In Memory of Emmett Till

We've talked about Emmett Till before, so we should note that today is the 50th anniversary of his kidnaping and murder. You can get the details at the link, but suffice it to say that what happened to Till and the reaction to it was a significant spark for the Civil Rights Movement. Today's Greenwood Commonwealth, the local paper for the area in which the crime was committed, ran an interesting story on the murder; filmmaker Keith Beauchamp and his documentary, The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till; and the new investigation. That paper also featured a story on a group of Chicago teens who have retraced Till's journey another about an original investigating officer who no longer remembers enough to help the current investigation. (The Sun-Times provides the Chicago perspective on that group of teens.)

A few days ago, surprising absolutely no one, including the Mississippi defense lawyers who made the argument in the first place, DNA proved the body pulled from the Tallahatchie River was indeed Emmett Till. Part of the original defense, and an excuse the jury provided for finding the defendants not guilty. If any further living suspects are identified in the new investigation of the murder, at least this lame dodge won't be available to them.