[Mb-civic] MUST READ: Dead End - John W. Fountain on Emmett Till - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Dead End
On the Trail of a Civil Rights Icon, Starting Where He Did

By John W. Fountain
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, August 28, 2005; Page D01

CHICAGO

A midsummer's rain falls upon Emmett Till Road.

There is the swish of cars with glowing headlights on this usually 
bustling thoroughfare that seems to move this morning in the somber slow 
motion of a funeral procession.

Signs stare out from the windows of storefronts, offering wigs and "100 
percent human hair." At night, neon-lighted signs illuminate the 
doorways above currency exchanges and corner stores that sell malt 
liquor. Down near where Emmett's road intersects with Martin Luther 
King's, a local undertaker has outfitted her funeral home with 
bulletproof glass.

They are signs of the times. And they appear across the South Side of 
this city that 14-year-old Emmett Till called home, until that night 50 
years ago in Mississippi when he was kidnapped and then murdered, 
supposedly for whistling at a white woman. His disfigured face -- 
swollen like a pumpkin -- was viewed by tens of thousands who filed past 
his coffin in Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ. His mother 
insisted that the world see what had been done to her boy. His death and 
her defiance galvanized the civil rights movement.

Today, there is an ongoing federal investigation into the 1955 lynching. 
Authorities recently unearthed his grave at a south suburban cemetery in 
search of evidence that might be used to finally bring someone to 
justice. The reopening of the case has kindled old memories and hurts 
and stirred conversation in his home town, though perhaps, for now, 
raising more questions than answers:

What is Emmett Till's legacy? Is it reflected in the pulse of daily life 
here? Or is it dead?

The answers might be found inside beauty salons and barbershops or 
restaurants and other haunts. Maybe they lie in other places -- blocks, 
or perhaps even miles away from the road named after him.

So on this anniversary summer of his death, we search for answers, on a 
quest for some sign, for evidence that his legacy, whatever it may be, 
still lives in the city where he was born.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/27/AR2005082701298.html
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