Later, I did some research and several years later, we went to the "Museum of Black History" in Washington with my son and I wanted to show him what stupidity and hatred could engender. This event is a significant fact of black American culture and of this dark period that we call "Jim Crow".
I feel that even though the French black community probably has its own history and its own misfortunes, I am certain that this history transcends borders and that it should be known and studied in class. I still remember the photos shown in this museum on the history of Emmett Till.
But who was Emmett Till? Emmett lives in Chicago with his mother. During the summer of 1955 Emmett goes to visit his family in the state of Mississippi. While talking with his cousins Emmett is said to have bragged about having a white girlfriend in Chicago. But life in Chicago is very different from life in the American South at that time (and even today…). His cousins tease him and dare him to go talk to the girl behind the counter at the local grocery store.
Caught up in the game, he goes to buy candy in the grocery store. On the way out, he is heard saying: "Bye Baby" to the woman behind the grocery store counter. No one really knows what happened between them because there were no witnesses, but the woman behind the counter is called Carolyn Bryan and she will later say that the young man grabbed her and made heavy advances on her. The young man also whistled. A few days later, the wife's husband returns to town after a business trip, he hears about this affair.
He and his brother-in-law then decide to take matters into their own hands and go to Emmet Till's house to resolve this disagreement… What disagreement, you might ask? Obviously, there was a big disagreement between them. Otherwise, what follows would not be justified, would it?
They pick up Emmett from his home, drive him away, spend the night beating him up and subjecting him to the worst tortures and atrocities, then drive him to the Tallahatchie River. In the early morning, they make him carry a cotton machine fan, beat him almost to death and take out his eyes, shoot him in the head and throw him into the river tied to the cotton fan with barbed wire. His body was so unrecognizable that he was only identified by a ring he had been wearing a few days earlier. If this story doesn't scare you so far, the rest will undoubtedly allow you to reach a maximum level of fear.
His mother, who was living in Chicago at the time of the tragedy and who had sent her child to see family, found herself burying him a few days later. Courageously, she did what no one would have had the heart to do: she organized the funeral of her 14-year-old son, whose body was completely mutilated, in an open coffin. I saw this photo of this kid lying in this almost faceless coffin. An incredible crowd was queuing to see him at the Museum.
Her photo was published in a black magazine of the time, the killers were acquitted, and this after a jury deliberation of less than an hour. Ironically, in 2017, Carolyn Bryan denied having been touched by Emmett Till.
Today, after more than 120 years of indifference to the subject, the American Congress has just passed a law that bans lynching.
