Elijah Collins
David Jackson, "Emmett Till"
1955, Medium: Gelatin Silver Print
A huge part of the reason, I chose this photograph over many was that the relevance to today.
When I see this photo, I see pain, I see a mother and father who just lost their 14-year-old son
off of assumption. In1955, Emmett Till, a black young man from Chicago, was visiting relatives
in Mississippi when he went by a Grocery store. The store owner Carolyn Bryant, a white
woman accused Till of flirting with her and whistling at her. A couple of days after the alleged
issue, The white woman's husband Roy and his half brother, J.W. Milam, took the boy from
his great-uncle's house. The two then beat Till until he was unrecognizable to his own parents,
shot him, and dumped the lifeless body in the Tallahatchie River. Although that is bad, it only
got worst when a white jury quickly acquitted the men of the massacre. When Till's mother
Mamie came to identify her son, she told the funeral director, "Let the people see what I've seen."
That is the reason for the open casket funeral. This touches deeply with me because although
this was taken in 1955, this is essentially the same violence that is happening to my people,
where they are being accused of something or just even going about their day as normal
and are beaten and killed by law enforcement and anyone. Just like Emmett Till who died
for nothing and received no justice is the same way that Black people are dying in 2019 and
the people who are killing them are white and they are continuously being acquitted
of these wrongful deaths.
