On Friday, I found out the woman who accused Emmett Till of grabbing her and being verbally inappropriate finally came out and said that she lied. I was frustrated, angry, and hurt. Frustrated because ever since I had first heard of the story, I couldn’t believe what she said was true. Knowing of the times in which this atrocity occurred, black people were constantly being lied on and murdered for no apparent reason. Angry because an innocent child was brutally murdered and an adult held a secret in for decades it seems with no remorse. Hurt because his mother died before she could ever get the truth.

Reading about this case has always bothered me deeply. Here is a 14-year old boy from Chicago who decides to spend the summer with family members down south. He had no clue that such a thing would happen to him. I think about how scared he probably was and how he was probably wondering what exactly he did that was so wrong.

The adults in this situation seemed either helpless or hateful. Till’s great-uncle was helpless in that he lived in a small town in the south and as a black person, he didn’t really have any power. If he was to stand up for himself or his family, he would have been killed. Carolyn Bryant, her husband, and her brother were hateful because they allowed their racist ideas to cause the death of an innocent child.

I would like to think that this revelation that Bryant made ten years ago that has finally been made public will bring closure to Till’s other relatives. I also think that deep down they already knew the truth. Till’s death was a main factor in starting of the Civil Rights Movement and although involuntarily, he became a martyr. It’s very unfortunate that a person had to suffer in such a way just for a larger group to even begin to be treated fairly.

R.I.P. Emmett Till