Race, Identity & Social Order:James Weldon Johnson

Autobiography of an Ex-Colored ManCh. IX-XI

“I knew it was shame, unbearable shame.”

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Systemic Racism

• Privilege• Systemic racism• Color line (107-108)• Dual consciousness (21)• Slurs (92)

Emmett Till, 1941-1955

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Emmett Till

• Born in Chicago, visiting family (sharecroppers)in Money, Mississippi.

• Mamie Carthan Till, mother, was worried that Emmett would not understand the differences between Chicago and the Mississippi Delta– “Mind your manners.”– Tensions on the rise after Brown v. Board of Education

(1954)– The permanent awareness of existing within an

actively hostile majority

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Emmett Till

• Facts uncertain• At local grocery store, Till probably dared by

friends to flirt with Carolyn Bryant, a 21 year-old white woman.– Whistled? (most probable)– Grabbed hand, asked for date?– Said, “Bye, baby.” on leaving?

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Emmett Till

• One of friends runs off to tell Emmet’s cousin, Wheeler Parker, Jr.– Advised to get away fast– Parker on Till: “"He loved pranks, he loved fun, he

loved jokes... in Mississippi, people didn't think the same jokes were funny." “

– All Delta natives know what can happen• The permanent threat of violence is a fact of life

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Emmett Till

• Word spreads quickly among town’s whites• Bryant’s husband vows to “teach the boy a

lesson”• At 12:30am, the Bryants, half-brother J.W.

Milam, one other man drive to house of Rev. Wright, where Till was staying, take him away in the back of a pickup

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Emmett Till

• Taken to a shed• Beaten, skull fractured• Eye gouged out• Shot in the head• Wrapped in barbed wire, bound to 70 lb.

cotton gin fan, dumped in river– Mother demanded open casket funeral

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Emmett Till

• NAACP leader Medgar Evars arrives to help investigate in face of police indifference• Murdered in Mississippi, June 12, 1963 by rifle shot to the head

(Malcolm X: 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr.: 1968)

• At trial, positive identification by witnesses, other black witnesses not even called• Some black witnesses arrested to prevent testimony

• All white jury acquits Bryants, others, in 67 minutes– "If we hadn't stopped to drink pop, it wouldn't have

taken us too long.”

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Emmett Till

• After trial, Bryant & Milam admit to murder• Look magazine pays for interview.– They had meant to “just whip him... and scare some sense

into him.”• Till: "You bastards, I'm not afraid of you. I'm as good as you are.

I've 'had' white women. My grandmother was a white woman.”• Milam: “Chicago boy, I'm tired of 'em sending your kind down

here to stir up trouble. Goddam you, I'm going to make an example of you -- just so everybody can know how me and my folks stand.'”

• He was killed because he wasn’t afraid.– Link to interview, subsequent letters to the editor on website

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Letters to the Editor• “To publish this story, of which no one is proud, but which was certainly

justified, smacks loudly of circulation hunting. Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam did what had to be done, and their courage in taking the course they did is to be commended. To have followed any other course would have been unrealistic, cowardly and not in the best interest of their family or country.”– Richard Lauchli, Collinsville, Illinois

• “..You are champions of the NAACP...”– John Barber, Montgomery, Alabama

• “..I want to cancel my subscription to your magazine at once. I will not have my home contaminated with...filthy, dishonest articles...”– Mrs. W. R. Prevost, Utica, Mississippi

• “...If this case is not reopened and the guilty punished, I shall laugh at the word ‘justice.’”– William T. Bates, Folsom, Pennsylvania

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The Autobiography of Malcolm X

• Read this text as an argument in the first person, not a personal affirmation– The claim is not that Malcolm

X’s experience is remarkable, but that it is not

• Malcolm Little Satan Malcolm X El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz

• Atheist Nation of Islam Sunni Islam

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Themes

• Systematic racism• Degradation & dehumanization• Pervasive violence and domination• Self-loathing• Oppression of ideas• Liberating power of truth• Race consciousness• Dignity, honesty & order– Masculinity

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