Emmett Till Quotes

“A quiet

snowglobe of pain
I want to shake.
While the flakes fall

like ash we race
the train to reach the place
Emmett Till last

whistled or smiled
or did nothing.”
― Kevin Young, Brown: Poems

“We do not recognize the body
Of Emmett Till. We do not know
The boy’s name nor the sound
Of his mother wailing. We have
Never heard a mother wailing.
We do not know the history
Of this nation in ourselves. We
Do not know the history of our-
Selves on this planet because
We do not have to know what
We believe we own.”
― Jericho Brown, The Tradition

“I had seen a photograph of Emmett Till's body just after it was pulled from the river. I had seen photographs of white folks standing in a circle roasting something that had talked to them in their own language before they tore out its tongue.”
― Alice Walker

“Camille Cosby released a statement of her own. In it she lashed out at the media, at Steele, and at the entire prosecution team. She compared her husband’s case to that of Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old African American boy who was lynched in 1955 Mississippi after being falsely accused of leering at a white woman, and Darryl Hunt, an African American man who served nineteen years in prison after being falsely convicted of raping and murdering a white woman in North Carolina in 1984.”
― Nicole Weisensee Egan, Chasing Cosby: The Downfall of America's Dad

“We walked into the small store where [Emmett] Till had agreed to take that dare and thereby signed his death warrant.

A white man and woman with sour, tight faces sat in rocking chairs before a dirty spittoon. When we entered, they looked at us and kept their eyes on us until we left. I bought a candy bar from the tall, red-faced man behind the counter, and we walked out. He came to the window and watched us until we got in the car. As we walked back to the car, I noticed a large sign before a drygoods store. It read, "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you." I called it to Amzie's attention. He smiled and said, "That ain't up there for them. It's for us.”
― Bayard Rustin, Down the Line: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin

“Three days later when his body was found they wanted to bury him in Mississippi. I wanted him home in Chicago. I wanted the world to see what they did to my boy. I wanted Emmett's death to be the last death. I wanted Emmett's death to kill American innocence. I wanted Emmett's death to be not only the death of my boy but the death of innocence. I wanted Mississippi, I wanted America, to give us justice. And I prayed that I would live long enough to see it.”
― Nikki Giovanni, Acolytes

“Let’s show lots of love for Emmett Till
And fight against bigotry, racism, and hate
Let’s show lots of love for Emmett Till
So humanity can have a better fate”
― Aida Mandic, Turn The Tables

“He was an innocent Black boy in Mississippi
Minding his business, going to the store
He became a Civil Rights movement icon
Emmett Till’s spirit continues to roar

This 14-year-old boy was lynched
Because of a woman named Carolyn Bryant
Who said that he flirted and whistled at her
But it was a lie meant to help evil stir”
― Aida Mandic, Turn The Tables

“And I kept screaming, as the cameras kept flashing," [Mamie] wrote, "in one long, explosive moment that would be captured for the morning editions.”
― Timothy B. Tyson, The Blood of Emmett Till

“[The undertaker] asked if [Mamie] wanted him to retouch Emmett's body and make him look a little more presentable, "No," [she] said. That was the way [she] wanted him presented. "Let the world see what I have seen.”
― Timothy B. Tyson, The Blood of Emmett Till

“We can still hear the marching feet of millions in the streets of America, all of them belonging to the children of Emmett Till.”
― Timothy B. Tyson

“A quiet

snowglobe of pain
I want to shake.
While the flakes fall

like ash we race
the train to reach the place
Emmett Till last

whistled or smiled
or did nothing.”
― Kevin Young

“There are things
that cannot be seen

but must be.”
― Kevin Young