REMEMBERING EMMET TILL

Emmett Till would have turned 83 today - had racists not lynched him aged 14.

In 1955, he was falsely accused by Carolyn Bryant of whistling at her and threatening her. Two men, one of them her husband, kidnapped the boy, tortured him to death, mutilated his body and dumped it in a river.

The men confessed to the murder but were acquitted by an all-White jury.

Emmett’s vile murder shaped the Black civil-rights movement in America. 250,000 people attended his funeral. Close-up photographs of his face and body, and the television coverage of the funeral, turned his lynching into a global symbol of racial injustice.

But even in death, racists won’t leave Emmett alone. White nationalist and supremacist groups over the years have found ways to desecrate his memorial marker - located at the place where his swollen and disfigured body was discovered.

Who knows what a life this beautiful boy would have gone on to have. His fate is a cause of great sadness and a reminder of the atrocities our people have had to endure. May he inspire our continued resistance.

Happy Birthday, Emmett Till.