Once more, no justice for Emmett Till
The Tuesday Talking Points
If it’s Tuesday, with a nod to Peter Abelard's Sic et Non, it’s time for Hobbs’s Talking Points!
1. Will anyone ever be held accountable for the lynching murder of Emmett Till?
No!
Yes, we've witnessed this nightmare before: The United States Department of Justice makes a grand pronouncement that it is investigating the brutal lynching of Emmett Till, 14, the Chicago boy who was abducted from his grandfather Mose Wright's home in Money, Mississippi by Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam in August of 1955. Bryant and Milam, half-brothers, then savagely beat, shot, and tossed Till's lifeless remains into the Tallahatchie River to fester. Right on cue, after several years have passed in the latest “investigation,” the Justice Department then issues another pronouncement, this one holding that no charges will be pressed against the lone surviving deplorable human responsible for Till's death, the still living "Missy" Carolyn Bryant Dunham, Roy Bryant's former wife—and the person whose lies set the young Till's demise in motion.
Yes, we saw the George W. Bush Justice Department open a Till investigation in 2004, only to close it in 2007 after finding that there was "insufficient corroborating evidence" to charge "Missy" Carolyn. More recently, we saw the Donald J. Trump Justice Department launch an investigation during his first year in office in 2017, this one focusing on Missy Carolyn's recantation of her infamous accusations that Till whistled and made sexual advances towards her, only to witness four years pass with zero charges levied and, once more on cue, yesterday's pronouncement that the Joseph R. Biden Justice Department is closing the case due to lack of evidence.
Last I checked, confessions are considered "admissions" (hence-“evidence") in state and federal courts in each and every jurisdiction in America; back in 1955, a 20-year-old Missy Carolyn told the court that Till grabbed her hand, and, after she pulled away and walked behind the store counter, that he "clasped my waist, and, using vulgar language, said that he had been with white women before."
But in 2017, Missy Carolyn, then 82-years-old, told Duke University history professor Timothy B. Tyson that her prior testimony "wasn't true" and, while claiming that she could not exactly remember what happened, concluded her interview by saying that "nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him.”
Sigh…
Cognizant of the quote "you can indict a ham sandwich" featured prominently in Tom Wolfe's classic novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, I do strongly suggest that Missy Carolyn's admissions to Professor Tyson was arguably enough to get her indicted as a principal to murder in state court because, as the old saying goes, "murder stays murder," which means there's no statute of limitations on state murder charges. But there are limitations on what could be charged in federal court, and limitations due to the passing of time and deaths of key witnesses even if she was indicted in state court, thus, I am not surprised that no federal or state charges will be levied no matter how disappointed that I am in the fact that Missy Carolyn is living in comfort instead of the prison cell that she deserves to fester in until her last lying breath.
That, and the fact that while the State of Mississippi has made many strides in race relations over the decades, I know with substantial certainty that no prosecutor is going to seek to indict this elderly woman and lock her up, no matter how much she deserves it for ending Till's life and forcing his mother, Mamie Till, to mourn her baby's death for the remainder of her days.
Now, some of my deeply religious friends will conclude that Missy Carolyn will "get her due on God’s judgment day," but that doesn't move me much at all because, as a historian who has always LOVED reading about Simon Wiesenthal and other Nazi Hunters who worked (and still work) to get Nazis locked up even if they are 90-plus-years old and in poor health, I hate that here in America, those who beat, raped, and lynched Black people during the Jim Crow era did (and have done) so with relative impunity.
Such reminds, yet again, how Black lives never really mattered to a great many supposedly "Pro-Life," justice seeking Christians in these United States.
Read more on Carolyn Bryant Donham
2. Did leading German Nazis celebrate Christmas?
Yes indeed!
The picture below is from a Life magazine spread from 1940, one featuring the evil German Dictator Adolf Hitler and the Nazi High Command at a Christmas Banquet.
Yes, you read right: Christmas Banquet! Lest we forget that most Germans throughout the Third Reich, be they Austrian Germans, Sudeten Germans, Czechoslovakian Germans, or Prussian Germans, were either Lutherans or Catholics, and while Hitler allegedly had Jewish ancestry on his mother's side, he, too, considered himself a Catholic for many years—and even considered becoming a priest—before later becoming an atheist.
Still, Hitler's atheism did not prevent him from hosting the above-depicted Christmas feast—and perhaps even helped fuel his very "un"Christ-like plans for his malevolent"Final Solution," one that not long after this Christmas feast, led to the slaughter of over 10 million Jews and Roma from 1941 to 1945.
Lest we forget...
Remembering Pearl Harbor
Depicted above is Admiral Chester Nimitz awarding the Navy Cross to Doris "Dorie" Miller, a cook who on December 7, 1941, while assigned to the USS West Virginia, manned a .50 caliber anti-aircraft gun that he was NOT even trained to fire due to then existing racial discriminatory customs in the Navy.
Despite his lack of training, Miller engaged Japanese aircraft during the attack on Pearl Harbor, after which he helped saved many lives by assisting his fellow sailors that were abandoning the sinking ship.
During the award ceremony, Admiral Nimitz noted, "This marks the first time in this conflict that such high tribute has been made in the Pacific Fleet to a member of his race, and I'm sure that the future will see others similarly honored for brave acts."
Indeed, and as we remember the lives lost at Pearl Harbor 80 years ago today, lest we forget those Black sailors and soldiers who fought and died for love of a nation that did not love them enough to view them as equal human beings.
Thank you for subscribing to the Hobbservation Point—have a great Tuesday