|
Historically Speaking
Published
by The Afro-American Historical Association of the
Niagara
Frontier
, P.O. Box
63, Buffalo
NY
14207
Sharon
Holley and Madeline Scott, Editors
Volume 28 Number
2 October
2004
PRESIDENT’S
REPORT
Association
members are requested to take notice of the proposed By-Law changes contained in
this newsletter. These are the first
By-Law changes since
April 29th, 1976
. Copies
of the By-Laws have been mailed to members.
By-Law committee members are; Wanda Hackney (Chair), Will Holder, Judson
Price, Dr. Monroe Fordham and Madeline O. Scott.
We
would like to increase the participation of students in the 2005 Carter G.
Woodson Essay Contest. Information
on the essay contest is in this newsletter.
However, if you would like a supply of slingers to take to your church or
anywhere there are youth, contact Sharon Holley or any of the AAHA Board
Members.
The
year 2004 has been a very productive year for the Association.
The annual programs were successful including the Family History Dinner
(annual meeting) that had an overflow crowd in attendance.
The 2005 Presenter will be Zola Crowell.
On
October 5 – 9, 2005
, we will be co-hosting the 90th
Annual Conference of The Association for The Study of African American Life and
History, Inc. (ASALH) (founded by Dr. Carter G. Woodson).
This will be the first time ASALH has met in
Buffalo
. They
are meeting here in recognition of the 100th anniversary of the
founding of the Niagara Movement. The
founders of the Niagara Movement met first in
Buffalo
in 1905.
You will be hearing more about this at a later date. We will be
recruiting volunteers among the membership.
The
Associations membership continues to grow. We
are grateful to those of you who recognize the important work of the Association
and consider it being worthy of your support.
Madeline
O. Scott
PROPOSED
BY-LAWS CHANGE
At
the May 2005 general meeting, the Board of Directors of the Association will
propose an amendment to our by-laws. There
are two major proposed changes; (1) a new officer (financial secretary) be added
to the Board; (2) the number of non-officer directors be increased from 9 to 13.
Some of the duties of the Treasurer will be reassigned to the Financial
Secretary. All members have been
mailed a copy of the current by-laws. Use
that copy to compare the proposed changes. The
proposed changes are as follows:
AMENDMENT
I
Article
IV
Section
1.
The affairs of the corporation shall be administered by a Board of
Directors which shall consist of the following: (a) six Officers; President, 1st
Vice-President, 2nd Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, and
Financial Secretary; and (b) thirteen Directors.
All Board members must be members of the Association.
Section
13
Duties of the Treasurer. The
Treasurer shall have the care and custody of the funds and securities of the
corporation. The Treasurer shall pay
out funds in accordance with the procedures established by the Board of
Directors. The Treasurer shall work
with the Financial Secretary in keeping a record of the accounts and finances of
the corporation.
Section
14
Duties of the Financial Secretary.
The Financial Secretary shall work with the Treasurer in keeping a record
of the accounts and finances of the corporation.
The Financial Secretary shall present detailed quarterly reports on the
transactions and balances pertaining to those accounts to the Board of
Directors. The Financial Secretary
shall make a written annual financial report of the corporation’s finances to
the larger membership.
WE
HAVE A WEB SITE
The
Afro-American Historical Association now has a WEB site.
Our address is www.aahanf.org.
Check it out and let us know what you think.
2005
CARTER G. WOODSON ESSAY CONTEST
"Justice for African Americans in
Western New York
" is the theme for the 28th Annual Carter G. Woodson Essay Contest.
The contest is open to all young people in grades 4-12 and must be received by
the Afro-American Historical Association or at the North Jefferson Branch
Library by
February 11, 2005
. Certificates and cash prizes will be awarded in February.
Essays
must be printed or typed in 500 words or less on the theme: "Justice for
African Americans in
Western New York
." One hundred years ago (1905), the Niagara Movement was organized
at the Erie Beach Hotel in Fort Erie, Canada after a planning meeting at the
home of Mary B. Talbert in Buffalo, NY. The founders of the Niagara
Movement, Dr. W.E.B. DuBois and William Monroe Trotter invited Black leaders
from seventeen states to form an organizations that would respond to the plight
of African Americans at this time in history. One of their
"Declaration of Principles" for the Niagara Movement demanded that
"laws be enforced againt rich as well as poor." In your essay,
describe and give examples of how African Americans in
Western New York
have/have not received equal justice. Answer the question, "have the
laws been enforced against the rich as well as the poor?" Explain
what should be done in 2005 to enforce the laws against the rich as well as the
poor. What would you do if you had the ability to change the laws?
NEW
AFRICAN AMERICAN HERITAGE GUIDES
Thanks
to the work of Jessica Thorpe and Outside the Box, the Buffalo Niagara
Convention & Visitors Bureau has published "Buffalo Niagara African
American Heritage Guide." The 28 page guide covers Black Buffalo
History, Cultural Festivals, Spoken Word Circuit, Cultural Institutions,
Historic Sites and Landmarks, Restaurants, Shopping, Houses of Worship, Night
Scene, Information for Family Reunions and Group Events and several day trip
itineraries. For copies of the Heritage Guide, contact the CVB at
1-800-BUFFALO or e-mail www.visitbuffaloniagara.com
UNCLE
SAM WANTS YOU, NOW;
FOR
THE VETERANS HISTORY PROJECT
By
Georgia Burnette
The time is now, the focus is YOU,
if you’re a veteran of any war.
Too often Afro-Americans complain that we’ve had no voice in documenting our
history. Now, however, the chance of
a lifetime awaits us. Minority veterans may recount the stories of their
military service, thanks to the U.S. Congress which authorized a program in 2000
to collect and preserve those experiences for future generations.
It is called The Veterans History
Project, administered through the American Folklife Center of The Library of
Congress.
The program, begun in 2000, seeks to gather the memories, stories and
documents of veterans from World War I through the current conflict. It also
includes civilian support staff and volunteers, as well as workers from the war
industries. Many, many Black Americans worked in the WWII “war plants,” and
their stories are much needed. Unfortunately the Project was unfunded, thus the
print and electric media have devoted little time or space to inform veterans of
the need to come forward for interviews. This has resulted in a lack of
knowledge in many areas of the country regarding the program.
Each
Story is Important
My experience with the Project has shown that many veterans believe their
stories are not important if they did not participate in a famous battle or a
experience a life-threatening situation. Everyone
has a story to share and these accounts comprise an important part of our
Black history. Unfortunately, our views are too often shaped by the popular
media, thus after viewing extraordinary tales of derring-do in Saving
Private Ryan, Band of Brothers Apocalypse Now, Patton and the Longest Day,
veterans feel their contributions will pale in comparison.
Yet we need to hear the everyday tales of military life, of being
homesick and lonely, about the mud, dust and insects, the dreadful food and
uncomfortable sleeping quarters. If an Army travels on its’ stomach, then the
Quartermaster Corps and other support personnel are not to be discounted (recall
the Red Ball Express). One veteran remembers an old rule of thumb that
estimates, “it takes ten people to put one soldier in combat.”
David Barnes, Korean War veteran, recounts a story of his tour of duty on
an island near the Korean mainland. “While in the combat zone, we lived in
tents or bunkers where a hot meal was an absolute rarity; C-rations being the
order of the day. We bathed in our
helmets, if we bathed at all, and toothpaste was a luxury. David recalls that
had it not been for food coming up ‘from the rear’ we’d have been forced
to partake of the local “delicacies, dried squid and other fish little known
to the troops. He laughed, saying “if you breathed on anyone after eating
those foods, they’d go down with the fumes! David looked forward to the time
he’d be relieved of front line duty and rotated to ‘rations breakdown,’
where meals were brought from the main prep area to the companies, then
‘broken down to the smaller units of combat. David spoke fondly of Stewart The
Stove Man, who repaired all the stoves in the tents. “We relied on this guy to
keep us from freezing to death.”
We need the stories of the cooks, supply clerks, mechanics, etc who
served in these areas behind-the-scenes as well as those serving stateside.
The
Veterans
Medical
Center
It is imperative that Afro-American servicemen become involved in the
Project, but of the eight groups interviewing local veterans in the
Western New York
area, only one is located in the inner
city, at the
Veterans
Medical
Center
. These groups are known as
“Partners,” and may consist of volunteers in civil and church groups,
veterans associations, libraries and museums, schools, military and historical
organizations.
Fern Beavers, Project
Director, states that the Buffalo VA Medical Center’s Minority Veterans
Program is in collaboration with community-based organizations, key individuals
and the Buffalo Public School System to
interview World War II African American veterans and develop a history resource
document for both junior high and
high school students, as well as a workbook and a teacher’s resource guide.
The completion date of the first phase of the five year project (collection of
World War II information) is February,
2005. A recent decision by the committee will expand the program to capture
the military experiences of all other conflicts, and create a permanent resource
document for students in grades seven through twelve.
Please,
Become Involved
By:
Volunteering
Additional volunteers are
always welcomed to assist with interviews, transcription and editing of the
final documents, but most importantly, the
recruitment of veterans to participate in the Project. Time is not on our
side due to the age of our WWII and Korean War servicemen, thus we need to
capture the stories of our Black veterans, now.
According to federal estimates, World War II veterans are now dying at
the rate of 1,000 each day and a part of our history is being lost with each
death.
Houses
of Worship
Please
consider establishment of a special Veterans History Project Ministry within
your communications
departments.
Veterans
Groups
Veterans groups, and Masonic chapters, take action by setting a 2005 goal
to have each member of
your chapter interviewed by the end of the year.
For further information contact:
Fern Beavers @ 862-3114,
Sam Feaster @834-9200
Georgia Burnette @ 691-8106.
If you wish to initiate you own program and need assistance with the
interview process, contact Heidi Banford @ the
Western New York Documentary Heritage Program,
(716) 633-0705.
Black Buffalonians, the time is now with a focus on each veteran to be
interviewed.
Please support the Project by volunteering in an area of your choice.
Black Veterans, consider your story as both a legacy and a gift to your
children.
A
REVIEW OF
DEATH
OF INNOCENCE;
THE
STORY OF THE HATE CRIME
THAT
CHANGED
AMERICA
By
Mamie Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson
Reviewed
by Pamela Fordham
“We
cannot afford the luxury of self-pity. Our
top priority now is to get on with the building process.”
Mamie
Till-Mobley
Death of Innocence,
written by Mamie Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson, details the events
surrounding her son-Emmett Till’s, murder.
The book portrays the emotional and political condition of
America
throughout the Civil Rights Movement
era. Mrs. Till-Mobley puts the
murder and the subsequent trial in a greater context, showing the role those
events had in inspiring participation, particularly by the younger generation,
to the Civil Rights Movement.
One of the most evident contrasts of the book is that although it intends
to tell “the story of the hate crime that changed
America
,” the story is really divided into
two parts which depict
America
before and after Emmett Till’s
death. The first part is a detailed
account of the numerous loving relationships that encompassed both Mamie and
Emmett’s lives. The backdrop to
the hateful acts of Emmett’s perpetrators is the loving
Chicago
community in which he grew up – a
community filled with friends and family members who understood that those very
relationships were the key to their survival.
It was a community of playgrounds, and mud holes filled with rainwater
that were just as alluring as wading pools when transformed by youthful
imaginations. It was a community of
familial neighbors who waited on their porches at
8:59
each night for their children to
return home to meet the
9:00 PM
curfew.
It was a time filled with celebrations; one so wonderful that Mamie Till-Mobely
described it as a “perfect light that you see sometimes just before darkness
falls.”
Powerful memories of Mamie and Emmett’s last days together mark the
transition of the story’s focus from life in
Chicago
to the details of the events
surrounding Emmett’s death. Those
memories reveal Mamie’s guilt about allowing Emmett to visit
Mississippi
in spite of her own misgivings.
For days before his trip she tried urgently to help Emmett to understand
all the cruel conventions of race relations between southern blacks and whites.
She reminded him of her generation’s
Mississippi
“cautionary tale”:
“…a
black woman who brought her little girl to work with her when she cleaned,
cooked,
and did laundry for a white family in the South.
The little girl became a playmate of the daughter of this white family.
One day something happened that upset the little white girl and she ran
to her daddy as he came down the drive after work.
The man listened to his daughter, then confronted the little black girl,
and became so angry with her that he pushed her hard against a tree.
Just slammed her. Now, that
girl’s mother had to finish her day’s work before she could even look after
her daughter, who was left there writhing in pain the rest of the day.
Eventually, the little girl died from her injuries” (19).
Emmett
was also impressed upon by others who warned him about the differences between
Chicago
and
Mississippi
. One
of his cousins even refused to join Emmett on his journey stating, “He
couldn’t get past all the things he had heard about the South.
He didn’t want to go.”
Nothing shook Emmett’s excitement and belief that everything would be
fine. In those reflective passages
Mamie reveals her understanding that it was impossible to “give a crash course
in hatred to a boy who [had] only known love.”
On
August 20, 1955
Emmett boarded the City
of
New
Orleans
train to make his fateful trip to a
place very different from the world that had become so familiar to him. Mamie
Till-Mobley described
Mississippi
as a “mirror image of the rest of
the world.
Normal
at a glance, until you realized it was
all completely backward.” The
Mississippi
that Emmett visited during the last
summer of his life was filled with fear and hatred.
Mississippi
politicians were engaged in a
concerted effort to intimidate black citizens and keep them from acting on the
Supreme Court ruling that “separate was not equal.” In an effort to preserve
the racist southern traditions, white politicians went to extreme lengths to
prevent blacks from exercising their right to vote or to engage in any activity
that might give voice to the idea that the right to vote even existed for
blacks. During the election in the previous year in the predominately black
Mound
Bayou
County
the ballots had been thrown away.
Mamie recalls the routine “black listing” of potential black voters
who often lost their jobs, homes, and even their lives.
She recalls the murder of a black
Mississippi
farmer, Lamar Smith, who was active in
the voter registration movement. He
was killed in broad daylight, but none of the many witnesses could supply any
details about his killers. His
death, which was only one of many such deaths, occurred only a few weeks before
Emmett arrived in
Mississippi
. Although
Mamie had done her best to prepare Emmett for the realities of
Mississippi
life, she states that ironically, she
had not done enough to prepare herself.
The details of Emmett’s death evolved over a long period of time and
amid much confusion. The disturbing
facts are revealed within the context of Mamie’s suffering, the world’s
shock, and the perpetrators “reign of terror.”
The most comprehensive version of the facts reports that Emmett had gone
into a local store owned by Roy Bryant. On
that day, his wife Carolyn was working. Emmett’s
friends and cousins who were with him reported hearing Emmett whistle.
It isn’t clear if Emmett was whistling as a joke, or in response to
getting “stuck on a word” (he had a stuttering problem), or in response to a
move in a checkers game that was being played on the porch.
In any event Carolyn Bryant felt that she had been offended by Emmett and
communicated that to her husband. Her
account of the offense would become more embellished over time.
Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, along with several others (including two black
men) later abducted Emmett from his uncle’s home and within days his dead and
mutilated body was recovered from the
Tallihatchie
River
. A
gin fan was tied around his neck with barbed wire.
The two murderers, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were given tremendous
support, and there was a great effort on the part of their supporters (including
politicians, judges and other high ranking law enforcement officials) to distort
the facts of the case and further terrorize Emmett’s family and the local
black community. Mamie describes
several events following Emmett’s death that exposed the “full measure of
human cruelty.” One such event
occurred during the period of time in which Mamie awaited news about the
disappearance of her son. During the
first few days she had very little information and had only been told that he
had been taken from his uncle’s home by white men.
She had not given up hope that he had somehow gotten away, when she
received information that Emmett was coming home.
However, none of the attorneys or police working on the case had received
similar information. This news that
gave Mamie a temporary and false sense of relief had been a malicious attempt to
deceive.
Mamie Till-Mobley detailed numerous ways racists throughout the country
attempted to continue to victimize her and her supporters for years to come.
The details lend support to the fact that the perpetrators were not just
the two murderers, but many individuals who acted, so as to justify the growing
and collective cruelty. In fact,
Mamie explains in the following passage why she came to view Emmett’s death as
a “lynching” as opposed to a murder:
“When
it comes to a lynching, it is not just the actual killers who are guilty.
It is the dominant culture, the entire society that permits such a thing,
that encourages it. Bryant and Milam
[Emmett’s killers] were not the only guilty parties in the lynching of my son.
Witnesses have pointed to at least six or seven people.
But, in a way, there were so many thousands more.
People who were responsible, powerful, influential.
People who could have chosen to lead, and chose instead to incite.
People who could have condemned hate crimes and chose instead to condone
them. People who could have come
clean, and chose instead to live the rest of their lives with blood on their
hands” (215).
One such event occurred after Emmett’s body was found and identified by
his uncle. Mamie had great
difficulty in securing Emmett’s remains because the sheriff of
Tallihatchie
County
attempted to have the body buried in
Mississippi
as soon as possible; however, efforts
on the part of Mamie and her family prevented that from happening.
Yet, when the body did arrive in
Chicago
, the undertaker had been forced to
sign papers preventing him from opening the sealed box that carried Emmett’s
body. Mamie was relentless in spite
of her deteriorating emotional state, and eventually convinced the undertaker to
let her view her son’s remains. Beyond the appearance of Emmett’s body –
the odor, the mutilation, the displaced organs, the bloating – beyond all that
lay yet another level to the bottomless depth of inhumanity.
Lime had been poured over his body to speed of the deterioration process
and to increase the difficulty of identifying him at all.
Mamie writes, “We just did not have the vocabulary to describe the
horror we saw, or the dread we felt in seeing it.
Emmett’s murderers had devised a form of brutality that not only was
beyond measure, it was beyond words” (142).
Even in the courtroom during the trial of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam there
was a greater attempt to intimidate and mock Emmett’s supporters than there
was to make sure that justice prevailed. The
courtroom itself was segregated and such a strong attempt was made to suppress
evidence that most of the prosecution’s team, witnesses, and even reporters
recognized that by showing up in court, they were literally risking their lives.
Most of those who were empathetic to the prosecution’s case had to stay
an hour outside of Tallihatchie County for their own safety, and some of the key
witnesses for the prosecution disappeared. Nevertheless,
the cry was heard and supported throughout the world and those seeking justice
courageously let their voices be heard. Well
known figures who spoke out in many different and powerful ways against the
injustice in Mississippi included, author and Mississippi native, William
Falkner; actress, Josephine Baker who led a protest in France; and Congressman
Charles Diggs, Medgar Evers, Roy Wilkins, and A. Phillip Randolph who all
organized rallies, raised funds and were essential to building the case against
Emmett’s killers,
Mamie emphasizes the important role the media played in making sure the
world knew about the circumstances of Emmett’s murder.
She describes a defiant moment during the trial when Emmett’s uncle,
“Papa Mose,” testified and identified the two killers by pointing them out
in the courtroom. Picture taking in
the courtroom had been restricted, but photographer, Ernest Withers, understood
the importance of preserving that moment – “…with hope, with patience, and
a steady hand,” he secured a visual representation of one of the most
importance moments in the life of the Civil Rights Movement.
This single act defied centuries of
Mississippi
mores and inspired Civil Rights
activists for years to come.
In spite of the disappearance of some key witnesses and other such
blatant injustices during the trial, the prosecution was able to present a
strong case against Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam.
The defense presented ridiculous and inflammatory arguments that were
nothing more than an attempt to defame the character of Emmett and his family
and justify the murder of a “black boy” who violated the social conventions
of the racist south. One of the
defense arguments purported that Emmett’s mother had killed him in order to
collect money from an insurance policy. Another
widely accepted claim among the defense supporters was that the body could not
be identified as the body of Emmett Till, and therefore no case could be built
against the killers who admitted to kidnapping him, but maintained that they had
released him while he was still alive. In
the end the juror only considered one factor before acquitting Roy Bryant and
J.W. Milam of the murder of Emmett Till. Mamie
states, “The jurors heard one thing that was important to them, and that was a
white woman’s claim that a black boy had insulted her.
That was all they needed to know…it was all they would consider in
making up their minds.” The
Chicago Sun-Times summarized the events in
Mississippi
in three words: “shameful, evil
wrong.”
Speaking in public and sharing Emmett’s story and her pain with others
became a source of therapy for Mamie Till-Mobley over time.
Although she had the support of thousands and the comfort of knowing that
Emmett death had mobilized the nation toward the pursuit of justice, the
attempts to victimize her continued for many years.
There were continuous death threats, and those who pretended to be
supporters, but instead used Emmett’s name for financial gain.
Mamie also felt the burden of other’s whose lives had been affected by
the trial. Most of her witnesses and
supporters in
Mississippi
were forced to leave; some suffered
tremendous financial losses and some suffered the deterioration of their health.
One of Mamie Till-Mobley’s strengths as a storyteller is her ability to
describe the multifaceted
characteristics of the people who impacted her life.
She helps the reader to understand their dimensions and intentions.
Although she exposes their human weaknesses and flaws, she always shows
their greater significance in the context of all that she experienced and later
came to understand. In her
introduction, Mrs. Till – Mobley states the following about facing Emmett’s
death:
“It
has taken all these years of quiet reflection to recognize the true meaning of
my experience, and Emmett’s. It
took quite a while for me to accept how his murder connected to so many things
that make us what we are today. I
didn’t see right away, but there was an important mission for me, to shape so
many other young minds as a teacher, a messenger, an active church member.
God told me, “I took away one child, but I will give your
thousands…” (xxii)
Mamie
Till-Mobley died in 2003; however, her mission will continue to be realized
through every reader of Death of Innocence.
For those who have their own memories of Emmett Till and their own
stories of how the news of his death affected their lives, Mrs. Till-Mobley’s
story is perhaps, a balm to the painful realities of the past and a reminder
that our historical identity is a part of a great continuum.
As Rev. Jesse Jackson states in the foreword, “Mamie turned a
crucifixion into a resurrection.” Her
description of Emmett’s life brings
tremendous significance to Emmett’s death and the death of so many others like
him – both known and unknown.
For
generations of children and young adults for whom the Emmett Till story is
simply a paragraph in a history book, Mrs. Till-Mobley’s story is a piercing
declaration of the importance of family. The
only thing greater than Emmett’s impact on others, was the impact of the
prayers, hopes, encouragement, love, chastisement and nurturing of his community
in shaping his identity. Mamie
Till-Mobley’s life defies the designations applied to single parents and those
who come from impoverished backgrounds by showing the extraordinary way the
lives of ordinary people can be affected by love.
Her story brings to life the veracity of the biblical passage that
states, “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never
fails.” She shares the details of
her personal confrontation with
America
’s disturbing past in the spirit of
love, with the hope that readers will receive it in the same manner.
| 
