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happy? - Aug 28 (murder of Emmett Till)

28 Aug 05 - 09:17 AM (#1551481)
Subject: happy? - Aug 28 (murder of Emmett Till)
From: Abby Sale

Money, Mississippi, 8/28/1955: Roy Bryant and JW Milam kidnap, torture and murder Emmett Louis Till for whistling at Bryant's wife. (Till was born in Chicago July 25, 1941.)

With world-wide attention, Milam and Bryant confess and are duly acquitted by the good Mississippy jury.

          'Twas down in Mississippi not so long ago,
          When a young boy from Chicago walked through a southern door
  
                  "The Ballad of Emmett Till," [© Bob Dylan, 1962]
Never heard the song? No surprise; it's awful. But at least it exists to commemorate this obscene nuget of history.

Copyright © 2005, Abby Sale - all rights reserved
What are Happy's all about? See Clicky

28 Aug 05 - 12:29 PM (#1551589)
Subject: RE: happy? - Aug 28 (murder of Emmett Till)
From: michaelr

Amy Goodman on "Democracy Now!" did a segment on the Emmett Till murder last week. Apparently there is a new effort at prosecution of some of the people involved (there were more than just Bryant and Milam).

She also played a Pacifica Archives recording of Dylan singing the song in 1962. It's less awful than more recent efforts of his!

Cheers,
Michael

12 Mar 10 - 11:13 AM (#2862654)
Subject: RE: happy? - Aug 28 (murder of Emmett Till)
From: evansakes

Here's a wonderful (though disturbing) film built around Ben Bedford's excellent song charting Emmett Till's short life and brutal murder

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV24o6VAmG4

12 Mar 10 - 02:58 PM (#2862842)
Subject: ADD: the Death of Emmett Till (Dylan)
From: Joe Offer

There are lyrics and a (no-longer-available) recording of Dylan's "The Death of Emmett Till" (1962) at folkarchive.de.


Here are the lyrics:

THE DEATH OF EMMETT TILL
(Bob Dylan)

'Twas down in Mississippi not so long ago,
When a young boy from Chicago walked through a Southern door.
This boy's fateful tragedy you should all remember well,
The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till.
Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up.
They said they had a reason, but I disremember what.
They tortured him and did some things too evil to repeat.
There was screamin' sounds inside the barn, there was laughin' sounds out on the street.

Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a blood red rain
And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screamin' pain.
The reason that they killed him there, and I'm sure it was no lie,
Was just for the fun of killing him and to watch him slowly die.

And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial,
Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till.
But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit this awful crime,
And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind.

I saw the mornin' papers but I could not bear
To see the smiling brothers walking down the courthouse stairs.
For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free,
While Emmett's body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea.
If you can't speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that's so unjust,
Your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt, your mind is filled with dust.
Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood it must refuse to flow,
For you'd let this human race fall down so God-awful low!

This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man
That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan.
But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we give all we could give,
We'd make this great land of ours a greater place to live.

12 Mar 10 - 03:07 PM (#2862855)
Subject: ADD: Land of the Shadows (song for Emmett Till)
From: Joe Offer

Here's the song about Emmett Till from Ben Bedford. TwickFolk posted a YouTube link above.
    Poignant but never sentimental, Ben Bedford's "Land of the Shadows" depicts the brutal 1955 murder of 14 year-old Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi. Like many of Bedford's songs, "Land of the Shadows" is a portrait sketch, portraying both person and era with attention to historical accuracy and its relevance to the human struggle therein. Bedford defined his niche as an American portrait songwriter with his debut release, Lincoln's Man, described by acclaimed songwriter, Diana Jones, as "beautiful and unusual." His second album, due in 2009, will include "Land of the Shadows" among other vignettes.

    LAND OF THE SHADOWS (song for Emmett Till)
    (Ben Bedford)

    Emmett flashed her a smile from across the room
    like a sulfur match in the growing gloom
    'gainst his smooth brown skin they were shinning white
    in the land of the shadows, dark and light

    He winked and he whistled and stepped into
    the glaring glint of the afternoon
    his 14 years of wrong and right
    in the land of the shadows, dark and light

    Chorus:
    Just a Northern boy, didn't mean a thing
    only seen Mississippi in magazines
    gonna tear his momma's heart apart
    in the land of the shadows, light and dark

    With his cousins down that dusty road
    he didn't think on it, how could he know?
    They was just teenage boys seeking girls and fights
    in the land of the shadows, dark and light

    His granddad stood in his white night gown
    in the rough hewn door without a sound
    they was two white boys, he wouldn't give no fight
    in the land of the shadows, dark and light

    (Chorus)

    Across the threshold, their plan in gear
    they smelled like cigarettes, dry leaves and beer
    with a 45 colt and the right of might
    in the land of the shadows, dark and light

    Pulled by four strong arms from sleep
    where he prayed to the lord his soul to keep
    to that half ton Chevy on a starry night
    in the land of the shadows, dark and light

    (Chorus)
    [Instrumental break]

    The river runs muddy in the summer time
    they pulled a rusty wheel from an old turbine
    didn't look like nobody in the morning bright
    in the land of the shadows, dark and light

    Emmett flashed her a smile from across the room
    like a sulfur match in the growing gloom
    'gainst his smooth brown skin they were shinning white
    in the land of the shadows, dark and light
    in the land of the shadows, dark and light
    in the land of the shadows

    By Ben Bedford and Kari Abate
    Butterchine Music (ASCAP), © 2008
    Hopeful Sky Records (P.O. Box 515 Springfield, IL 62705)
    www.benbedford.com

    Source: http://www.kariestrin.com/lyrics.html

    Southern Cultures Magazine has a lengthy article titled Haunting America: Emmett Till in Music and Song. I wasn't able to access the article itself.

15 Mar 10 - 09:49 AM (#2864463)
Subject: RE: happy? - Aug 28 (murder of Emmett Till)
From: evansakes

Thanks, Joe (nice work!)

HERE'S an archived BBC news video shown almost five years ago to mark the 50th anniversary (focussing on an acclaimed documentary recounting Till's story and an interview with the film-maker, Keith Beauchamp)

Ben Bedford performed 'Land of the Shadows' at his debut UK gig last night.....at TwickFolk of course!

15 Mar 10 - 10:56 AM (#2864493)
Subject: RE: happy? - Aug 28 (murder of Emmett Till)
From: Cuilionn

The book and PBS series about the African-American Civil Rights Movement, "Eyes on the Prize," also features a lengthy exploration of Emmett Till's story.

29 Aug 15 - 11:05 PM (#3734055)
Subject: RE: happy? - Aug 28 (murder of Emmett Till)
From: Felipa

60 years, unfortunately still relevant

30 Aug 15 - 01:31 PM (#3734218)
Subject: RE: happy? - Aug 28 (murder of Emmett Till)
From: kendall

I was appalled at the time, and I'm now just angry at those lard brain bastards.

30 Aug 15 - 09:38 PM (#3734305)
Subject: RE: happy? - Aug 28 (murder of Emmett Till)
From: wysiwyg

Amen

31 Aug 15 - 08:03 AM (#3734390)
Subject: RE: happy? - Aug 28 (murder of Emmett Till)
From: GUEST,henryetta

Look up the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center and make a donation. That'll help.

22 Apr 24 - 10:07 AM (#4201392)
Subject: RE: happy? - Aug 28 (murder of Emmett Till)
From: FreddyHeadey

Radio documentary by the BBC
(not about any associated music)
The Ballads of Emmett Till - 2019
BBC World Service - The Documentary Podcast

**Some listeners may find parts of this programme upsetting**
Emmett Till, fourteen and black, was put on the train from Chicago by his mother Mamie in August 1955.
She got his corpse back, mutilated and stinking.
Emmett had been beaten, shot and dumped in the Tallahatchie River for supposedly whistling at a white woman. His killers would forever escape justice. What Mamie did next helped galvanise the Civil Rights Movement and make Emmett the sacrificial lamb of the movement.
1 hour, 9 minutes
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p070cltm

22 Apr 24 - 07:47 PM (#4201432)
Subject: RE: happy? - Aug 28 (murder of Emmett Till)
From: GUEST

Why did his mother put him on a train?

22 Apr 24 - 08:05 PM (#4201433)
Subject: RE: happy? - Aug 28 (murder of Emmett Till)
From: FreddyHeadey

Guest,
He was on his holidays :

"Till was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois.
During summer vacation in August 1955, he was visiting relatives near Money, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta region. ,,,"
more
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till