Reply #17: Sure, catcalling to a woman is in poor taste, but it doesn't deserve this [View All]

[KansDem]

The Lynching of Emmett Louis Till

The horrific death of a Chicago teenager helped spark the civil rights movement

In the summer of 1955, Mamie Till gave in to her son's pleas to visit relatives in the South. But before putting her only son Emmett on bus in Chicago, she gave him a stern warning:

"Be careful. If you have to get down on your knees and bow when a white person goes past, do it willingly."

Emmett, all of 14, didn't heed his mother's warning. On Aug. 27, 1955, Emmett was beaten and shot to death by two white men who threw the boy's mutilated body into the Tallahatchie River near Money, Mississippi.

Emmett's crime: talking and maybe even whistling to a white woman at a local grocery store.

--more--
http://www.africanamericans.com/EmmettTill.htm

And this particularly poignant paragraph:

Mourners pass Emmett Till's casket in Chicago on Sept. 3, 1955. His mother insisted on an open casket and a public viewing that drew tens of thousands.

She wanted the world to see the horror done to her son...

(warning: graphic photo on website)