Decades later, an apology for Emmett Till slaying

[flashl]

Once an icon of racism, town plans to say it's sorry near where killers were freed.

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Now more than five decades later, driven both by conscience and commerce, an interracial group of locals in this desperately poor, majority black region is ready to apologize, and perhaps even capitalize, on this remote soil's dark history.

An official apology from the county-appointed Emmett Till Memorial Commission will be read Tuesday in front of the courthouse. A historical marker also will be unveiled — just steps from the Civil War monument planted there at the beginning of the last century.

The makeup of the 17-member Till Commission makes its own kind of statement. It includes blacks who grew up on white members' plantations, a black woman who moved to Mississippi three years ago from Chicago, and the wife of the white Republican mayor, whose own roots in Sumner go back five generations.

The current sheriff, who is white, also is expected to speak. The sheriff during the Till trial testified for the defense.

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[bluestateguy]

1. I'm wondering if the people who really need to apologize will be apologizing

Like the little Southern belle who told her husband that Emmet Till "whistled" at her, thereby setting this whole awful episode in motion.

[flashl]

2. I have watch documentaries about towns like this ...

some towns try to heal afterwards. For one group in these towns, the courthouse is just a place to get their tags and to the other group the same courthouse is the place where a relative was hung.

Tulsa, OK was one of those places. It was just recently they tried to close an ugly chapter by doing the same. There are only seven survivors left but everybody who grew up there knows the story some said they feel the emotional wounds as if it was yesterday.