"I Don't Care If You Have To Display The Remains On Dry Ice. I Want An Open Coffin"

Listening to Vincent Bugliosi on Malloy tonight
he said something about US servicemen coming home
after the person was killed by an IED
He said the remains come back marked "Unviewable" by the military

And I thought of the 1955 murder of Emmit Till, the year I was born
that was one of the events that brought the whole civil rights struggle to a head.
http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/early-civilrights/emmett.html
And how his mother demanded that his body be displayed in an open coffin
because she wanted the world to see what they had done to him

"The Emmett Till case quickly attracted national attention. Mamie Bradley, Emmett's mother, asked that the body be shipped back to Chicago. When it arrived, she inspected it carefully to ensure that it really was her son. Then, she insisted on an open-casket funeral, so that "all the world see what they did to my son." Over four days, thousands of people saw Emmett's body. Many more blacks across the country who might not have otherwise heard of the case were shocked by pictures of the that appeared in Jet magazine. These pictures moved blacks in a way that nothing else had. When the Cleveland Call and Post polled major black radio preachers around the country, it found that five of every six were preaching about Emmett Till, and half of them were demanding that "something be done in Mississippi now." <17>"

Photo of Emmit Till's body in casket (Warning Graphic Remove xxx to view)
XXXXXX

It must have been unbelieveably painful for her

But, it worked and the world began to see the horrors of racism

And I couldn't help but think about what would happen
if a parent had the anger and the will to do that now

The WHITE woman he whistled at and got him killed was STILL ALIVE (about three years ago)!

great post

emmett's mom was not only very brave and strong she was extremely wise.
no mother should have to,.................... i'm too choked

can avoid considering the consequences of their actions.

I doubt that any family would be allowed to do something like this in America today, we still had a marginally independent press then.

That is one of the things that I find genuinely disgusting and disheartening. The fact that at least the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had to beat people, murder people, or threaten their familes to get the kind of homogeneous state-controlled media that exists in Imperial Amerika.

Our toadies just gave it all up without a fight. Much preferable to be a stenographer, I suppose, than an actual journalists.

Journalists don't get so many lazy aftrenoons off to go to the gym, and the don;t get as rich as Toadies.

If you haven't noticed, in all walks of life, being a Toady is where it's at in today's Empire.

Which is sickening to the few of us who carry freedom in our hearts, but that's the way it is.

:kick:

or did photobucket remove it from your page?

http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=emmett+till&sp=1&fr2=sp-top&y=Search&ei=UTF-8&fr=sfp&x=wrt&js=1&ni=21&ei=UTF-8&SpellState=n-3856974743_q-pvQxGyMNl53aZQnS.EEelAAAAA@@

Gave me nightmares...

so I edited and added the xxx at both ends
so noone could complain

If you must see it
remove the xxx from both ends
and c&p it into your browser

I'm not here to force anyone to view it

i'm just nosy that way.

"In Mamie Bradley's words, "Two months ago I had a nice apartment in Chicago. I had a good job. I had a son. When something happened to the Negroes in the South I said, `That's their business, not mine.' Now I know how wrong. I was. The murder of my son has shown me that what happens to any of us, anywhere in the world, had better be the business of us all."

n/t

"When an Army division goes into combat, ninety-two mikes quietly establish collection points in discreet locations. Company commanders typically know where they are; soldiers typically don’t. A collection point is nothing more than a couple of litters on sawhorses, a hand-washing station composed of a steel basin and a jerrican hung in a wooden frame, and a small desk for paperwork. Camouflage netting covers the station, and a one-square-foot sign announces its function: “Mortuary Affairs Collection Point.” A green, generator-powered refrigeration container big enough for twelve bodies stands outside. Six ninety-two mikes generally man a collection point."

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/08/09/040809fa_fact1

It's not something that people really need to see these days on that issue

But, the iraq occupation is another matter

It's not an image you can forget or "unsee."

And I think that mother's resolve to "not let it go" asnd let the wretched truth be known. did absolutely jump start the civil rights movement.

so powerful. That power, and the lessons that the Powers That Be then learned, and then again when some photojournalists showed the truth of Vietnam, are exactly why the Corporate Media Operators will never again allow that kind of truth to be told. Where are the victims of their mass slaughters in Iraq or Afghanistan shown? Some obscure websites, but never on the front page of the massacred media.

coffins coming from Iraq for so many years!

"Two months ago I had a nice apartment in Chicago. I had a good job. I had a son... When something happened to the Negroes in the South I said, `That's their business, not mine.'"

Sheep have only one future.