Emmett Till memorial sign scarred by bullet holes
Source: CNN
(CNN)The sign marking the site where Emmett Till's body was found is now riddled with bullet holes.
The marker is in rural Tallahatchie County, two hours north of Jackson, Mississippi. CNN affiliate WJTV reported this week that the sign has more than 40 bullet holes in it.
The 14-year-old black teen was killed in Mississippi in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman. The memorial marks the site where his body was discovered in the Tallahatchie River.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/22/us/mississippi-emmett-till-sign-bullets/index.html
Caution: Deplorables at Work
Chasstev365
(5,191 posts)I doubt whoever did this has any concept of the 1955 murder because they're too ignorant to learn about the horrific crime of a 14 year old boy.
raging moderate
(4,305 posts)Dragged out of bed in the middle of the night at the home of a relative he was visiting, by white supremacist thugs. Tortured to death. For whistling at a white woman. A fourteen-year-old kid from Chicago. That was some hospitality! I vote to let the bullet holes stand, and put up another marker explaining when they were put there, to show posterity that the monsters around there are propagating themselves.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)White Americans should have to face their ugly past and present.
Sand Rat Expat
(290 posts)The only people guilty of racially motivated crimes are the people who actually commit those crimes. Find the people committing these crimes, arrest them, charge them, and let them have their day in court. Laying the blame for these actions at the feet of an entire race is wrong, just as it's wrong when racist idiots blame the entire African-American community for criminal activity by some African-Americans.
Oneironaut
(5,494 posts)The blame game accomplishes nothing. We need solutions.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)(note I am one) need to start speaking out more against this shit instead of saying stupid shit like All Lives Matter.
raging moderate
(4,305 posts)I only blamed the perpetrators of these atrocities, and others like them. These people are clearly passing on a heritage of some sort to others, down through the years. If the shoe does not fit you, then just don't put it on.
MADem
(135,425 posts)And they're irritated that the crime was recognized for what it was.
BumRushDaShow
(128,962 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)Sand Rat Expat
(290 posts)I lived there from 1986 to 1998. Got there when I was six years old. I don't recall it being a racist, hateful place. I don't recall hearing racial epithets. I remember the Mississippians I knew as warm, welcoming people. To a large extent, I still think of Ocean Springs, MS as home.
Maybe it was that I grew up on the Coast, and it's a little more... cosmopolitan than the northern parts of the state. I remember driving north to go to Ole Miss, and thinking there were some little towns that I wouldn't want to be caught in after sundown. Or maybe it was that I just never encountered it personally, I don't know. I certainly became aware, as I got older, of Mississippi's horrific past.
It grieves me that the racist filth feel emboldened enough to do things like this, because Mississippi isn't the awful place some people make it out to be. Trump has encouraged the deplorables, and now here they are, blowing holes in memorial signs.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)and continue to live in. Just because it went underground for a while doesn't mean the hate wasn't there.
Sand Rat Expat
(290 posts)I'm not saying it didn't exist simply because I didn't witness it. But the fact that the racists are out proudly spewing their idiocy... I don't recall it being like that 25 years ago when I was growing up.
onehandle
(51,122 posts)billh58
(6,635 posts)still_one
(92,190 posts)felt that it was no longer an issue, I would tell them to go stick that right up their bigoted collective asses.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-stops-use-of-key-part-of-voting-rights-act/2013/06/25/26888528-dda5-11e2-b197-f248b21f94c4_story.html
spike jones
(1,678 posts)Here's to the State of Mississippi
Phil Ochs
Here's to the state of Mississippi,
For Underheath her borders, the devil draws no lines,
If you drag her muddy river, nameless bodies you will find.
whoa the fat trees of the forest have hid a thousand crimes,
the calender is lyin' when it reads the present time.
Whoa here's to the land you've torn out the heart of,
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of!
And here's to the people of Mississippi
Who say the folks up north, they just don't understand
And they tremble in their shadows at the thunder of the Klan
The sweating of their souls can't wash the blood from off their hands
They smile and shrug their shoulders at the murder of a man
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of
And here's to the schools of Mississippi
Where they're teaching all the children that they don't have to care
All the rudiments of hatred are present everywhere
And every single classroom is a factory of despair
There's nobody learning such a foreign word as fair
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of
And here's to the cops of Mississippi
They're chewing their tobacco as they lock the prison door
Their bellies bounce inside them when they knock you to the floor
No they don't like taking prisoners in their private little war
Behind their broken badges there are murderers and more
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of
And, here's to the judges of Mississippi
Who wear the robe of honor as they crawl into the court
They're guarding all the bastions of their phony legal fort
Oh, justice is a stranger when the prisoners report
When the black man stands accused the trial is always short
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of
And here's to the government of Mississippi
In the swamp of their bureaucracy they're always bogging down
And criminals are posing as the mayors of the towns
And they hope that no one sees the sights and no one hears the sounds
And the speeches of the governor are the ravings of a clown
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of
And here's to the laws of Mississippi
Congressmen will gather in a circus of delay
While the Constitution is drowning in an ocean of decay
Unwed mothers should be sterilized, I've even heard them say
Yes, corruption can be classic in the Mississippi way
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of
And here's to the churches of Mississippi
Where the cross, once made of silver, now is caked with rust
And the Sunday morning sermons pander to their lust
The fallen face of Jesus is choking in the dust
Heaven only knows in which God they can trust
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of
TonyPDX
(962 posts)George II
(67,782 posts)yankeepants
(1,979 posts)With a plaque that says "When they go low we go high."
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,001 posts)spike jones
(1,678 posts)No child is born a racist. Bigots raise Bigots.
Mississippi Goddam (Nina Simone) 1963
https://www.google.com/#q=mississippi+goddam
A Round Tuit
(88 posts)I think it's deplorable that a memorial sign was shot up, especially one with this content.
However, in the US South...I don't think you can find a sign of any kind that has not been shot at a few times.
The "Stop" sign down from my lake house has been shot so many times, it is unrecognizable.
The "School Bus Stop" sign is shredded.
The "Speed Limit 45" sign has not only been shot to hell, but altered by spray painting a "1" in front of the "45".
Put a sign up in the US South and it WILL get shot...and even more so if it has anything to do with a historical figure that is, shall we say...not a "popular" subject.
The only one's that stay relatively "healthy" are the ones that honor a Confederate figure or memorialize a site wherein the Confederates defeated Union forces.
I am surrounded by idiots.
jimmil
(629 posts)That many of the people who shot that sign even knew what was on it nor did they care. As Round Tuit pointed out, there is hardly a sign anywhere that doesn't have bullet holes all over it. It's just sport in Mississippi to drive down roads in your pickup knocking down a few six packs and blasting signs as you pass. In my opinion (and I'm not saying this is fact or anything other than what I personally think having lived my life for 18 years there) most of the time the majority of bullet holes represent a drunk stupid redneck and not the re-murdering of a young child by racially motivated hate groups or individuals.
Old Vet
(2,001 posts)Give it a listein and get in the groove how it CURRENTLY still is, Just not so in your face as back then.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,972 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)some damn asshole(s) get their kicks in 2016 by shooting up a memorial. I hope they catch them.