The Emmett Till Effect
It’s February again, aka Black History Month! The time of the year when my skin color is no longer taboo, it’s a commodity. Streaming services have their “BHM collection,” brands are reaching out to black creatives for collaboration, and for these select 28 days, we celebrate all that our people have done.
Between the excellent Judas & the Black Messiah and DK Metcalf, Emmett Till has been on my mind lately. The Seahawks wideout has promised to share facts about Emmett Till’s murder for every day of the month. If you watched Black Messiah, you saw the scene with my doppelganger, Daniel Kaluuya, as Fred Hampton explaining the story of Emmett Till. To say that these things happening within a few short weeks were inspiring, would be an understatement.
It reminds me of my time at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina.
For the uninitiated, on February 1st, 1960, four freshmen at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University walked to their local F.W. Woolworth’s (a chain diner) and sat at the lunch counter. Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr.(now Jibreel Khazan), David Richmond, & Joseph McNeil sat at the lunch counter, and refused to get up until they were served. They weren’t served that day so they came back the next day but with Bennett Belles and other NCA&T students. This would go on for months, and spark a wildfire of sit-in protests through the east coast. HBCUs from across the south sat at their respective Woolworth counters, and not long after it spread as far north as Baltimore. As an A&T student, I stood on the same campus that astronauts and NFL stars once did. But this month more than others, I’m reminded of the story of a little boy on vacation in the south, Emmett Till.
While writing this, I was conflicted on whether or not I should retell Emmett’s story. I mean, we’ve all heard it by now, right?
Wrong.
Back in my senior year at North Carolina A&T, I had the privilege of working at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in downtown Greensboro. The ICRCM is an amazing testament to the Civil RIghts movement, as it’s where the Sit-In Movement began. Yes, private citizens of Greensboro converted the old Woolworth’s to a monument dedicated to the movement. Within those walls, the original lunch counter sits, preserved.
Each day, I gave on average three to five tours to people from around the world. I met politicians, state department guests, actors, you name it. People came from as far as Australia and the UK to come see the museum. If you’ve never been, the tours traditionally start downstairs with a video recap. After this, we’d move into what’s called the “Hall of Shame.” This hall was dedicated to the more violent acts of terrorism committed against black people that, at times, weren’t even fighting for rights. Sometimes, we were just minding their business. In example, five little girls (+ Sarah Collins) that were bombed in the Birmingham Church Bombing in 1964, and Emmett Louis Till.
While leading tours through the Hall of Shame, I came upon a revelation that shouldn’t have been that shocking to me.
Usually when I got to Emmett at the end of the Hall of Shame, I’d show everyone his ‘before’ picture while standing in front of the ‘after’ picture. After I’d explain what those grown men did to a child, I’d stand to the side and allow everyone to see their twisted handiwork. Often, people would look at Emmett’s corpse and immediately become unsettled. It wasn’t uncommon for people to start crying and ask if they could move on to the other room because they didn’t want to see it anymore. Almost everyone averted their eyes and would find the ceiling or the floor. Everyone but the black children.
Sometimes when I was on tour, the kids would see Emmett’s ‘before’ picture and would immediately shout out his name. They almost always knew who he was and what happened to him. They’d stand there, excited for me to retell the story and I could tell they knew I was standing in front of the ‘after’ picture for effect. When I finished and moved to the side, while everyone’s eyes wandered, theirs stayed fixed. The first time it happened, I was confused. Then I remembered that feeling for myself.
The first time I met Emmett, I was around seven or eight and my parents were watching a special on PBS. I’m not sure if it was Eyes on the Prize or not, but when the Emmett Till story started, they made sure I sat and watched. I saw Emmett’s face in the ‘after’ and had nightmares for a week. I later found him in a book they’d bought me about the Civil Rights movement and couldn’t help myself. I kept looking at it so I wouldn’t be scared of his face anymore. I’d sneak a glance, catch a chill down my spine, and flip back to something that made me comfortable again. So when those children would stare, I would see the fascination in their faces but I’d also see their bravery.
We, as a people, were mostly introduced to Emmett Till at a young age as a cautionary tale for how the United States of America will do us at any given moment, at any given age. Those men dragged a young boy out of bed so that they could beat and torture him to death. All because a white woman told her husband that he whistled at her.
The more I thought about it, the more I watched people’s faces when they were on our tour. If you came from outside the country, you were more likely to be completely shocked by the news of Emmett Till. If you were from the south, you’d probably heard of him before. If you’re from the north (especially the midwest) there’s a high probability you’d never heard of his story before. These were the people that cried the most on tour.
All of this was negated if you’re black. More often than not, if you’re black, regardless of your location, you’d probably heard of Emmett Till before you turned 18. In many cases, you’d heard about him before you were even a teenager.
Black people that visited the museum, regardless of age or location, were more likely to look at Emmett than any other demographic to visit the museum. Black people, more often than anyone else have seen Emmett Till’s face at a younger age. They were the least likely to cry because they’d seen Emmett’s face for all their lives. After time, I’d come to call this the Emmett Till Effect.
Previously, in my Drew Brees Principle article, I mentioned how a lack of Civil Rights education in the public school system allows other races to act willfully ignorant of black people’s plight. This is in the same breath, except this story was taught to most black children by their parents as a warning, in hopes of protecting them.
I recently conducted a poll on Twitter, and outright asked people when they heard Emmett’s story. For the most part, this remained true. Out of the 85 total responses I received, here’s the long and short of it: most of us heard about Emmett Till before we turned 13 years old. Yes, this sample is extremely limited, but it was very telling. A little over half (48) of the sample heard of Emmett before they turned 13. Teenagers (13 -18) weighed in for 31 votes or 36.4% of the total vote. Lastly, there were only six people who learned about Emmett as adults.
Lil Wayne is responsible for quite a few of those who learned about Emmett in that 15 - 18 year old range, specifically. The controversy surrounding his verse on Future’s Karate Chop remix was eye opening for quite a few people. The youngest age I got was five years old and the oldest was 33.
I’m sure you can guess their ethnicities. I’d definitely be interested in studying this further.
If you’re a stats nerd like me, and want to see my excel sheet with the raw data, you can find it here.
So why tell you all this? Why’d it even occur to me?
Emmett Till was murdered at 14 years old on August 28th, 1955. Had he made it to 1960, he would’ve almost been the same age as the A&T Four, who were freshmen when they sat at the lunch counter. The idea that students were brave enough to protest in this way after growing up with that infamous Jet cover is what stands out to me. The idea that these young men and women saw the absolute worst of what could happen to them, and still decided to take a stand is amazing.
