EVANSTON, Ill. --- Saying it has received “new information,” the federal government has reopened its investigation into the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till, a Chicago teenager who was brutally murdered in Mississippi, helping spark the Civil Rights movement.
Northwestern University professors Christopher Benson and Alvin Tillery are available to speak about the Justice Department’s decision to reopen the case — and potential ramifications.
Christopher Benson is an associate professor in the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications.
Benson is co-author with Mamie Till-Mobley — Emmett Till's mother — of "Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America," the account of the historical significance of the lynching of Emmett Till, and the winner of the 2003 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award Special Recognition.
Benson is currently traveling, but he is available by email: [email protected].
Alvin Tillery is an associate professor of political science and director of the Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy at Northwestern University. His research and teaching interests are in the fields of American politics and political theory. His research in American politics focuses on American political development, racial and ethnic politics and media and politics. He can be reached at (mobile) 574-514-5758 or [email protected].
Quote from Professor Tillery
“The announcement that the Department of Justice will reopen the investigation of the grisly lynching of Emmett Till, who was just 14 years old when he was murdered in Money, Mississippi, in 1955, holds great symbolic significance for the African-American community and real implications for racial politics in the United States. Mamie Till’s decision to allow African- American media outlets to display her son’s battered body was one of the critical events that galvanized African-Americans to fight to end America’s racial dictatorship through the Civil Rights Movement.
“Till’s lynching is a fundamental element of the African-American community’s collective memory of the Civil Rights Movement. Indeed, even to this day, African-Americans who grew up in the Civil Rights era wince with a visceral emotional pain on remembering the images of Till’s body in Jet magazine. The African-American community has always wanted justice for Emmett Till, and there is no doubt that the possibility of delivering some degree of comfort to the surviving members of his family will be seen in the community as a positive thing.
“At the same time, African-Americans are sophisticated enough to know that opening these old lynching cases, and prosecuting the whites who committed these unspeakable crimes now that they are in the 80s and 90s or even posthumously, is sometimes done to achieve political ends. In other words, many in the community see clearly that these kinds of investigations and prosecutions of hate crimes are a lot easier for government authorities to pull off than dealing with the contemporary issues like the spike in hate crimes against minorities, the wanton killing of unarmed African-Americans by police and mass incarceration. Sadly, these historical cases are also sometimes used to provide cover to officials, like Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who are simultaneously pursuing policies that make it a lot harder for African-Americans to seek justice for these kinds of crimes in present day.”
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