On My Brother's Shoulders

EVOLUTION OF LYNCHING “The civil rights era was a very trying time in the history of the United States. It was a time when White Americans were violently divided on their feelings towards African Americans; and tensions were remarkably worse in the South. There were several laws, social mores and other discriminatory traditions established that were intentionally designed to keep the two races apart, but none had as significant an impact as the Brown vs. Board of Education decision of 1954 which outlawed the segregation of public schools and other public facilities. It was a critical decision that would soon make the separate but equal doctrine a distant memory from the past. For one of the first times in the history of the United States, Supreme Court justices were finally beginning to publicly recognize the humanity of Blacks. Their ruling opened up countless opportunities to African Americans that could never have been possible in previous years. However, no matter how triumphant a victory this legal decision would prove itself to be for African Americans in general, many angry White Southerners felt as though they had somehow been betrayed by the American judicial system. While African Americans on the other hand felt like they had a friend who was looking out for them and as though maybe justice wasn’t so terribly blind after all. Somehow, the future looked much brighter for them and their children. The former slaves and their descendants knew that there were going to be some major changes to take place as a direct result of the Supreme Court’s decision, but they certainly never hoped for the wheels of destiny to turn in such a truly unfathomable manner. The Brown vs. Board of Education decision was about the possibilities for equality among Blacks and Whites above anything else. It was about the possibility of freedom for most Blacks and the possibility of an interracial community for Blacks and Whites in segregated parts of the country, and particularly in the South. However, for strongly divided racial militant groups it was a day of great despair. In fact, for them this historical event was labeled “Black Monday” and many who protested the Supreme Court’s decision also vowed that someone would certainly pay for the unprecedented ruling. White Citizen Councils were immediately armed, hoping to retaliate and to bring about an unsettling form of just-us. They were determined to form an alliance against Blacks and to do whatever was necessary to show African Americans that they were not required to observe or to follow any law that they determined was an unjust law, which of course was left up to their own racist interpretation. In the years to immediately follow that decision, tensions built up in the South at an all time high. And throughout the country several African American leaders and martyrs would soon be assassinated as a direct result of this social climate of hate. Over and over again the individuals to lose their lives would change, but the issue would still be the same. An African American would stand up for their rights, not be willing to remain complacent with racial divides, or simply and unequivocally end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whatever the specific issues were, it was always assumed that our lives were worth risking and literally left hanging in the balance. As a direct result, the history and social fabric of American history was stained, and the heart of African Americans in this country was broken yet time and time again. In fact, one of the most significant events to occur shortly after the Supreme Court decision was the lynching of Emmett Till in 1955 when it became apparent that even an African American child would not be safe in the United States due to the quickly deteriorating race relations. And there were still countless others who lost their lives in the struggle for civil rights; there was Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, Malcolm X; all the way down from the famous to the little known. But with each life that was lost in the struggle, the spirit of African American people became a little more displaced in the United States, our social identity compromised and we were left with a huge gaping hole where the words of true leaders once echoed in our hearts.” -- E. Willa Simpson “His tongue was hanging down near his chin, one of his eyes was lying on his cheek, the other one was gone as if someone had taken a nut picker and picked it right out…it was just gone. The bridge of his nose looked like they had taken a hatchet and chopped the bridge of his nose. And while I’m looking at all of these things, by his mouth being open I could see that he only had three or four teeth left…and I paused to say what a pity; meaning those were some of the most beautiful teeth I had ever seen and for all of those teeth to be beaten out of him like that, it was just a gross thing to me. Then I went to look at his ear because I really had to figure out what that was or who that was. I’m never going to say that I looked at him at once and said that’s my child. I did not know what it was.” --Mamie Till Mobley Mother of Emmett Till “Well certainly there is a consciousness of the traumatic impact of lynching on Black communities from the aftermath of the civil war on. When James Byrd for example in Texas is dragged by White supremacists driving a pickup truck, that immediately evokes many of the repressed feelings about the historical impact of lynching. And that’s something that I think we have to figure out how to deal with. Haile Gerima in his film “Sankofa” argued that he made this film because Black people still have not been able to start the process of healing in relation to slavery and that it is important to think about and acknowledge and talk about those horrors in our history as opposed to shrouding them with silence; forgetting about them and not wanting to talk about them. I know when I was a child, my grandmother would rarely talk about her growing up years and I think in many Black families there was a tendency to sort of relegate bad things to the past and to feel that if we just don’t talk about them, they’ll go away. But of course, if you don’t talk about them, they fester and become more painful. And therefore it is time to start acknowledging them.” --Angela Y. Davis "That one single event set-off a chain of events that eventuated in the explosion of Black freedom struggles throughout this nation and symbolized the brutality and the utter horror of the White Supremacist logic that it could offend and that it could hurt, that it could kill, and that it could maim an innocent Black boy.” --Michael Eric Dyson “I think that it is important for people to remember Emmett Till because it’s a part of history, part of the world shaping and a part of the United States civil rights movement. It’s a part of things that happened that people should know about in the history of the world and how things really evolved and what was done; even if it was right or wrong. Because that’s what history is about and Emmett Till will always be history.” --Howard Bingham Producer of Motion Picture Film “Ali”