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Emmett Till Murder Investigation Reopened 62 Years After Slaying
Emmett Till was a 14-year old boy who was brutally beaten and shot for allegedly making sexual advances against a white woman. The white women later confessed she lied.
Watch the 2017 update here:
Thankfully, federal authorities have reopened the lynching case of Emmett Till, a black teenager whose brutal murder in Mississippi in 1955 helped launch the modern civil rights movement.
The Department of Justice informed Congress in a report in March that it is reopening the case after “the discovery of new information,” which was not detailed. The decision was first reported on Thursday by The Associated Press.
A DOJ spokeswoman, reached by HuffPost in an email on Thursday, said it cannot provide further comment because it is an open investigation.
The department’s decision comes nearly 63 years after Till, a 14-year-old Chicago native, was kidnapped, beaten, tortured and shot after a white woman accused him of making sexual advances against her in a store in Money, Mississippi. Since his death, two white men acquitted of the crime confessed to his murder, and the woman recanted her allegations against him.
The horrifying case began in August 1955, when Till was abducted at gunpoint while staying with family near Money. Three days after he was taken in the night, his mutilated body was found in the Tallahatchie River with a cotton-gin fan tied to it with barbed wire for weight.
His mother, Mamie Bradley, insisted on having an open casket funeral for him so that the world could see the savagery done to him because of racial hatred.
Authorities charged two white men for his murder, Rob Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, after Bryant’s then-wife, 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, claimed that Till whistled at her, grabbed her and made sexual advances against her inside her husband’s store.
Both men were acquitted by an all-white jury. Years later in a paid magazine interview, they confessed to killing Till but were never retried. No one else was ever charged.
Milam and Bryant died in 1981 and 1994, respectively.
The case was closed in 2007, with authorities stating that there were no surviving suspects and the statute of limitations at that point precluded federal charges.
Last year the book The Blood of Emmett Till was published with a confession from Carolyn Bryant, today Carolyn Donham, that she lied under oath about her claims against Till. She confessed during an interview in 2008.
“Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him,” she was quoted as saying.
Donham today resides in Raleigh, North Carolina, and will turn 84 this month. A man who answered her door declined to comment to the AP on her behalf.
Civil rights activist the Rev. Jessie Jackson Sr. was among those reacting to the department’s decision on social media on Thursday by urging the passing of a bill that would make lynchings unlawful at the federal level as well as a hate crime.
Rev Jesse Jackson Sr
✔@RevJJackson
In memory of #EmmettTill and thousands of other black men, women & children lynched, we must finally pass anti-lynching law.
ABC 7 News – WJLA
✔@ABC7News
#BREAKING: Federal government reopens investigation into the 1955 slaying of black teen Emmett Till, a case that shocked the worldhttp://wjla.com/news/nation-world/government-reopens-probe-of-emmett-till-slaying …
Till’s cousin Deborah Watts, who co-founded the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, called the news “wonderful” when reached by the AP. She declined to comment further on the case.
“None of us wants to do anything that jeopardizes any investigation or impedes, but we are also very interested in justice being done,” she said.
We hope Emmett Till gets justice.
Article via: Emmett Till Murder Investigation Reopened 62 Years After Slaying
Childish Gambino Collaborator Denies “This Is America” Plagiarism Allegations
Fans have suggested that Donald Glover “stole” his No. 1 single from NYC rapper Jase Harley
One of Donald Glover’s creative partners has denied claims that Glover “stole” the music for his No. 1 single“This Is America” from a March 2016 song called “American Pharaoh” by New York rapper Jase Harley. Fam Rothstein is a co-principal of the creative agency Wolf + Rothstein (which is comprised of himself, Donald Glover, and Wolf Taylor), and he also co-produced the music video for “This Is America.”
This morning, in response to a user who claimed that Glover “stole the song,” Rothstein tweeted: “The internet is a place of no consequences. I hate that Toronto Akademiks/every white blogger can say something as gospel and y’all take it. This song is 3 yrs old, and we have Pro Tools files to prove it.” Find his tweet below.
https://twitter.com/famlikefamily/status/1011244111754506240
Allegations of plagiarism against Glover surfaced on Reddit this past weekend, with Redditors citing comments on Jase Harley’s Instagram. Someone wrote to Harley, “People are saying Donald Glover bit your song ‘American Pharoah’ with ‘This Is America.’ What do you think?” Harley responded, “I always felt my song inspired it lol from the first time I heard it.”
Harley added, “It’s cool tho…. Glad they liked my song. It’s all love.” He also wrote that “a shout out would be cool,” that it’s “dope [he] could’ve had some influence on the record,” and that “all artist get inspired by others.” Find Harley’s Instagram post below.
(Article via: Childish Gambino Collaborator Denies “This Is America” Plagiarism Allegations)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BkNi0sNAtBp/?utm_source=ig_embed