In August 1955, a 14-year old African-American boy named Emmett Till murdered for flirting with a white woman. He had been kidnapped by the woman's husband and another white man who took the boy to a river and brutally murdered him (history.com). An all-white jury declared the murderers not guilty by stating that the state had failed to positively identify the body of Emmett (history.com). The judges refused to charge the murderers with kidnapping. This case has major lessons in racism and the segregation due to the oppressive systems that existed in the United States.
I have learnt that racism was real and very discriminatory in the 1950s. Emmett’s murder is significant because it showed the racial discriminations that existed in the 1960s and the years before. It shows that there was the need for the activism that engulfed the US in the 1960s led by Martin Luther King to demand equal treatment of all Americans.
In the racism era, some personal choices were extremely costly. However, the personal choices became costly depending on one’s race. Emmett’s choice to flirt with a white woman earned him a brutal murder and lack of justice thereafter. The choice that Bryant- the husband to the woman with whom Emmett had flirted- was right and together with his murderous colleague they were on the right according to the white judges.
In the modern US, there are numerous cases where white policemen have shot and even killed unarmed African American men on flimsy allegations or on grounds of self-defense. In some cases, the rogue cops have been acquitted in a manner closely matching that of Emmett’s killers. The federal and state governments need to review the rules and reexamine the cases where some rogue cops have been acquitted in spite of there being evidence substantial evidence to jail the killers and bring about justice unhindered by racial differences.
Works Cited
1955: The death of Emmett Till. Web 21 March 2016 http://www.history.com/this-day- in- history/the-death-of-Emmett-till
