Bocas Cerradas - No Mas!

THE REEMERGENCE OF EMMETT TILL*

By ileta A. Sumner

Who Was Emmett Till?

In its September-October 2019 and November-December 2019 issues, the San Antonio Lawyer (SAL) published a two-part series on the short but wonderful life—along with the extended and horrific death—of a black youth from Chicago, Emmett Till. After Emmett was lynched while visiting family in Mississippi in 1955, his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, had his bludgeoned corpse photographed by Jet magazine and displayed in an open coffin so “the world [could] see what they [had] done” to her son. That bold act became the start of the modern civil rights movement. When the SAL series was published, the name “Emmett Till” had seemingly become little more than an asterisk in American history. However, lately, Emmett’s long shadow appears to be hovering everywhere, more than sixty years after his homicide. How has this come to pass? Actually, it seems to be nothing more complicated than the confluence of many disparate events that happened to intersect at this moment in time.

Emmett – The Case

Although she tried mightily, it was not until after Mamie Till Mobley’s death in 2003 that the government considered reopening Emmett’s murder case. In 1955, after a sham of a trial where two white defendants were found “Not Guilty” despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Mamie and her family’s desire to have someone held accountable for her son’s death was not first reconsidered until 2004, but the Justice Department found that there was no federal jurisdiction in the matter. Nonetheless, in 2005, the United States Senate issued a resolution conveying “remorse for failing to pass anti-lynching legislation.” Then, in 2007, a Mississippi grand jury refused to issue charges against Carolyn Bryant (later Carolyn Bryant Donham), the white woman whose lies about having been groped instigated Emmett’s kidnapping and lynching. However, that same year, the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Reauthorization Act of 2007 gave the Justice Department the authority to investigate unsolved cases prior to 1970 that ended in death.

The latest effort to reopen the case, in 2018, failed when an allegation of “new evidence” was never substantiated. The best chance of getting truthful testimony from the accuser arose when new evidence surfaced in June 2022. During research in the Leflore County, Mississippi, courthouse, a 1955 warrant for Carolyn Bryant was discovered. It turned out that it had not been served because authorities felt the mother of two young children need not be “bothered” with such a nuisance. Once again, this led nowhere because the Mississippi Attorney General claimed that the warrant, though recently found, was not NEW evidence. While Emmett’s story should live in perpetuity, Donham just passed away on April 25, 2023, at the age of 88, while in hospice care for cancer. Because Donham died without admitting under oath that she had lied about Emmett’s having done anything untoward to her, any chance to hold someone legally liable for Emmett’s death died with her.

Emmett – The Law

After 100 years and more than 200 attempts, at last there is a federal anti-lynching law. What became the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act, signed into law by President Biden on March 29, 2022, was first introduced by Rep. George Henry, the only black man in the United States Congress at the time, in 1900. Part of the delay was due to disagreement over the definition of “lynching.” Ultimately, kidnappings, aggravated sexual abuse, or attempts to kill a person when a conspiracy to commit a hate crime results in death or serious bodily injury, can all be prosecuted as lynchings.

Emmett – The Films

Certainly, for many decades, Emmett has not been front page news, but that does not mean his story has been forgotten. That being said, of the hundreds of books and articles that have been published, two books, Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime that Changed America, by Mamie Till Mobley (published posthumously in 2003) and Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement, a welldocumented book including forty-five pages of endnotes, became the basis of the six-hour ABC network mini-series entitled “Women of the Movement,” which aired in January 2022. Surprisingly, this network program used the extremely graphic language of the era as well a raw examination of the brutality associated with racism in the south in 1955.

Likewise, Till—a movie in wide release as of October 14, 2022—examines the circumstances surrounding Emmett’s life and killing. While Till shows the dismal occurrences of Emmett’s life, the protagonist of Till is Mamie Till Mobley, and the movie shows the incidents from her perspective. Unlike the mini-series, the movie does not include the beat-down suffered by Emmett because, in real life, Mamie was not present for that horrific event. Nevertheless, the emotions are shown in full force, especially when the camera shows Mamie visiting her only child on display in his coffin.

Both films were well received and included very nuanced performances depicting difficult lives during hard times. Still, problems examined in these films, unfortunately, were not brand new in 2022. Another movement had already revived Emmett’s story in its continuing fight for change.

Emmett – His Life Matters

Just as the tale of Emmett’s life served as a catalyst for the civil rights movement of the 20th century, the story of Trayvon Martin can be pinned as the spark for the nonviolent protest for the rights of people of color in the new millennium. Both events involve black teenagers; each of them was on a trip when his life ended; and no one was held accountable for either of their deaths.

Emmett Till

Photo courtesy of New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LCUSZ62-111241

It is interesting to note that one hundred days after the death of Emmett Till, Rosa Parks refused to defer to codes that required black people to sit in the back of municipal buses, giving momentum to the civil rights movement; and in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s death, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi founded Black Lives Matters (BLM), which gave rise to (mostly) peaceful protests worldwide. It should not be surprising that the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), authorized in 2003 and opened in 2016, has an exhibit tracing a definite connection between Emmett and Trayvon. Not only does it have clothes worn by Trayvon, but the NMAAHC has also obtained the casket in which Emmett’s body was displayed. The pictures of Trayvon’s eyes piercing from under his hoodie show a similar innocence displayed in photos of Emmett’s face before his southern visit.

Coincidentally, the picture (video) of another victim, George Floyd, while he was being killed by now ex-policeman Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis, MN, in May 2020, spurred the spread of BLM protests. It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, it is fair to say that photographs of Emmett, Trayvon, and George elicited strong emotions and kick-started serious protests worldwide in a way no essay could have done. In fact, the day after Floyd’s killer Derek Chauvin was convicted, Floyd’s brother Philonise Floyd commented that Till had immediately come to his mind, and he called Emmett “the first George Floyd.”

Because of these myriad, largely unconnected matters, Emmett Till’s place in history has been solidified. With the creation of his permanent exhibit in NMAAHC; preservation of bulletproof markers designating the site where his murder occurred; documentation of Emmett’s story not just in books but also on screens large and small; the development of an app so that inquisitive persons can get accurate information about Emmett’s experiences; as well as the passage of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, Emmett Till will remain part of the collective consciousness of the world. More than half a century after Emmett Till’s murder went unpunished, anyone who commits a crime that’s deemed a lynching will also face federal repercussions— imprisonment of up to thirty years.

While Emmett was silenced forever for not keeping quiet, his picture, along with the legislation that bears his name, in addition to innumerable ways that his story has been, and can be, disseminated will guarantee that the world knows about racism in America.

ileta! Sumner, Esq. is a former President of the Bexar County Women’s Bar Association (2002) and the original General Counsel and creator of the legal department of the Battered Women’s and Children Shelter. She has been disabled since 2006.

Selected Bibliography

*The original series was titled, “En Bocas Cerradas,” which was derived from the Spanish saying, “En bocas cerradas, no entran moscas” – flies cannot enter your mouth when you keep it shut – in reference to the multiple warnings Emmett’s mom gave him about how to speak to white people down south.

Gabby Raymond, “Justice Department Has Reopened Its Investigation of Emmett Till’s Murder. Here Are 5 Things to Know About the Case,” Time, July 12, 2018, 5:06 PM EDT, https:// time.com/5336879/original-emmett-till-casereopened/.

Darlene Superville, “Biden hosts screening of film about lynching of Emmett Till,” AP News, February 16, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/ biden-legal-proceedings-mississippi-crime-1e57 ded597170a7d69fd5cdd47938679.

“Mississippi Team Uncovers Arrest Warrant for White Woman Who Lied About Emmett Till,” Tennessee Tribune, July 3, 2022, https:// tntribune.com/mississippi-team-uncoversarrest-warrant-for-white-woman-who-liedabout-emmett-till/.

Peter Granitz, “Senate passes anti-lynching bill and sends federal hate crime legislation to Biden,” npr, March 8, 2022, https://www.npr. org/2022/03/08/1085094040/senate-passesanti-lynching-bill-and-sends-federal-hatecrimes-legislation-to-bi

“More Than a Century After it Was First Proposed, President Biden Signs Historic Law Making Lynching a Federal Crime,” Death Penalty Information Center, March 31, 2022, https:// deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/more-than-acentury-after-it-was-first-proposed-presidentbiden-signs-historic-law-making-lynching-afederal-crime

Scott Pierce, “TV mini-series about lynching of Emmett Till is based on ‘unlikely’ book by Utah author,” The Salt Lake Tribune, June 2, 2022, Update Jan 3, 2022, https://www.sltrib.com/ artsliving/2022/01/02/tv-miniseries-about/

Odie Henderson, “Till,” RogerEbert.com, October 14, 2022, https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ till-movie-review-2022

“The Impact of Emmett Till’s Murder,” American Experience, PBS, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/ americanexperience/features/emmett-impactemmett-tills-murder/

Sanya Mansoor, “93% of Black Lives Matters Protests Have Been Peaceful, New Report Finds,” Time, September 5, 2020, 11:47 AM EDT, https:// time.com/5886348/report-peaceful-protests/.

“Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom, Era of Segregation, 1876 – 1968, Exhibitions, National Museum of African American History & Culture, https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/ defending-freedom-defining-freedom

“From Trayvon Martin to Emmett Till: Black Lives Matter,” National Museum of African American

History & Culture, August 12, 2021, https:// nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/trayvon-martinemmett-till-black-lives-matter

Helier Cheung, “George Floyd’s Death: Why U.S. protests are so powerful this time,” BBC News, Washington, D.C., 8 June 2020, https://www.bbc. com/news/world-us-canada-52969905

Sophia Tareer, “George Floyd’s and Emmett Till’s Families See Parallel Loses,” AP News, April 21, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/emmett-tillgeorge-floyd-death-of-george-floyd-4af9887a29 86386e561d1a8eea205227

Margaret Carlisle, “Bulletproof Emmett Till Marker Erected in Mississippi,” TIME, October 20, 2019, 12:02 PM EDT, https://time.com/5705681/ bulletproof-emmett-till-murder-marker/ Keisha Rowe, “In 1955, Emmett Till was murdered in Mississippi. In 2019, a new app honors his memory,” Mississippi Clarion Ledger, published 4:05 p.m., CT, August 28, 2019, https://www. clarionledger.com/story/news/2019/08/28/ emmett-till-new-app-fsu-prof-history-14-yearold-killed-ms-civil-rights/2144706001/