February is Black History Month...But all our history didn't happen in February

                                                A majority of Emmett Till's family members said Thursday that they object to plans by the Justice Department to exhume his body in order to find clues to solve his brutal murder 50 years ago. . . . Till was 14-years-old when he left his home on Chicago's South Side to visit relatives in Mississippi on Aug. 21, 1955. His mother advised him about how to behave when interacting with white people because race relations there were a lot different than in Chicago. On August 24, Till and his cousin, Curtis Jones, went into the small town of Money, and stopped at Bryant's Grocery store to buy some candy. Some local boys dared Till to speak to Carolyn Bryant, the white store clerk. He allegedly whistled at the woman when he left the store. Four days later, Till's body was discovered in the Tallahatchie River, weighted down by a cotton gin fan tied around Till's neck with barbed wire. Two men, storeowner Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J. W. Milam, were charged and acquitted of the murder. They bragged about the crime three months later in a Look magazine article.

-- Karen E. Pride, Chicago Defender May 6, 2005

 The Fan

What y’all aim to find by

digging up his old bones?

Old old bones, old and innocent bones

Why y’all want to disturb him?

He ain’t with his bones.

He down here in the muck with me

and ain’t nobody trying to dig my rusty ass up.

His Mama, bless her heart, she got the bones

and that head that looked like a bad cabbage.

Thousands seen it in Chicago. Millions through Jet.

Where was my picture? I suffered.

I used to gleam prissy and howl

now mud bugs nest in my teeth.

I kept the good stuff off that boy—his spirit, his soul, his spleen

caressed it out of his naked body

The real Emmett sometimes he runs up the road to Money

gooses that white gal between her legs—boy still gots

that spunk in him.

Then he runs back to me for shelter.

Carolyn wakes up, rubs her thigh

goes back to sleep.  1955 was a long time ago

She wants to rest. I want to rest, and even Emmett.

You got the pictures.  You won’t forget

Every now and agin some black boy still gets

drugged behind a car, still gets strung up in a tree

or the roof rafters of a county jail

They still make fans like me

heavy enough to drown boyish devilment.

Charles Harvey