Unpacking Baggage

Sometimes I can hit the nail squarely on the head which was the case in my reflection, The Dead Zone. Here is a piece that speaks about John H. Johnson, which shares some of my sentiment.

"The closing of a chapterWith the 50th anniversary of Emmett Till's murder approaching, it's time to apologize"
By Christopher Benson, associate professor of African-American studies and journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignPublished August 26, 2005
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
It was not surprising during the recent memorial service for Ebony and Jet publisher John H. Johnson, and in the many written tributes to the man's extraordinary lifetime of achievement, that the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till was invoked repeatedly as one of the most historically significant stories covered by Johnson's pioneering magazines. It was a powerful story with great impact that took courage and vision to reveal to the nation. Those shocking Jet photographs of the 14-year-old's mutilated body were seared into our national consciousness, a freeze frame of race hatred that cannot be forgotten. And never should be. The 50th anniversary of Emmett Till's murder on Aug. 28 will provide a new opportunity to reflect on the meaning of the story and the great sacrifices it took to move this country forward. But, during this weekend's commemoration, we also will be challenged to look ahead, to consider the legacy of Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who died in 2003 having devoted the better part of her life to the pursuit of truth and justice. Mother Mobley was determined to set the record straight. That resolve drove her to spend the last six months of her life battling severe disabilities to work on the book she wanted to leave the world. Among other things, she reflects on the Mississippi murder trial of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, who were acquitted of Emmett's murder and then went on to confess their crime in graphic detail to Look magazine.She believed, based on what she learned during the trial and from the investigation by black reporters and civil rights leaders like Medgar Evers and Amzie Moore, that Bryant and Milam did not act alone in the abduction, murder and coverup of the murder of her son. Mother Mobley would have been hopeful that we now might get closer to answering the unanswered questions, closer to knowing the truth, as a result of the current investigation, but she also would have wanted us to consider at this point what justice requires. Certainly, people must be made to answer for hate crimes in this country no matter how long it takes. If you commit murder, you should not be absolved just because you have had the good fortune to live a long life. Otherwise, as Emmett's cousin Simeon Wright has said, the message that comes out of this case is that the law in effect protected the guilty. Still, Mother Mobley knew that no amount of retribution could ever bring Emmett back to her. But she also knew that there were lessons for the rest of us. What she wanted most of all was for the death of her son to become a point of departure in considering these lessons. She was a Chicago public school teacher, after all, and teaches us still. Opposed to capital punishment, Mother Mobley never even wanted confessed murderers Bryant and Milam to be put to death--even if they could have been tried again. She wanted them to live long enough to be sorry for what they had done. The lesson here is one of redemption. And it extends to the people who helped to create the environment of race hatred that made people think they could get away with murder--in this case and others.Mother Mobley believed from the very beginning that there were many people to be held accountable for the loss of her son, including some elected officials in Mississippi at the time. These are people who should have led and chose instead to incite, people who should have condemned hate crime and chose instead to condone it, implicitly. There even is some evidence of possible obstruction of justice by one official. If there is no examination and conclusive finding in this regard, then the investigation will be incomplete, and the ends of justice will not fully be served. That is why Mother Mobley wanted an official apology to be issued by the State of Mississippi. She understood the great impact of an apology as did leaders in South Africa during that country's truth and reconciliation hearings following the end of apartheid, and, more recently, as U.S. senators understood in apologizing for the failure of the Senate to enact anti-lynching legislation during the 1930s. The point is that the healing can only begin when you first admit responsibility for the damage done. Unquestionably, a great deal of damage has been done with official sanction. Like John H. Johnson, Mamie Till-Mobley recognized the power of the narrative. She was committed to keeping this story alive. She deserves a commitment from the rest of us to gain insight and direction from it as we move beyond this weekend's commemoration to make sure we write the most meaningful closing chapter.