Emmett Till's Head
Emmett Till’s mom’s name was Mamie Till Bradley. To quote Freedom on My Mind: A History of African Americans, with Documents, "The open-coffin funeral held by Mamie Till Bradley exposed the world to more than her son Emmett Till's bloated, mutilated body. Her decision focused attention not only on U.S. racism and the barbarism of lynching but also on the limitations and vulnerabilities of American democracy."
The devastation caused by racism is something that must be remembered. The lynching of people due to their skin color was a horrible reality, and there is so much one could say about the “vulnerabilities of American Democracy.” These are, without a doubt, topics worthy of discussion. As a blogger, I have the opportunity and right to share my view on such significant topics. It is a necessity in preserving countless sorrowful stories from becoming simply pages of text in a school book.
But that being said, I do not know what it feels like to be discriminated against. There is very little that I can say about racism, because I have, for the most part, been preserved from it. So instead, I’m just going to focus on the first part of the above quote, and talk about Emmett Till’s “bloated, mutilated body.”
Imagine a classroom back in the old elementary school days. Cubbies overflowing with backpacks and lunch bags, a large blue rug for “carpet time” (where the teacher would read us Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), and desks clumped together so that everyone had their own “pod.” Everything a young student could need. The best part of all was when, once in a while, the teacher would roll in an old TV, and everyone cheered. A movie! The teacher would whip the VCR tape from its paper box and insert it into the player. Everyone settled back to relax (this was before note-taking). Movie days were great. Not particularly impactful in my course of education, but relaxing. One day, that changed.
It happened in third grade. We had a substitute teacher. Our class had been learning a bit about the Civil Rights movement recently, so our teacher had left us a related movie to watch. The movie was about one of the most well-known tragedies associated with the movement—the death of Emmett Till. It began like most movies. The class settled into a stupor. Some students put their heads down. I paid attention because I was one of “those kids.” I did not mind learning the details of Emmett’s childhood, or the legal debate following his death. I dutifully watched the reel of memorial pictures of his young, smiling face. I listened to the narrator describe the horrors of his homicide, not feeling particularly roused in any way within my third-grade self.
Then, it happened. I remember the narrator saying something along the lines of, “Emmett Till’s mother chose to give him an open casket funeral so that everyone could see what horrible things had been done to her boy.” See those things we did.
It was a close up of dead Emmett’s face.
Here’s what happened to Emmett Till:
1) He was badly beaten with a handgun, and his eye was dislodged.
2) He was shot in the head
3) He was dumped in a river with a fan blade dangling from his neck by barbed wire, and he remained in water for three days before being found.
To quote Wikipedia, “His face was unrecognizable due to trauma and having been submerged in water.”
Now, a classroom of third graders were looking at it.
Before that moment, I never knew what people meant when they said that they were “scarred” from seeing or hearing something. After that moment, I knew. Scars are remnants of an injury that has not fully healed. I do not know what came of the other third graders, but the sight of Emmett Till’s disfigured head scarred me. It haunted me. For days, I saw his bloated-shut eyes when I closed my own. I thought about his loose indigo-colored skin when I lay in bed at night. It sounds crazy, but whenever I opened a drawer of my dresser my pulse raced with an irrational fear that his head would be inside to flash me with that horrific image once more.
Really, his face looked like someone took a slab of play-dough and stuck holes in it. Ever wonder why the makers of cartoons chose to draw X’s for the eyes of dead people? I think I might know.
I am not sure why the image of Emmett Till’s face impacted me so much. I suppose we all have those things that just stick in our brains and burn. Maybe for me, seeing that image was the first time I was forced to recognize that horrors do exist in the world. It’s easy enough to brush off the things we hear and read, to pretend that those horrors are nothing more than stories. When we see them with our own eyes, we are shook.
Final note: Please do not be offended by my content. I am not cheapening or ridiculing the tragedy of Emmett Till’s lynching.
The devastation caused by racism is something that must be remembered. The lynching of people due to their skin color was a horrible reality, and there is so much one could say about the “vulnerabilities of American Democracy.” These are, without a doubt, topics worthy of discussion. As a blogger, I have the opportunity and right to share my view on such significant topics. It is a necessity in preserving countless sorrowful stories from becoming simply pages of text in a school book.
But that being said, I do not know what it feels like to be discriminated against. There is very little that I can say about racism, because I have, for the most part, been preserved from it. So instead, I’m just going to focus on the first part of the above quote, and talk about Emmett Till’s “bloated, mutilated body.”
Imagine a classroom back in the old elementary school days. Cubbies overflowing with backpacks and lunch bags, a large blue rug for “carpet time” (where the teacher would read us Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), and desks clumped together so that everyone had their own “pod.” Everything a young student could need. The best part of all was when, once in a while, the teacher would roll in an old TV, and everyone cheered. A movie! The teacher would whip the VCR tape from its paper box and insert it into the player. Everyone settled back to relax (this was before note-taking). Movie days were great. Not particularly impactful in my course of education, but relaxing. One day, that changed.
It happened in third grade. We had a substitute teacher. Our class had been learning a bit about the Civil Rights movement recently, so our teacher had left us a related movie to watch. The movie was about one of the most well-known tragedies associated with the movement—the death of Emmett Till. It began like most movies. The class settled into a stupor. Some students put their heads down. I paid attention because I was one of “those kids.” I did not mind learning the details of Emmett’s childhood, or the legal debate following his death. I dutifully watched the reel of memorial pictures of his young, smiling face. I listened to the narrator describe the horrors of his homicide, not feeling particularly roused in any way within my third-grade self.
Then, it happened. I remember the narrator saying something along the lines of, “Emmett Till’s mother chose to give him an open casket funeral so that everyone could see what horrible things had been done to her boy.” See those things we did.
It was a close up of dead Emmett’s face.
Here’s what happened to Emmett Till:
1) He was badly beaten with a handgun, and his eye was dislodged.
2) He was shot in the head
3) He was dumped in a river with a fan blade dangling from his neck by barbed wire, and he remained in water for three days before being found.
To quote Wikipedia, “His face was unrecognizable due to trauma and having been submerged in water.”
Now, a classroom of third graders were looking at it.
Before that moment, I never knew what people meant when they said that they were “scarred” from seeing or hearing something. After that moment, I knew. Scars are remnants of an injury that has not fully healed. I do not know what came of the other third graders, but the sight of Emmett Till’s disfigured head scarred me. It haunted me. For days, I saw his bloated-shut eyes when I closed my own. I thought about his loose indigo-colored skin when I lay in bed at night. It sounds crazy, but whenever I opened a drawer of my dresser my pulse raced with an irrational fear that his head would be inside to flash me with that horrific image once more.
Really, his face looked like someone took a slab of play-dough and stuck holes in it. Ever wonder why the makers of cartoons chose to draw X’s for the eyes of dead people? I think I might know.
I am not sure why the image of Emmett Till’s face impacted me so much. I suppose we all have those things that just stick in our brains and burn. Maybe for me, seeing that image was the first time I was forced to recognize that horrors do exist in the world. It’s easy enough to brush off the things we hear and read, to pretend that those horrors are nothing more than stories. When we see them with our own eyes, we are shook.
Final note: Please do not be offended by my content. I am not cheapening or ridiculing the tragedy of Emmett Till’s lynching.
Was this when you went to Bottenfield? Because I remember nothing this ... um ... explicit ever getting shown to us in third grade. That would totally scar me too.
ReplyDeleteAnd while I get your point that looking at things makes them real in a way that just reading about them doesn't, I really don't think a group of eight-year-olds were quite ready for that.
Emmett Till is one of the reasons I want to go into public service. I remember being young (I was 11, in 5th grade) when I first saw it. I was going through google images looking for pictures of race crimes for a project on race my teacher had wanted to do. At the time, I was trying to find things like Rosa Parks—I was fascinated by nonviolence and how no action could provoke reaction. Instead I came face to face with my brother, my cousin, my best friend. I stared at the image of the little black boy who could've been any of the numerous, nameless people I passed on the streets. But he wasn't nameless. He was Emmett Till. The martyr. The murdered. The mother's son. I'll never forget him. Nor will I ever forget that moment. Your blog relays a similar, powerful moment which I think we've all had—a universal realization that people do horrible things to innocents. Vivid, moving post. Good job.
ReplyDeleteyou may be interested in this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9DhsymA9tQ
DeleteSometimes, things from our early childhoods make a huge and lasting impact, and it may be the smallest of things (or something as heavy as the thing you described). For me, the thing that affected me was secretly watching the parts of the movie Child's play with Chucky in it when I was probably around 4. It scarred me for the longest time, giving me a mild of a phobia of dolls to the point where I absolutely couldn't stand being in the proximity of a doll.
ReplyDeleteI'll be honest, I had never really learned much about Emmett Till (or if I did, I don't remember much after the accident). But the way you told us about his story and were able to really put us in your shoes about the feelings and reactions you had were great and very well done. This post is extremely vivid and detailed, so good job!
I am always amazed and moved when I think about all that Mamie Bradley must have suffered and sacrificed to give her only child an open casket funeral, but if she hadn't, we might not know the name Emmett Till. I agree that Emmett Till is a martyr, and his mother is a hero, though her heroism came out of nightmare. I hope there comes a time when black mothers no longer have to confront the public with images of their murdered children in order to try to get justice for their communities.
ReplyDelete