letters to the editor, that will forever kill any nostalgia you might have for the "old days."

The Murder of Emmett Till

y2karl — Thu, 09 Jan 2003 01:18:37 -0800

Emmett just barely got on that train to Mississippi. We could hear the whistle blowing. As he was running up the steps, I said, 'Bo,'--that's what I called him--'you didn't kiss me. How do I know I'll ever see you again?' He turned around and said, 'Oh, Mama.' Gently scolding me. He ran down those steps and gave me a kiss. As he turned to go up the steps again, he pulled his watch off and said, 'Take this, I won't need it.' I said, 'What about your ring?' He was wearing his father's ring for the first time. He said, 'I'm going to show this to my friends.' That's how we were able to identify him, by that ring. I think it was a Mason's ring.

Mamie Till-Mobley, 81, who wanted the world to see her teenage son's disfigured face after his slaying in Mississippi in 1955 and who became a figure in the civil rights movement, died of a heart ailment Jan. 6 at a hospital in Chicago. She had kidney failure.

The impact of the Emmett Till case on black America was even greater than that of the Brown decision. On January 20, 2003, The American Experience will present, on PBS, The Murder of Emmett Till. (Continued Inside)