Emmitt Till Case Reopened

FBI discusses Emmett Till case with family
52 years after slaying of black teen in Mississippi, autopsy report released

Updated: 11:26 p.m. CT March 30, 2007
CHICAGO - A 464-page FBI report released Friday contains gruesome details from the autopsy of Emmett Till, but it is so highly redacted that it doesn't shed much light on the teen's killing, which helped galvanize the civil rights movement.

The report found that Till, killed in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman, died of a gunshot wound to the head and that he had broken wrist bones and skull and leg fractures.

When the 14-year-old's body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River in the summer of 1955, the report said, "the crown of his head was just crushed out ... and a piece of his skull just fell out."

The entire article

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My link doesn't work. But you can search MSNBC.

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Edgar you may already know about this

(March 28, 2007 · Two teachers have been fired from a Los Angeles charter school because they planned to have students read a poem about Emmett Till.)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9184608

Do things change - or do they just stay the same?
It's like a cycle of shame.
(Being British, I recognise that cycle)

thanks for telling me about Emmett Till

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I was not aware. Somehow, it does not surprise me. Till's death was the first incident that clued me to the struggle that's going on. Shortly after his death, my grade school teacher played a record for the class, which told the tale. I dearly wish I could recall the artist and writer of that particular recording.

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His mothers words, describing her sons body.

Quote:

I decided that I would start with his feet, gathering strength as I went up. I paused at his mid-section, because I knew that he would not want me looking at him. But I saw enough to know that he was in tact. I kept on up until I got to his chin. Then I was forced to deal with his face. I saw that his tongue was choked out. The right eye was lying midway of his chest. His nose had been broken like someone took a meat chopper and broke his nose in several places. I kept looking and I saw a hole, which I presumed was a bullet hole, and I could look through that hole and see daylight on the other side. I wondered, "Was it necessary to shoot him"?

Mr. Rayner, she says, asked me, "Do you want me to touch the body up?" I said, "No. Let the people see what I have seen. I think everybody needs to know what had happened to Emmett Till."

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sorry, Edgar - can't help you with the recording you heard,
but this is one of fifteen sonnets that comprises
A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL by Marilyn Nelson.

"Pierced by the screams of a shortened childhood,
my heartwood has been scarred for fifty years
by what I heard, with hundreds of green ears.
That jackal laughter. Two hundred years I stood
listening to small struggles to find food,
to the songs of creature life, which disappears
and comes again, to the music of the spheres.
Two hundred years of deaths I understood.
Then slaughter axed one quiet summer night,
shivering the deep silence of the stars.
A running boy, five men in close pursuit.
One dark, five pale faces in the moonlight.
Noise, silence, back-slaps. One match, five cigars.
Emmett Till's name still catches in the throat."

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I had never seen that quotation before, shewolf. Harrowing. Thank you for sharing it.

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Emmitt Till Case Reopened

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