[Yesterday marked]… 60 years since Chicago teenager Emmett Till was killed at age 14 for apparently whistling at a white woman in Mississippi.
Civil rights activists, relatives of the black teen and other families “victimized by racial violence” — including the family of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown — have invited the public to unite for a commemorative weekend in Chicago to remember Till and to continue the legacy of Till’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley.
“As I travel across the country supporting families who have lost their loved ones through hate crimes, I realized that Mamie lived her life fighting for our youth and fighting for Emmett’s legacy,” Till’s cousin Airicka Gordon Taylor, said in a news release. “This is why we have decided to host the Commemoration. This moment is for Mamie and all that she sacrificed. This is for Emmett, the sacrificial lamb whose death changed the course of the Civil Rights Movement.”
Of course Emmett Till’s life mattered. May God continue to move hearts and minds to prevent such horrors from ever happening again. It’s good, however, that this report puts “victimized by racial violence” in quotation marks, since neither Martin’s nor Brown’s deaths were caused by racial targeting, but rather by their own misjudged actions.
I recommend this piece by D.A. Horton on the Cross and Emmett Till:
http://www.dahorton.com/emmett-till/