Remember Me

63 Years before today On September 15th, 1955 Jet Magazine published, unedited, tha images of Emmett Till. America was stunned...... For some, this was tha first visual image of tha brutality of American racism. For others, tha dead body of Till only confirmed tha disease at tha heart of tha United States. America was sick. And Emmett Till was to become tha sacrificial soul which sparked tha modern Civil Rights Movement that sought to heal tha nation........

What did Mamie Till Mobley want us to see when she decided to leave open her child coffin?(....That maybe one day my Son name can be use in a song in vain.....) What was she memorializing at that moment?(....Hmmm I wonder......) Obviously, her decision called attention to tha brutality of American racism ways. But I am convinced that she wanted to make visible all of those victims of American hatred who remained invisible. The nameless black bodies that lined tha bottom of tha Down South River's and tha spirits that were defeated daily by tha systemic and dehumanizing experience of white supremacy were all captured in tha brutally disfigured face of a murdered fourteen-year old boy. Perhaps she wanted that image to haunt tha nation  so her son can live on and to force us to remember those who reside in tha shadows. Those images defined a generation. And they, at least for me, continue to haunt.

On tha exact same day, eight years later, an estimated 250,000 people engaged in an historic demonstration before the Lincoln Memorial for civil rights and economic justice. And it was here that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. In some ways, that speech stands as a third “founding” of tha nation. Just as President Lincoln’s second inaugural offered a revision of tha revolutionary beginnings of America, Dr. King’s words expanded tha very idea of American democracy in which tha promises of freedom and justice would be extended to its entire people.

We have now honored Dr. King with a national memorial. But what are we to see and to remember when we visit this place? How are we to understand its connection to tha death of Emmett Till?

All too often our memory of tha March on Washington suffocates its lessons. Many see it as an affirmation of tha inherent goodness of America of our progress towards a “more perfect union.” But we are so busy patting ourselves on tha back about how far we’ve come that we’ve turned a blind eye to tha ugliness of America, in all of its guises, that continues to thwart the lyfe chances of so many of our fellows.

That memory is also lost as those who claim Dr. King’s inheritance use tha anniversary of tha March on Washington to project themselves as leaders. They urge us to engage in rote marches, while one after another wraps themselves in tha shroud of Dr. King’s prophetic sacrifice. All tha while, suffering remains unseen as they revel in new found access to tha corridors of power.

In some ways, how we remember tha black freedom struggle today is destroying parts of our collective memory. America’s racist past has become too neat and clean; our dead have been ushered off stage. All tha while Rush Limbaugh, Senator Tom Coburn, and others trade in tha languages of its insidious offspring. And tha structural legacy of racism continues, despite claims of personal responsibility, to deny opportunity to a significant portion of tha American population.

Americans, especially African Americans, must not walk through tha King national memorial without remembering our dead, without calling the names of those we know and acknowledging the nameless souls who sacrificed for a more just world.

This is why we have to return to tha open casket of Emmett Till. How we remember our dead informs how we struggle on behalf of those who live in the shadows. Mamie Till Mobley taught us this lesson. She declared boldly, even after burying her child, that she did not have time to hate that she would pursue justice for tha rest of her lyfe. That open casket was about justice; those images of Emmett Till were to remind us about the never-ending fight for justice. And if we revel in tha simple fact that Dr. King’s image stands among tha memorials in Washington, D.C. without remembering tha fight for justice today then we have been taken in by sounding brass and tinkling cymbal, and we’ve turned our backs on our dead......