The name Emmett Till is connected to the American psyche like few murder victims in modern American history. It is equal in pain to the murders of President Kennedy and Malcolm X. The story is well known.
Emmett was born and raised in Chicago. During the summer of 1955, he was visiting relatives in the Mississippi Delta region. Supposedly he spoke to 21 year old Carolyn Bryant, the white married owner of a local grocery store. Emmett was accused of flirting with Ms. Bryant. Years later reports suggest he did not even do that. Regardless in the Jim Crow South the white man’s most important battle was to protect his property from the ever dangerous and over-sexed Negro, even if his enemy was a 14 year old boy. Several nights after the supposed incident in the store, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam abducted the Emmett from his family’s home. They beat, mutilated, lynched, and shot him in the head before sinking his body in the Tallahatchie River.
In September 1955 the two murderers were found not guilty of kidnapping and murder. One year later the two men publicly admitted in an interview with Look magazine that they had killed Till. These men and the jury that found them not guilty certainly represented the worst of America. An America that did not have the courage to deal with the blind and violent racism that existed across the country and as a result innocent people had to suffer.
Sixty four years later another murder occurred in our great country that in many ways is the other side of the same coin. On 11 December 2019 Tessa Majors, a white female first year student at Barnard College in New York City was walking through Morningside Park near campus. She was attacked by three black male teenagers aged 13, 14, and 14. Based on police reports and related testimony these teens had robbed people in the park before. On this evening they attacked Tessa. Not willing to be a victim she fought back. They stabbed her multiple times in the chest. After stabbing her they went through her possessions as she continued to fight for her life. Eventually Tessa crawled up the stairs that connected the park to Columbia University campus yelling for help. She provided campus security with details about her attackers and died.
In June 2020, one of the murderers pleaded guilty to robbery in the first degree. He was sentenced to eighteen months in detention. The two 14 year olds were charged with second degree murder and first degree robbery. In the press release related to the plea deal it was noted by the defense that Tessa Majors’s death was tragic. There was no reference to her death as a murder.
In the prosecution's statement on the plea deal they stated that the deal was in the best interest of the community. If I assume the community is Columbia University and the surrounding neighborhoods then what is best is for these murderers to not return to the community.
During a recent podcast with John McWhorter of Columbia University I asked him what impact did the murder of Tessa Majors have on the campus. He basically said very little because it is not discussed. Sadly the prevailing narrative on campus related to the murderers is that they too are victims. What are they victims of? White supremacy? Absent parents? I would suggest they are mostly victims of a society that has incredibly low expectations for their contributions.
Emmett and Tessa - one teenager murdered in cold blood by grown men; the other a young woman murdered in cold blood by teenage boys. Emmett’s murderers were never brought to justice. Too many people want Tessa’s murder completely forgotten. Has the guilt and burden of America’s past caused us to now ignore obvious failures in a non-white community? Tessa’s murder must become like Emmett’s, an opportunity for us to come together and commit to building a better America.
Welcome to So What by me, Nique Fajors. www.invisible.men
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