Our dictatorial president, determined to erase any hint of American history that offends his relentless jingoism, could learn a lot from the day 70 years ago when they buried an affable 14-year-old boy in Chicago.
A horrific series of events began when, visiting relatives in Mississippi, he walked into a grocery store to buy bubble gum.
Exactly what he did inside is still a matter of conjecture, but several days later his mutilated body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River. He had been torturously beaten and shot in the head.
His unrecognizable remains were returned to Chicago for a funeral on Sept. 6, 1955 that was attended by at least 50,000 people and became a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement.
Amiable Emmett Till, reared in a predominately Black Chicago suburb, understood little about the eruptive protocols of being Black in the South. So when he either whistled at or otherwise teased the white female store clerk, his fate was sealed.
A few nights later, on Aug. 28, 1955, the woman’s husband and brother-in-law kidnapped Till from his bed in the deep of night, beat him into disfigurement, shot him, and threw him into the river.
To weigh his body down, they tied to his neck with barbed wire a 75-pound fan blade they stole from a cotton gin.
Weeks later Till’s killers were acquitted by an all-white jury in Sumner, Miss., the Tallahatchie County Seat whose slogan was, “A good place to raise a boy.”
It took the jury 67 minutes to return a verdict of not guilty, with one juror saying later, “We wouldn’t have taken so long if we hadn’t stopped to drink pop.”
Later, the two defendants told Look magazine they were indeed the killers, but by then they were under constitutional protection against double jeopardy – being tried twice for the same crime after an acquittal.
Emmett Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, could have enlightened Donald Trump, who’s hellbent on rubbing out what he calls “divisive narratives” – otherwise known as the truth about past oppressions in our nation.
Among his latest targets are the Smithsonian Institution and other museums he deems anti-American because they display our historical failures as well as our triumphs.
The Smithsonian focuses too much on “how bad slavery was,” Trump has said.
His implicit threats of funding cuts would today inflame the mother of Emmett Till, whose resolve at her son’s funeral galvanized millions nationwide to take a deep look at the meaning of civil rights.
Enduring a hideous anguish, she nevertheless declined the mortician’s offer to improve what grotesquely remained of her son’s face.
And she ordered an open-casket funeral for her only child, resolutely declaring, “Let the people see what they did to my boy.”
According to her recollections, people screamed and fainted at what they saw in Emmett’s coffin.
Her decision, she said, “really let us see the ugly monster that race hatred is – because it is a monster.”
Maybe on Sept. 6 the President of the United States could find a moment to reflect on the courage of this grief-stricken mother, and how her determination to show the truth stirred a nation.
Reminiscing later, she said, “When people saw what happened to my son, men stood up who had never stood up before.”
So, Mr. President, learn from the mother of Emmett Till.
Face facts.
Stop cowering before the truth.
Stand up.
Be a man.
Gerry Goldstein (gerryg76@verizon.net), a frequent contributor, is a retired Providence Journal editor and columnist.