I returned from Washington, D.C. last week to attend a dinner with 100 pastors in the court room where Roe v. Wade was signed into law in 1973. Attending this dinner held special meaning to me because that law affected my life profoundly as well as millions of others. Scott Klusendorf, a renowned pro-life apologist, was the keynote speaker. Scott shared a story I had never heard before, but once I did, well, it had impact.
In 1955, Emmett Till,[1] a young black youth from Chicago visited his cousin in Money, Mississippi. He began bragging to his cousin and friends about his white girlfriends back in Chicago. This was a shocking and surprising statement to his cousin and his cousin’s friends because blacks in Mississippi during the fifties would not dare make eye contact with whites, let alone date them. These were actions strictly taboo. Later that day, Emmett, his cousin, and a small group of black males entered Bryant’s Grocery Store where, urged by the other males, fourteen-year-old Emmett flirted with a twenty-one-year-old white, married woman behind the counter. After purchasing some candy, Emmett either whistled at her or said something mildly flirtatious (reports vary). The cousin and the others warned him he was in for trouble. A few days later, at 2:00 a.m., Emmett was taken at gunpoint from his uncle’s home by the clerk’s husband and another man. Being savagely beaten, they killed him with a single bullet to the head.
Emmett’s bloated corpse was found three days later in the Tallahatchie River. A cotton gin fan had been shoved over his head and tied with barbed-wire. His face was partially crushed and beaten almost beyond recognition. The local sheriff placed Emmett’s body in a sealed coffin and shipped it to his mother in Chicago. When Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till, got the body, she made a stunning announcement – there would be an open-casket funeral for her son Emmett. Despite protests from friends reminding her how much this would upset everyone, Mamie countered, “I want the whole world to see what they did to my boy.” The photo of Emmett’s mutilated body in that open casket was published in Jet magazine, which helped launch the Civil Rights movement in America. Three months later, a woman in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to go to the back of the bus when ordered to do so. She said the image of Emmett Till gave her the courage to stand her ground. That woman was Rosa Parks.
Revealing the truth, no matter how unpleasant it may look, can have untold impact. Your story matters because it can provide hope and encouragement to individuals and shed God’s light into the dark corners of every personal and public injustice.
It’s time to open the casket and share your story!
“I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” John 12:46
[1] “Resurrecting Emmett Till: The Catalyst of the Modern Civil Rights Movement,” Journal of Black Studies,Vol. 29, No. 2, November 1998.
Tagged: courage, friendship
