Emmett Till vs.Trayvon Martin

Today racism is still a part of everyday life.  On the night of February 26, 2012 the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman took place, in Sanford, Florida, United States. Martin was a 17-year-old African American high school student.  George Zimmerman, a 28 year old mixed race of Hispanic was the neighborhood watch coordinator for the gated community where Martin was temporarily staying. Trayvon was walking home from a convenient store down the street when   Zimmerman called and said that he looked suspicious. Zimmerman continuously followed Martin even after being instructed not to the local police department.  Later Zimmerman stated that Martin had looked suspicious because he was wearing a hood and looked like he was carrying a gun. This was far from true. Martin was carrying skittles and tea that he had just bought at the convenient store.  Zimmerman was acquitted of the murder claiming self-defense.  The "not guilty" verdict acquitting George Zimmerman from criminal charges in the death of 17 year old Trayvon Martin is scary for a number of reasons. Most of all because it reminds us that a racial time we hoped was over, is not. In the Zimmerman case we have a strange historical link to the infamous trial of the two men who in 1955 murdered 14 year old Emmett Till. We are a far from the nastiness of the Emmett Till trial. The jury in the Zimmerman case took 16 hours over the course of two days to reach its verdict, and today, the Justice Department has the authority to act if it can be shown that a civil rights violation took place in the killing of Trayvon Martin. What we can't get away from, is how the sequence of events that led to Till's and Martin's deaths began with the two teenage boys failing to accept their "assigned" social place without realizing what a threat that posed. After that line was crossed, everything else followed. This is why racism is still a big problem today. 

The African Civil Rights movement.

Through the constant attention it received, Till's case became representative of the inequality of justice for blacks in the South. NAACP operative Amzie Moore considers Till the start of the Civil Rights Movement, at the very least, in Mississippi. Just a hundred days after the trial In Montgomery, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white bus rider, starting a yearlong well organized grassroots boycott of the public bus system, designed to force the city to change its segregation policies. Rosa Parks said later that when she did not get up and move to the back of the bus, "I thought of Emmett Till and I just couldn't go back.” Emmett Till continues to be the focus of literature and memorials. A statue was showed in Denver in 1976 featuring Emmett with Martin Luther King, Jr. Emmett Till was included among the forty names of people who had died in the Civil Rights Movement. In 2007, Tallahatchie County delivered a formal apology to Till's family, reading "We the citizens of Tallahatchie County recognize that the Emmett Till case was a terrible failure of justice. We state truthfully and with deep regret the failure to effectively pursue justice. We wish to say to the family of Emmett Till that we are deeply sorry for what was done in this public to your loved one.” Emmett Tills murder was horrific and life changing for many people. As today he is still a symbol of injustice and racism. 

This picture is a disturbing one. This is Emmett Louis "Bobo" Till before and after the terrible incident. Emmett's mother Mamie Till had her son’s body back to Chicago for rand open casket ceremony so that everyone can see what those horrible men did to her son. This picture definitely shows the brutality that Roy Bryant and J.W. Milan portrayed on Emmett. The double jeopardy law that they were protected by should have never been in place. Racism also had a big effect on the trial of Emmett’s murder.  The all-white jury was accused of being racist from many people.  The main reason for the two men’s acquittal was the defense’s case that the body was too mutilated to be identified. Some even suggested that Emmett Till was still alive but, the boy was identified but the silver ring on his finger that was imprinted with "L. T." and "May 25, 1943", it was or used to be Emmett’s fathers ring. Emmett’s mother had given it to him just the day before he left for Mississippi on August 20^th, 1955 the last time Mamie would ever see her son alive. Mose Wright took a big risk and testified against the two men as well as Emmett’s cousins who were there when Emmett had been kidnapped. They said if they were going to die they weren’t going to do with the blood of their cousin on their hands. Carolyn Bryant also testified but she was unable to testify in front of the jury because they said her testimony was irrelevant to the murder.  Which it was indeed relevant. 

This is a picture of the barn that Roy Bryant and J.W. Milan took Emmett to after they had kidnapped him from the boys great uncle Moses’s house.. While there they beat him, and gouged one of his eyes out before shooting him in the head. After killing him they threw him in the Tallahassee River. Weighting him down with a 70 pound cotton gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire. His body was discovered and retrieved from the river three days later. Emmett was taken from his relative’s house and was told to lie down in the back of a pickup truck and people always wondered why he never jumped out of the back of the pickup to save himself. Later on they discovered that it was because the boy was not afraid. Roy and J.W.s plan was at first just to take Emmett to a cliff beat him and make him think they were going to throw him off the side of the cliff but they were unable to find the cliff so they took him to the barn instead.  Later they leaked that Emmett could not be scared and that he must have thought the two men would not hurt him because he was running his mouth like it. The two men confessed to the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till in Look Magazine for $4,000 dollars because they were protected by double jeopardy laws.  Those two men got away with murder. 

Summary

The book “Getting Away with Murder" is about a 14 year old boy Emmett Till being kid napped from his home and murdered. His murder and the succeeding trial of his accused killers became a lightning rod for moral outrage, both at the time and to this day. Rumbling racial tensions were intensified by the recent ruling against segregation in the Brown vs. Board of Education case.  All of this was most likely unknown to Emmett, who had grown up in Chicago, where Jim Crow laws were not as strict. Emmett was visiting family in Money, Mississippi in the summer of 1955. Unaware of the racial tensions in in the south he was on a dare and Emmett talked to Carolyn Bryant, a white woman who worked at a convenience store.  Apparently Emmett had whistled a wolf whistle at her, which also gave the trial its name.  Many believe that at most, Emmett said “Bye, Baby” to Mrs. Bryant after purchasing candy from her.  Upon the hearing of Emmett’s alleged rude and disrespectful behavior, Mrs. Bryant’s husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, J. W. Milam, kidnapped Emmett from his home took him to the barn that was behind Roy Bryant’s house where they tortured and killed Emmett .  The two men were acquitted of the charges also, admitting they had committed the murder outside of the courtroom.  So overall this book is about a young African American boy who was killed for having a little fun. The story shows how racism was a big issue then and still is today. 

Review

. I like this book because it is telling a story of a young boy who was murdered for hitting on a white woman. It shows how racism really was in the south not so long ago actually. I do not like that the boy was murder or how he as murdered but it tells his story and that is the important part to me.  This book breaks my heart and I hope that nobody ever goes through what Emmett went through in their entire lives. Taken from his home and beaten to death because of a comment he made to a white woman at a convenient store.  It disgusts me. I would have sued for everything I could have if my son were the victim.  I think this book points out the intensity of the racial tension on the south in the 1950’s. The judges were even racist.  The man who murdered Emmett was acquitted of their charges and Emmett’s mother was outraged.  This book was interesting but I hate what happened to that little boy. He did not deserve it. Not one bit. The pictures in the book were also very graphic. I almost wanted to get sick several times. I hope that people read this book and it makes a difference in their lives. I hope people nowadays are nowhere near as harsh as they were back then.  The color of our skin is no reason for someone to be out to death and I hope those men reaped what they sowed for the rest of their lives.