Plog Number 89
Emmitt Till
Good Evening Ploggers. Hoping you are all well. It is Sunday night and I am admittedly Shook. We just went to see the movie Till. If you go, be prepared for a lot of raw emotion. And I think that we should all go to see it. It is not something to be afraid of. It is American History, plain and simple. The movie does not show violence but it is graphic and real. The time period automobiles, clothes and furniture images were spot on. You felt as if you were back in the 1950’s. I noticed when they got to the courtroom scenes they had all of the white, male jury and observers wear white shirts. They were smokers so the white smoke was curling into the air. I thought I could feel the heat and stench of the deep south.
My Mother is from Weir, Mississippi which is in Kosiesko County. The action in the movie took place in Money, Mississippi in Le Flore County. The distance between the two counties is only 46 miles. The killing of Emmitt Till happened in 1955 which was long after my mother and her family left Mississippi. But she knew about bad things happening in her home State to people of color. The movie very clearly showed that Carolyn Bonham Bryant lied on the stand when asked what Emmitt did to her. They did not expose that she admitted to the lie years later. They did show that there were black men helping to beat and kill Emmitt Till. That is a fact that I didn’t know.
One of the things that struck me so hard from the movie was how helpless the black people were at that time to say or do anything. The frequent use of the N word was more than a put down it was CONTROL by the white folks. It was deafening to me. I have heard and been called the N word before but this movie brings it to a whole new level. For many blacks in the movie, it was the last straw and they moved North for a better life. My mother’s family had gotten to that point long before Till’s murder. The movie is amazing and a little too close for comfort for me.
In my opinion the movie has come out at the right time. I think that many black people have become complacent about our rights. This is so not the time for complacency of any rights. We stand the chance to lose our rights and go crashing back to the 1950’s when America was Great...Right? It was March 29, 2022 when Smoking Joe Biden passed the Anti-Lynching Act. The law makes lynching a federal crime punishable by 30 years in prison. It is unbelievable that it was not a federal law up until this year.
I am glad that I saw that movie even though it shook me up. It is a great reminder of the not too distant history. I think we need to be shaken up. We have it way better than they did in the fifties but we could go right back there. This Plog will come out the day after the election . But no matter what hold your head high and RECLAIM!
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