Emmitt Till — Transcript

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1. 0:00okay so this is the last of these video
2. 0:04lectures I'm gonna do for this class I
3. 0:05think um so um this is the last time
4. 0:09you'll have to see these crazy eyebrows
5. 0:11look at this I'm 45 and it's like my
6. 0:13eyebrows are taking over my face in my
7. 0:15head it's so embarrassing so um and it
8. 0:19only gets worse so I want to talk about
9. 0:21the civil rights movement and and and
10. 0:24basically something that happens that
11. 0:26really I think helps again it helps to
12. 0:30trigger the civil rights movement and
13. 0:31it's basically the case of Emmett Till
14. 0:32and it's really a heartbreaking story
15. 0:37this case of Emmett Till Emmett Till is
16. 0:40a 14 year old boy from Chicago and this
17. 0:42is 1955 and his uncle Mose Wright comes
18. 0:46up to Chicago for a funeral and asked
19. 0:49him until to come back to Mississippi
20. 0:51money Mississippi and spend the rest of
21. 0:53the summer Emmett Till is about to be in
22. 0:54eighth grade um my daughter right now is
23. 0:58in eighth grade in their weird people
24. 1:01hope hi this is not offensive to my
25. 1:02daughter but sometimes my daughter go
26. 1:04around the house let me show you what
27. 1:05she does is so funny to go run house -
28. 1:06let's do this just walking down the
29. 1:11hallway awesome
30. 1:13so 14 years old he's smart funny
31. 1:16good-looking kinda have a class clown
32. 1:18but a good kid so he agrees to go down
33. 1:21there to the south his mom gives him the
34. 1:24speech basically as an african-american
35. 1:27young man going into the staff and
36. 1:29probably as a 14 year old who lives in
37. 1:30Chicago doesn't really listen to it that
38. 1:33well but his mom also gives him a ring a
39. 1:34signet ring right now I've got my
40. 1:36wedding ring on here right it's worth
41. 1:39like $7 because when we got married we
42. 1:42had no money so it's really not worth
43. 1:43very much I lost it
44. 1:46my wife would kill me but financially
45. 1:49yeah so but but the ring that she gives
46. 1:53him is different it's a signet ring and
47. 1:55it's got L take Lewis tilt on this rim
48. 1:59in a very distinctive fashion so he goes
49. 2:02to the south he go he goes to money
50. 2:03Mississippi it's hot summer there's no
51. 2:05air conditioned obvious in this town by
52. 2:07the way come and aside off of the
53. 2:09suppress women one of the most important
54. 2:11things that changed demographics
55. 2:13in the country with people moving south
56. 2:16was something as there would take for
57. 2:18granted air-conditioning right
58. 2:20air-conditioning changed the way people
59. 2:21would come into the south anyone know
60. 2:23where conditioning in 1955 and my name
61. 2:25is sippy so it's a windy day there's a
62. 2:28little store and they would go by the
63. 2:31store and get like some different kind
64. 2:34of food and different drinks and
65. 2:35different things maybe go swimming after
66. 2:37they work in the morning and so they go
67. 2:40to the store and something happens um
68. 2:43the proprietor of the store is a1 and
69. 2:46Carolyn Brian her husband is gone and
70. 2:47Emmett Till goes into the store and
71. 2:49something happens in the store that
72. 2:51there's so questions about maybe he
73. 2:53whistled at her maybe he touched her
74. 2:54hand when they interacted their son that
75. 2:57said he was dared to talk to her because
76. 2:59he had talked about having a black
77. 3:01girlfriend up in the north there's
78. 3:02different questions about what really
79. 3:04happened something happened he leaves
80. 3:06you can tell there's been some tension
81. 3:08begin the car they taught take off and
82. 3:11then everyone kind of forgets about this
83. 3:12Carolyn brought by the way 21 years old
84. 3:13very beautiful rape pretty girl uh I
85. 3:16think I had two kids and it dropped out
86. 3:18of high school was Mary until God I had
87. 3:20him uh boid Brian who's off driving a
88. 3:23truck to Florida when this happened goes
89. 3:26home Wednesday night calm something
90. 3:29happens Thursday night comes Friday
91. 3:30night comes it's a Saturday night to a
92. 3:32cocky one there's banging on the door
93. 3:34and was robbed opens it up and two men
94. 3:38two white men barged into most Wright's
95. 3:40house most right and his family's house
96. 3:43and says we want that boy that did all
97. 3:44the talk so they get Emmett Till up and
98. 3:46they wrapped him how bad a girl's voice
99. 3:49in the truck says that's the one and
100. 3:51they take him away next morning
101. 3:53obviously the sheriff is called Medgar
102. 3:56Evers gets involved he's the
103. 3:58n-double-a-cp leader of Mississippi who
104. 4:00himself will be killed martyred shot in
105. 4:03the back was shot in the back by a guy
106. 4:06named Byron de la Beckwith as he's going
107. 4:08home tremendously cowardly act and and
108. 4:14so basically Medgar Evers will help in
109. 4:16the search for this boy and they find
110. 4:17his body
111. 4:18it's his body's been tied to a gin fan
112. 4:2070-pound feynman thrown in the river
113. 4:22they try to bury him as soon as again in
114. 4:24fact the authorities the sheriff says
115. 4:26that's not Emmitt Till that's
116. 4:27somebody except except the signet ring
117. 4:30he had the ring on that had LT Lewis til
118. 4:33it was it was until they are going to
119. 4:36have a funeral as fast they can but his
120. 4:38mom says that she wants the funeral up
121. 4:40in Chicago uh Mamie till and so uh they
122. 4:45stopped the funeral they put his body in
123. 4:46a box and ship it to the NOI she gets
124. 4:50his body and she will do something
125. 4:52amazing she will have an open casket
126. 4:54funeral in Chicago in this church we're
127. 4:56going to have the funeral but they're
128. 4:58going to leave the leave the body in an
129. 5:02open casket what can be viewed and
130. 5:04people would come to and view this one
131. 5:05out of five people supposedly were so
132. 5:08overcome and they had to be help from
133. 5:10the church it was a horrible sight you
134. 5:12can look it up you just type in Emmett
135. 5:13Till photos it's it's horrible so at all
136. 5:16they have a trial in money Mississippi
137. 5:18evidence happens his mom comes down and
138. 5:21in the trial basically these two men who
139. 5:23did this they say they were not guilty
140. 5:26takes the jury not very long and the
141. 5:28jury finds him not guilty
142. 5:31everyone was expecting this this to
143. 5:34happen in 1955 in Mississippi so no one
144. 5:37is shocked by this even though the two
145. 5:39men who were obviously ones who did this
146. 5:42and so you would think this is the end
147. 5:45of this heartbreaking case until three
148. 5:47months later you have Look magazine look
149. 5:50doesn't exist anymore it's just a
150. 5:52magazine comes down and interviews these
151. 5:54two guys and they say they tell exactly
152. 5:56what they did because of double jeopardy
153. 5:57because they've already been tried found
154. 5:59guilty they they won't be tried again
155. 6:01and they tell in detail what happened
156. 6:03they came in kidnapped till 14 years old
157. 6:06they beat him up they tortured him they
158. 6:08did not want to initially kill him but
159. 6:10because he would not back down and
160. 6:12because he would not give in they got
161. 6:17more more agitated until eventually they
162. 6:19shot him through the head and brew his
163. 6:21body into the river they got three
164. 6:23thousand dollars for this but new cars
165. 6:25they did become pariahs in the town
166. 6:27outcasts but still they admitted Oakland
167. 6:30the Emmitt Till case is very important
168. 6:34in the civil rights movement for a
169. 6:36couple reasons reason number one the
170. 6:38press gets involved
171. 6:40really
172. 6:41for the first time the press gets
173. 6:42involved in coming down and seeing this
174. 6:44it was almost like they took of failback
175. 6:46and they realized oh my gosh this is
176. 6:49what is going on in the south the press
177. 6:52saw the racism in the horrible ISM they
178. 6:58saw the town that's in town of money
179. 6:59Mississippi despite the fact that
180. 7:01everyone knew that they did this the
181. 7:02town of money Mississippi basically kind
182. 7:05of circled up and kept Outsiders out and
183. 7:09so the press was like my gosh what's
184. 7:12happening here the second thing is this
185. 7:14is 1955 by the civil rights movement
186. 7:17doesn't only become active really active
187. 7:19with protests until the 19th early 1960s
188. 7:22with the sit-in movements with a
189. 7:23non-violent protest at Martin Luther
190. 7:25King jr. this is 1955 this there's no
191. 7:28real protest happening at all anywhere
192. 7:31people see these images Jet magazine Jet
193. 7:35magazine publishes these photos that's
194. 7:39why you can see him one of the internet
195. 7:40if when you google hope you googled the
196. 7:43images of the matil Jet magazine there's
197. 7:46a big editorial discussion whether or
198. 7:48not you should publicly publishes images
199. 7:49and they finally decided to do this
200. 7:51you got to also remember this in this
201. 7:53time code people did not see violence
202. 7:56the same way we see violence right I
203. 7:58mean we see violence on television or
204. 8:01movies the people that see 50s would
205. 8:03never see and we even watching CSI or
206. 8:06that show Criminal Minds that show
207. 8:08terrifies me I can't watch that show go
208. 8:11into the movies watching you know just a
209. 8:15violence so we just kind of take for
210. 8:16granted in our media they didn't see
211. 8:19that so when they see this body that was
212. 8:22so mutilated it had to be shocking you
213. 8:23so you have individuals who see this we
214. 8:26begin to think and they begin to begin
215. 8:28to percolate in their hearts and a lot
216. 8:30of the individuals who saw these images
217. 8:32are going to be the individuals who 1960
218. 8:36maybe sit in at Woolworths in 1963 maybe
219. 8:40they come to to Birmingham to try to
220. 8:44draw attention to the segregation here
221. 8:471964 to Freedom Summer maybe they're one
222. 8:49of the ones on the bus is coming down
223. 8:51trying to desegregate
224. 8:53these officially desegregate these these
225. 8:55these buses these Freedom Riders
226. 8:58basically I think Emmett Till the Emmett
227. 9:00Till case is really important because
228. 9:03it's it it's the case where real
229. 9:07attention is drawn to the horrible
230. 9:11nature of the racial violence that no
231. 9:14one talked about but that was going on
232. 9:16in the south
233. 9:18I think the Emmett Till case was also
234. 9:19important because three months later
235. 9:21after all this happens in Montgomery
236. 9:24Alabama Rosa Parks will be arrested for
237. 9:27not giving a per seat on a bus and
238. 9:30Martin Luther King will rise up out of
239. 9:32this and become kind of this leader the
240. 9:34spokesman and the press is ready right
241. 9:37the press all of a sudden is much more
242. 9:40ready to start to cover this and in sin
243. 9:43and remember this one of the things that
244. 9:45Martin Luther King jr. is going to do in
245. 9:46that's in season three when he's gonna
246. 9:47allow children to be attacked by Bull
247. 9:49Connor and those dogs in 1963 you can
248. 9:52see those images sue he wants the nation
249. 9:54to see this he wants the press to record
250. 9:56this and send this out on the nightly
251. 9:58news when people are eating of dinners
252. 9:59and they can see what's happening on TV
253. 10:02that was a strategy the press was really
254. 10:06important in broadcasting these and
255. 10:09justices out of the south into the north
256. 10:12and changing minds and bringing people
257. 10:15from the north into the south that would
258. 10:18try to register people to vote and
259. 10:19eventually 1964 Civil Rights Act 1965
260. 10:24Voting Rights Act uh we both occur so
261. 10:28very important case in mattel that
262. 10:31really sets the cornerstone the
263. 10:32foundation of the changes that would
264. 10:35come thank you again for taking this
265. 10:37class