The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till

Tuesday at 2:00pm McFarland Student Union showed the documentary titled "The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till". With about 50 students, Black and white and every other race sat down in the Alumni Auditorium to watch this film. Many people went in not knowing anything about the Till story. Personally, I knew the story years ago, but this was a new documentary with comments from his mother, other family members and various people who were alive and involved during the era. The documentary was very informative and emotional. The director told the story through his Emmett Till's mother, who passed away shortly after the release of the film. Here's some background on who Emmett Till was and what's all the drama about. This info is from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/filmmore/index.html: "In August 1955, a fourteen-year-old black boy whistled at a white woman in a grocery store in Money, Mississippi. Emmett Till, a teen from Chicago, didn't understand that he had broken the unwritten laws of the Jim Crow South until three days later, when two white men dragged him from his bed in the dead of night, beat him brutally and then shot him in the head. Although his killers were arrested and charged with murder, they were both acquitted quickly by an all-white, all-male jury. Shortly afterwards, the defendants sold their story, including a detailed account of how they murdered Till, to a journalist. The murder and the trial horrified the nation and the world. Till's death was a spark that helped mobilize the civil rights movement. Three months after his body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River, the Montgomery bus boycott began." The film was so moving and emotional. Many students got up and decided to leave after the pictures of Emmett's body were shown. The strength in his mother's voice, after describing how badly her son's body was beaten was just amazing. She knew she had to be strong, and her son's death was not in vain. She talked about threats that were forwarded to her family and how she fought it all. When they showed the picture of Emmett lying in his casket...I couldn't help but shed tears. It was just horrible realizing how much one human can hate another. How could a fellow human do this to another especially a child. I felt empowered more than anything from this film. It helped me to realize how much our country has changed. As a whole because there are still people out there who would do this whether we want to believe it or not. Also the fact that this only happened 50 years ago! You never think about how short of a time period that our country was racists. The Civil rights Movement only ended about 40 some years ago! So it helped me to realize that there have been changes, there are laws to protect ALL Americans. But hearing the story of Emmett Till will help you realize why there was a need for change. It’ll help you see what some of the struggles for African American were, the way we were treated, and thought of. I believe that it doesn’t help ANYONE to hear that “Racism doesn’t exist anymore”, because it does, I experience it at this University, and anywhere I go. There will always be people who hate on the bases of race. So empower yourself by showing that you’re not what they think you are.