Death of Innocence : The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (9781588363244) (49 page)

Despite the boost I was getting from all the activity, my health was in crisis. One night at home, I fell. This was not the first time. Once I had fallen and it took me hours to drag myself from my bedroom through my office and into my kitchen, where I finally was able to pull myself up by the banister at my basement stairs. But this time, I couldn’t even do that. I was home alone and I fell on the floor, on the side of the bed in my own room, where I had to stay until my cousin Abe Thomas came in to check on me the following morning.

I was taken to Christ Hospital. It was my blood sugar, and there was excess fluid building up. The doctors told me they were going to release me after a few days. But I didn’t feel comfortable going home alone. Not after that latest episode. So they sent me to a rehab center where I stayed for almost a week. There, I started having shortness of breath and had to be rushed back to Christ Hospital. I saw a different group of doctors from the ones who had treated me before. Immediately, they said I had to go on dialysis. There was way too much fluid for my own good. I went through a couple of sessions a day for a while and wound up losing eighty-five pounds from the excess fluid. It was a real miracle. Had they sent me home when they’d planned to do so, who knows what might have happened?

This had been a terrifying episode and we had a family meeting about it. The time had come for me to decide how I was going to go on living the way I had been living. Alone. Or whether I even could anymore. A few plans were put on the table. One possibility that was suggested was to have me check into an assisted living facility. As it turned out, that plan was not a workable one for me. My assets would have to be turned over to the facility, and I just couldn’t have that.

We finally worked it out so that I could stay at home with virtually my whole family looking out for me. A longtime family friend and nurse, Earlene Greer, had been coming in to help me with personal needs. Now she’d be there every day during the week. Abe would drive me to dialysis three days a week, and he and Shep Gordon would help with shopping and general household repairs. Ollie and Airickca would also be part of the emergency check-in list. And either Abe’s sister Bertha Thomas or Lillian would be my travel companions. Bertha also was a big help with business matters, especially the Emmett Till Foundation, which raises money for college scholarships and the Emmett Till Players. Bertha is a paralegal and
very good at these things. I also would have an emergency notice system, a lifeline button I could push to call a neighbor right away in an emergency.

Although my health situation was still fragile, losing all that water weight was a tremendous help to me. And the arrangements we worked out gave me peace of mind and made it possible for me to continue to be active, to do all the work I still felt I needed to do.

So many issues would become important to me over the years as I increased my awareness of them through their close connection to the one issue that has always been central to my life. No matter what condition I’ve been in, I’ve been ready to lend my support to the causes I believe in. Capital punishment is one of those. As the mother of a murder victim, I feel that I have been victimized, too. But we have seen so many people on death row who also are victims. They have been wrongly accused. Too many times, they are black. I’ve spent too much of my life speaking out against injustice against black people to be able to live with that. Besides, it seems that even guilty people should be given a chance for redemption. I would hope that a life sentence would give people that chance. That was my hope even with Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam. That at some point before they closed their eyes for good, even if it had only been a whisper, or a flash of a thought, they would have been sorry for what they did. That was my hope, and one very important reason why I would call on Illinois Governor George Ryan to abolish the death penalty.

The call for reparations has caused a lot of controversy. And I don’t think everybody sees all the aspects of it. It is not a simple matter. The more it is debated, the better chance we might have to reach an understanding about a very serious and unsettled part of our history. So, when I got the call from Chicago Alderman Dorothy Tillman to travel to Mississippi again for a conference on reparations in May 2002, I was very happy to take part. I arranged to have dialysis in Jackson, and I was ready to go.

The first day of the two-day conference was conducted as a hearing by the Jackson City Council at City Hall, a building that had been constructed with slave labor. There was a huge turnout. My goodness, I never imagined that there were so many people who were involved in so many different aspects of the fight for justice. And everyone had stories to tell about injustices they had suffered. There were people who talked about the need to make up for slavery itself. Some talked about the effects of slavery. Others, like me, talked about the brutality and the need to address the needs of the families of victims. But it really wasn’t about money. The
focus was on repairing the damage left by so many years of discrimination. Ways that go beyond money. After all, when it comes to victims of brutality, there is no way to provide enough money to make up for the loss of a loved one. But there is a need for counseling and other help for people who have lost family members to hate crimes.

I was moved by the stories people told, people like Mrs. Maria Johnson, whose son’s death was not reinvestigated. Although the file was reviewed, the original finding was not reversed. The official cause of death was still listed as suicide. Mrs. Johnson is determined to keep pushing for an answer her heart can accept. There were so many people at the hearings who had to live with great anguish. People who never even got so much as an apology. That had always been so important to me, for some official of the state of Mississippi to do even that much. In a way, that is what the reparations debate represents. An apology, an admission. After all, things can’t be set right until we face up to what’s been done wrong.

There was a surprise in store for me on the first day of the hearings. Jackson City Councilman Kenneth Stokes issued an apology to me, speaking with the authority he had earned with the rights that had been gained as a result of so much sacrifice that had been made. It wasn’t surprising to me that a black elected official in Mississippi had done what a white elected official could never bring himself to do. But it touched me so deeply to know that in 2002, quite unlike 1955, there was a black man in Mississippi who had the power to do it.

Willie Reed called me. Out of the blue, he just called and then came by to visit. We hadn’t seen each other in years and it was so good to sit down and talk. Willie was working at Jackson Park Hospital in Chicago.

We ordered Chinese food and reminded each other of things some people might have wanted to forget. Things people can never forget no matter how much they might want to do so. Things about the trial and all that hostility, and how we both knew the way things would turn out, and how we kept moving forward anyway. And, oh, yes, how we couldn’t wait to get out of Mississippi. I thanked Willie for his courage. He had put so much on the line in agreeing to testify. He would forever give up his life in Mississippi. Yet, he told me, he would do it all over again, if the situation presented itself. He thought about it, he said, practically every day. To get to work, he would drive down Emmett Till Road. And he would think about it all. How there came to be an Emmett Till Road. Willie felt a kinship with Emmett. For one thing, they were close in age. Willie was eighteen at the time and Emmett was fourteen. Willie was an only child and he knew Emmett was an only child. He said that if what happened to Emmett
had happened to him, he would have wanted somebody to come forward for him.

It occurred to me after Willie left that I had never asked him what prompted him to call me. But, then, I guess there are some things you really don’t have to ask.

For years, I have hoped to have the investigation of the murder of my son reopened. There still are so many unanswered questions. Even though Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam could never be convicted of murder once they were acquitted, there were other reasons to take a fresh look at this case. We knew what reporters like Jimmy Hicks and witnesses like Willie Reed had told us years ago. This crime was not committed by two people alone. Others were there. Others participated on one level or another. Until we know, this case is unresolved. I have said repeatedly that I was determined to work until my dying day to search for answers and to make sure that the story of Emmett Louis Till would never be buried. I have my own determination, but I also have been able to draw on inspiration from others. I have seen how Coretta Scott King would never let the dream die, how Myrlie Evers continued to pursue Medgar’s assassin.

Mine is not just the passion of an aggrieved mother. This should be the sentiment of an entire nation. As long as the Emmett Till murder is unresolved, this case will sit there like a thorn in the side of our sense of justice and fair play. It will continue to poke at us, to prick our conscience and irritate. Without a resolution, we can never be at ease.

There have been many others who have shared this feeling. For years, Keith Beauchamp has wanted to find answers, too. His documentary was the first step. The first screening was scheduled for November 2002 in New York, co-sponsored by the Africana Studies Department at New York University in connection with the release of the University of Virginia Press book
The Lynching of Emmett Till
edited by Christopher Metress. The reaction was incredible. An extra screening had to be added and people lined up in the rain to get into both sessions. The press would take the story of renewed interest in Emmett Till all over the country.
The New York Times
(including an opinion piece by Brent Staples),
The Washington Post
, the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
, ABC News—everyone, it seemed, wanted to talk about a quest for justice that would not die.

Later, Keith teamed up with Alvin Sykes and Donald Burger of the Justice Campaign of America to present information to the attorney general of Mississippi and to the U.S. Justice Department to try to reopen the investigation into Emmett’s murder. Eyewitnesses are still around. Maybe even a few accomplices. It has been difficult sorting through the technicalities
of the law to show that the state has cause, or that the federal government has jurisdiction. But the effort continues.

Although I have lived so much of my life without Emmett, I have lived my entire life
because
of him. Everything leading up to his birth, everything following his death was for a purpose. Unfortunately, so much of that time, I have suppressed the horrible feeling that only a mother can have when a child is lost. Was there something I could have done? Was Emmett’s death something I could have prevented? Emmett was a good boy, a good son, and I know that I was a good mother. But you can’t help but wonder about such things.

I think about that dreadful day at A. A. Rayner’s when I had to examine Emmett’s horribly disfigured body. How could I ever forget that? I remember how I thought about Emmett in that shed, how no one had answered his call. I know now that I was wrong about that. God answered the call when He embraced Emmett and showed the world what race hatred could do, how much better we should be than what we had become. So much good has come of that. And I have answered the call in all my life’s work, nurturing young minds, providing much-needed guidance. And in that, there is redemption.

The work is not done. So many of our young people still need so much guidance. There is much they don’t know and we must take responsibility for that. We can see it in the recent debate about the movie
Barbershop
, where a character jokingly questions whether Rosa Parks did anything worth honoring by refusing to give up her seat. Rosa Parks is a friend I have come to love very much. We have talked about that historic day when she would not be moved. She was tired. But not physically tired. She was tired of the indignities that we as a people were made to suffer. It was an act of courage. I know from experience just how much people put on the line during the civil rights movement. People risked their lives. People sacrificed their lives. And they did it so that our young people now can enjoy certain rights without having to think about it. But we
should
think about it. Young people must be taught to think about it. They should know, as they say, that freedom is never free. Lord knows, as much as I speak out, I am not in favor of censorship. But there are some things that are so precious, they become sacred. It just should never even occur to us to joke about sacred things.

There still is much that needs to be done to educate white people, too. The fact that we still have to debate whether more needs to be done to repair the damage left by so many years of racial discrimination shows that much. The fact that a U.S. senator could fantasize about the presidency of
an arch-segregationist shows that much. White people need a lot of guidance in matters of race. Just as they did in the 1950s, they deserve leaders who will enlighten rather than incite. We all deserve that.

Oh, God, how blessed I have been to have taken part in something as significant as our national debate. I have come to realize that we are all here for a purpose and we have unique gifts to share with the rest of the world. I have enjoyed a full, rich, meaningful life because I was able to discover my reason for being and to perfect my gifts in fulfilling my purpose, touching so many lives in the process. Hopefully, I have left each one just a little better than I found it. Hopefully, I have made a difference. That is, after all, how our lives are measured. By how many other lives we touch and inspire. By how much of life we embrace, not by what we reject. By what we accept, not by what we judge. Still, even with this understanding of a lifetime, the tears do flow from time to time. But I see much more clearly now through my tears, and that is a good thing. Rainy days always help us appreciate the sunny ones so much more, don’t they? Besides, it is in crying that we are able to let go. In letting go, I have experienced what it is like to bring hope from despair, joy from anguish, forgiveness from anger, love from hate. And if I can do it, I know anyone can. And if everyone does it, just imagine how much better we all can be.