Refusing to Comply With Structural Racism: From Emmett Till to Sandra Bland

Zachery Norris @ Truthout.org - Like Emmett Till before her, Sandra Bland wound up dead not so much for what she did as for what she didn't do: comply to the structurally racist order of things.

On August 28, 1955, two white men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, killed 14-year-old Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi, after Till reportedly made a flirtatious remark to a white woman. An all-white jury summarily acquitted Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam. Just months later, the two men talked with a reporter and admitted to torturing, killing and mutilating Till.

Till's mother Mamie Till Mobley heroically insisted on a public funeral with an open casket to expose to the world the brutality of what happened to her son. The funeral and images focused national and international attention on...read more.