In 2008, the first sign was erected to mark the site where a fourteen-year-old boy, Emmett Till, was thrown into the Mississippi River after being tortured and killed for whistling at a white woman in 1955. His horrific, senseless death helped spur a civil rights movement that has changed our society forever.
The sign was torn down and thrown into the river a few months later.
The second one had 318 bullet holes when it was replaced by a far sturdier 40-pound one.
Within a month it too was all shot up.
In October 2019, a fourth version was donated to the site. It weighs 500 pounds and is armor plated to withstand bullets.
For fifty years no one wanted to talk about, let alone acknowledge, what happened to this little boy.
In 2017, historian Timothy Tyson released details of a 2008 interview with Carolyn Bryant, the woman that accused Emmett Till, during which she claimed she had fabricated parts of her testimony. According to Tyson’s account of the interview,
“Bryant retracted her testimony that Till had grabbed her around her waist and uttered obscenities, saying ‘that part’s not true.’ This admission is a reminder of how Black lives were sacrificed to white lies in places like Mississippi. It also raises anew the question of why no one was brought to justice in the most notorious racially motivated murder of the 20th century, despite an extensive investigation by the F.B.I. and the admission of guilt by the two men who brutally killed him after a jury set them free.”
In 2020, President Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, making lynching a Federal hate crime. I was shocked it was ever considered anything else.
On July 2, 2023, President Biden not only talked about it, but enshrined this spot in our history forever by signing a proclamation, on what would have been Emmett’s 82nd birthday, making it a national monument. Along with the courthouse where local officials finally apologized to him and his mother, Mamie, and a church in Chicago where over 10,000 mourners showed up for his funeral.
All three make up the Emmett Till and Mamie Till- Mobley National Monuments.
That sign is now protected land and the full weight and might of the Federal Government is there to keep it safe.
But can it really accomplish this goal in a climate of worsening racial attacks and attempts to turn back decades of progress?
This wonderful tribute comes at a time when the country is seeing attacks against people of color, differing faiths, sexual perspectives and women’s health in alarming and escalating numbers.
Florida’s Governor Desantis has forced history teachers to point out the “upside” of slavery, allows one person to ban a book, passed a bill allowing teachers to carry guns in the classroom and stop teaching anything that can “upset or make a student uncomfortable.”
Alabama has outright refused to accept a decision by arguably the most conservative Supreme Court in decades when the court demanded a new map be drawn to better honor the Black population of their state.
We all witnessed congressional subpoenas being ignored. And the lack of consequences that followed.
And like it or not, Donald Trump is running for President while defending multiple legal cases against him. From a defamation suit after being found guilty in a civil suit for sexual assault, to paying hush money to keep a scandal out of the press before the 2016 election, to fraudulently inflating his assets, to keeping classified documents, then covering it up, to trying to prevent all votes from being counted in the 2020 election.
The question is fast becoming- are we a nation of laws, or not?
Are we willing to accept the courts’ decisions and if not, work within the system to change them, or not?
That acceptance has been the bedrock of our democracy.
In Israel the cabinet just voted to deny courts the ability to impact their decisions. This in a country where the prime minister is under investigation for corruption and the only restraint on his rule was the courts. This in a nation created after the Holocaust showed the world how devastating the consequences can be when the rule of law dies.
In Italy the most far right prime minister since Mussolini was voted into power.
Here in the United States, we have three branches of government. All in existence to support and protect our rights with checks and balances to ensure one doesn’t become stronger than the other.
But now some are advocating presidential powers that could diminish or supersede the others. Trump has made it clear if he wins he’d dismantle the U.S. Justice Department.
He’s quoted as saying, “I am your warrior. I am your Justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”
We have a Supreme Court not just refusing to abide by the same ethic rules that guide all other courts, but claiming they have a right to remain immune because Congress can’t dictate to them. A concerning response in the face of so many questions surrounding free trips, homes, gifts, and more.
State legislatures are incredibly powerful. We saw that in how close the 2020 election came to being overturned by local officials who certify the results. Wisconsin’s Republican candidate for Governor ran on the premise no Democrat would ever win again. He lost by a frighteningly small margin.
Super majorities in Tennessee kicked out two Black representatives for voicing their opinion on gun control. The white woman who joined them was not removed.
In Ohio, afraid they’d lose a November referendum demanding abortions be enshrined as a constitutional right, legislators scheduled a vote in the middle of August, after outlawing such practices, to sneak through a bill that would require a super majority of 60% to pass. Ohioan’s overwhelming said no when it was rejected Tuesday night.
Hundreds of bills have been passed in dozens of states making it harder to vote. Others have tried to give states the right to invalidate voter choices.
One proposed in Texas would allow presidential electors to set aside election results. Arizona tried and failed to pass such a bill. In Virginia, pending legislature would allow citizens to demand an audit which would then be presented to a jury of “randomly selected residents” to decide election winners.
We are at a tipping point.
Mass protests are erupting around the world to protect democracies.
Just like the Emmett Till sign that survived three desecrations before it was fortified and built stronger to resist attacks, we too are resilient.
Every time democracy and freedom are threatened, we must fight harder to prevent its demise and erect even stronger barriers to prevent its destruction.
Are we really prepared to live with the consequences if we don’t?
