On Friday, October 21, 2022, in Greenwood, an event worker lifts the tarp off the Emmett Till statue. After being suspected of insulting a white woman in her family’s grocery shop in Money, Miss. Till, a 14-year-old African American boy, was kidnapped, tortured, and killed on August 28, 1955. A Mississippi community announced a larger-than-life statue of Emmett Till just a short distance from where white men kidnapped and killed the Black teenager because he had made advances toward a white woman in a country store. Hundreds of people applauded, and some wiped away tears.
Change and Has Come
At the statue’s dedication, Madison Harper, a Leflore County High School senior, addressed a multicultural crowd by saying, “Change has come, and it will continue to happen.” “Our parents and grandparents could not have imagined that a time like this would occur decades ago.”
The civil rights movement was sparked by the lynching of 1955. Mamie Till-Mobley, Till’s mother, insisted on an open-casket funeral in Chicago so everyone could witness the atrocities committed against her 14-year-old son. His dismembered body, taken from the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi, was depicted in pictures published by Jet magazine.
The bronze monument, which stands 9 feet (2.7 meters) tall and depicts the living Till in pants, a dress shirt, and a tie with one hand on a hat’s brim, is located in Greenwood’s Rail Spike Park.
Workers removed a tarp from the figure as the rhythm and blues song “Wake Up, everybody” played in the background. Numerous people rushed forward using their cell phones to take pictures and videos.
Rochester, New York, resident Anna-Maria Webster was in tears.
Attending the ceremony on a sunny afternoon while visiting Mississippi relatives, Webster commented, “It’s lovely to be here.” “Just to picture the pain she went through — all over a falsehood,” she remarked about Till’s mother.
Mississippi now boasts 38% of its Black population, the highest percentage of any state. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat whose congressional district includes the Delta, pointed out that Mississippi didn’t have any Black representatives in office when Till was killed. He claimed that Till’s passing sparked reform.
Thompson, the sole Black representative in Mississippi’s current congressional delegation, stated, “But you know, progress tends to become slower and slower.” By dedicating this monument to Emmett Till, we must recommit to the idea of affecting positive change in our neighborhood.
The magnificent Confederate monument outside the Leflore County Courthouse is close, while Bryant’s Grocery & Meat Market’s ruins are approximately 10 miles (16 km) away in Money.
The statue’s debut coincided with the month’s release of “Till,” a film that examines Till-internal Mobley’s struggles following the loss of her son and her development into a civil rights leader.
The final surviving eyewitness to his cousin’s abduction, the Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., could not travel from Illinois to attend Friday’s ceremony. But on Wednesday, he told The media: “We just thank God someone is keeping his name out there.”
More than 70% of the population in Greenwood and Leflore County is black, and politicians have fought for years to make the Till statue a reality. Sen. David Jordan, a Democrat from Greenwood, obtained $150,000 from the state, and the statue’s creator, Matt Glenn, was hired from Utah.
Jordan expressed his hope that it would interest tourists in the local history. He hoped that it would bring everyone together.
Till and Parker had come to the fiercely segregated Mississippi Delta in the summer of 1955 from Chicago to stay with relatives. The two teenagers traveled to the store in Money for a brief trip on August 24 with other teenagers. Parker claimed to have heard Till whistle at Carolyn Bryant, the store owner.
Till was kidnapped from his uncle’s house in the middle of the night four days later. His body was weighted down with a cotton gin fan before being shot, tortured, and dumped into the river by his captors.
Jordan, a Black college student, drove to the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner in 1955 to observe the murder trial of Roy Bryant, Carolyn’s husband, and J.W. Milam, Roy’s half-brother. They were both charged with killing Till.
The two men, who later admitted to killing Till to Look magazine, were freed by an all-white, all-male jury.
No one has ever been found guilty of lynching. Starting in 2004, the U.S. Justice Department launched several investigations in response to inquiries regarding whether charges may be made against any live individuals.
After three years of the reinvestigation, a Mississippi prosecutor presented evidence before a grand jury made up of Black and White people from Leflore County in 2007. The grand jury decided not to charge anyone.
After Carolyn Bryant, who has since remarried and used the name Carolyn Bryant Donham, was mentioned in a 2017 book as stating she lied when she claimed Till grabbed her, whistled at her, and made advances toward her, the Justice Department launched an investigation in 2018. According to relatives, Donham, who is in her 80s, has publicly denied retracting her claims. Without filing any charges, the department ended its inquiry in late 2021.
Evidence
The Leflore County Courthouse basement was searched this year, and a 1955 arrest warrant for “Mrs. Roy Bryant” was discovered. Another Mississippi grand jury rejected an indictment against Donham in August, alarming the Till family and campaigners.
Numerous Confederate monuments exist in Mississippi. However, some have recently been moved, including one transferred in 2020 from the University of Mississippi campus to a cemetery where Confederate soldiers are interred.
There are a few monuments to notable Black personalities in the state, including one in Ruleville that honors civil rights pioneer Fannie Lou Hamer.
The Leflore County Courthouse basement was searched this year, and a 1955 arrest warrant for “Mrs. Roy Bryant” was discovered. Another Mississippi grand jury rejected an indictment against Donham in August, alarming the Till family and campaigners.
Numerous Confederate monuments exist in Mississippi. However, some have recently been moved, including one transferred in 2020 from the University of Mississippi campus to a cemetery where Confederate soldiers are interred.
There are a few monuments to notable Black personalities in the state, including one in Ruleville that honors civil rights pioneer Fannie Lou Hamer.
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