THE LYNCHING OF EMMETT TILL AUGUST 28-1955

Sixty two years ago today on August 28, 1955 a car pulled up at the home of an elderly African American couple Moses and Elizabeth Wright in Money, Mississippi at about 2:30 a.m. Two white men shouted and then knocked on the door demanding entry; they were looking for the 14 year old great nephew of Moses Wright. The two white men dragged the 14 year old African American youth out of the Wright home that early morning of August 28, 1955 and it was the last time his relatives saw him alive. The 14 year old was Emmett Till and his decomposed body was found three days later. He had been tortured and his body mutilated by the two white men because a 21 year old white woman had accused him of whistling at her!

Murphy Browne © August 28, 2012
THE LYNCHING OF EMMETT TILL AUGUST 28-1955
We know some of the story of African American Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks’ arrest for refusing to give up her seat in the "Colored" section of a Montgomery, Alabama bus to a White man who could not find a seat in the "White" section of the crowded bus. Over the almost 57 years since then (December 1, 1955) there have been various stories written about her reasons including that she was tired after a hard day’s work as a seamstress. However Ms Parks debunked that myth when she said: "I thought about Emmett Till and I could not go back. My legs and feet were not hurting, that is a stereotype. I paid the same fare as others and I felt violated."


The impact of the brutal murder on August 28, 1955 of the African American teenager Emmett Louis Till was felt by African Americans of all ages and is considered pivotal in the Civil Rights struggle. Famous African American boxer Muhammed Ali shared his memories of the impact: "Emmett Till and I were about the same age. A week after he was murdered. I stood on the corner with a gang of boys, looking at pictures of him in the black newspapers and magazines. In one, he was laughing and happy. In the other, his head was swollen and bashed in, his eyes bulging out of their sockets and his mouth twisted and broken. His mother had done a bold thing. She refused to let him be buried until hundreds of thousands marched past his open casket in Chicago and looked down at his mutilated body. [I] felt a deep kinship to him when I learned he was born the same year and day I was. My father talked about it at night and dramatized the crime. I couldn't get Emmett out of my mind."
Ali and thousands of African Americans had read about and seen the grisly photographs of Till’s gruesomely mutilated body in several issues of African American owned Jet Magazine (September 15 1955, September 22, 1955, September 29, 1955, October 6, 1955, October 13, 1955, November 24 1955, January 26, 1956, June 21, 1956, June 28, 1956 and February 28 1957.)


The late celebrated African American lawyer Johnnie L. Cochrane also shared his memories of the impact felt when he heard of Till’s murder: "I was a senior at Los Angeles High School in California. It had a profound affect on me because I understood that it could have happened to any of us. It shook my confidence. It was as though terrorists had struck -- but it was terrorists from our own country. It made me want to do everything I could to make sure this event would not happen ever again." Similar to the murder of 17 year old unarmed African American Trayvon Martin, Till’s lynching garnered international attention (the story of Till’s lynching was reported in the international press including newspapers in Belgium, Germany and France) even though countless African Americans had been lynched by White Americans.


For example on May 7, 1955 the Reverend George W. Lee (52 years old) a Baptist minister, grocery store owner and NAACP field worker in Belzoni, Mississippi, was shot and killed at point blank range while driving in his car after making an unsuccessful bid to vote. On August 13, 1955 in Brookhaven, Mississippi, Lamar Smith, another African American man (63 years old) who was a farmer and World War I veteran was shot to death in broad daylight at close range on the lawn of the Lincoln County courthouse in Brookhaven, Mississippi in the presence of several witnesses, after casting his ballot. Both victims had been active in voter registration drives. No one was ever arrested for either murder even though Jet Magazine in its May 26, 1955 issue reported on the lynching of Reverend Lee. There are countless instances of African American men, women and children lynched by white Americans who were never held accountable for these inhumane crimes against humanity. Many of the lynched African American men were accused like the 14 year old Till of looking at White women or just being in the presence of white women.


Emmett Till was a 14 year old African American male born in Chicago on July 25, 1941 the only child of Mamie Till Mobley. During the summer of 1955 Till Mobley sent her son to Money, Mississippi to spend time with her uncle Moses "Mose" Wright. There are differing versions of Till’s interaction on August 25, 1955 with the 21 year old white woman who worked in the neighbourhood grocery store “Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market.” The stories range from Till smiling at the white woman, whistling, winking or merely looking her in the eye all of which apparently were hanging offences in the southern states if you were an African American male. Keith Andre Beauchamp who is the driving force behind the documentary "The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till" launched August 17, 2005 reportedly found during his exhaustive investigation of the case that the white woman was "not the white-lily queen everybody says she was, and it was said that she made up the whole lie to teach husband Roy" – who had left her alone in the store – "a lesson." There are countless instances of African American men throughout the history of the USA who were lynched on flimsy "evidence."


The 14 year old Till was dragged out of the house of his great-uncle Mose Wright around 2:30 a.m on August 28, 1955 kidnapped by Roy Bryant the husband of the white woman (Carolyn Bryant) from the grocery store who had returned from his out of town jaunt. Bryant was accompanied by his older half-brother John William "J.W" Milam and they both dragged Till out of the house despite Wright’s pleading. Three days later on August 31, 1955 Till’s horribly disfigured nude body with a 70 pound industrial fan fastened around his neck with barbed wire was taken out of the Tallahatchie River. The 14 year old had been so brutally beaten and tortured that his face was unrecognizable where he had been shot above the right ear, his nose broken and his right eye gouged out. Surprisingly for that time and place there was a trial where not surprisingly Bryant and Milam were acquitted of the murder of Till. A few months later both murderers gave an interview published in Look Magazine (January 24, 1956) where they admitted to committing the heinous crime against Till. The article entitled “The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi” was written by William Bradford Huie. It was Mamie Till’s determined advocacy that contributed to a second investigation many decades later. It was also this feisty African American woman’s determination that prevented her son’s body being buried in Mississippi where no one would have seen the evidence of the brutish, barbaric white supremacist culture which permitted and condoned his murder. Instead she fought the system including the sheriff and other Mississippi politicians insisting that her son’s body be returned to Chicago where the world saw what Bryant, Milam and white supremacy had done to her child.
In an interview just before she transitioned in 2003 Till Mobley spoke about the day she saw her child’s body: "I looked at the bridge of his nose and it looked like someone had taken a meat chopper and chopped it. And I looked at his teeth because I took so much pride in his teeth. His teeth were the prettiest things I'd ever seen in my life, I thought. And I only saw two. Well, where are the rest of them? They had just been knocked out. And I was looking at his ears, and that's when I discovered a hole about here and I could see daylight on the other side. I said, 'Now, was it necessary to shoot him?'" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAemBpFM1NI and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1fBwUzcqa0)



 Mamie Till Mobley never gave up fighting for justice for her only child. On January 3, 2003 she transitioned to be with the ancestors. The men who lynched her child both supposedly died of cancer Milam in 1981 and Bryant in 1994. Carolyn Bryant at 78 years old (born 1934) is still alive and lives somewhere in the USA where according to an article published in New York Times on July 31, 2005 she is guarded by a man who claims to be her son and threatened to kill the writer of the article if he “ever tried to contact his mother.” In 2007, Tallahatchie County issued a formal apology to Till's family which read: "We the citizens of Tallahatchie County recognize that the Emmett Till case was a terrible miscarriage of justice. We state candidly and with deep regret the failure to effectively pursue justice. We wish to say to the family of Emmett Till that we are profoundly sorry for what was done in this community to your loved one."
Murphy Browne © August 28, 2012

AUGUST 18-20, 1823 ENSLAVED AFRICANS AND AN UPRISING IN DEMERARA, GUYANA

Murphy Browne © August 18, 2017 


One hundred and ninety four years ago today on August 18, 1823 my enslaved African ancestors on the East Coast of Demerara in Guyana rose up in a two day war of freedom. The British had abolished the slave trade (taking Africans from the African continent to the colonies) in March 1807 and the Africans were sure that 16 years later there should surely be freedom from slavery and that the plantation owners were denying them their freedom. The action began on Plantation Success, East Coast Demerara and spread to other plantations along the East Coast, Demerara. The uprising involved approximately 10,000 enslaved Africans from over 50 plantations, this intensified the process that led to the abolition of chattel slavery in the British Empire!


On August 18, 1823, a group of enslaved Africans rose up against the chattel slavery system and the white people who enslaved them in Demerara (a county in British Guiana, South America) Guyana. The resistance movement which began on August 18, 1823 lasted two days and was led by Jack Gladstone an enslaved African man who was a skilled worker; a trained carpenter/cooper. As a skilled enslaved worker Gladstone did not work under a “driver” and could move around the plantation without supervision.
 
By the 1820s, sugar prices were dropping and British plantation owners started to push the enslaved people even harder. In Demerara, the enslaved Africans were forced to work from 6:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night. Earlier in 1823, the “Amelioration Proposals'” were sent from the British Colonial Secretary to the Governor of Demerara urging that the conditions of the enslaved be improved. The Court of Policy in Demerara examined the proposals on July 21, 1823 and postponed making a decision. The planters were not willing to “ameliorate” the conditions of the people they frequently worked to death.


The enslaved Africans were aware that “something” was happening. Their enslavers were on edge because the enslaved Africans in Haiti had defeated European armies and freed themselves. So the “Amelioration Proposals'” were an attempt to avoid something similar happening in one of the British colonies. The enslaved Africans were not privy to the details of the “Amelioration Proposals'” and believed that the slave holders were withholding news of Emancipation. Jack Gladstone, carpenter/cooper at Plantation Success on the East Coast of Demerara was one who believed this. Jack Gladstone was given his name because he was enslaved on a plantation owned by Sir John Gladstone, the father of British Prime Minister, William Gladstone. Surprisingly even though Jack Gladstone carried a European name his father’s name was Quamina. Which could mean that Quamina was brought from West Africa and not born into slavery. Quamina, was a deacon at the local chapel who it is said tried to persuade his son and other enslaved Africans to be patient and wait for the white people to free them at their leisure instead of trying to seize their freedom. When he realized that his son was determined to lead an uprising Quamina and other leaders visited the white church minister John Smith, informing him of Jack Gladstone’s plans. John Smith urged the enslaved Africans to remain peaceful, exercise patience, and wait for new laws that would reduce their suffering. Quamina urged his son to heed the words of John Smith and objected to any physical violence against the white people; he suggested instead that the enslaved Africans should go on strike. His words did not sway his son or anyone else from their objective of fighting for their freedom.


Planning for the rebellion began on August 17, 1823, at Plantation Success, one of the largest estates in the area. Approximately 10,000 enslaved people were involved including Quamina who eventually supported his son’s plans to fight and not go on strike. The enslaved people were armed only with cutlasses, knives and sharpened sticks and heeding Quamina’s advice they did not hurt the British plantation owners or their families. The Africans seized and locked up the white managers and overseers on 37 plantations along the East Coast Demerara. They searched the plantation houses for weapons and ammunition, but there was very little violence since the Africans apparently were influenced by Quamina’s request.


In spite of the lack of violence on the part of the “striking” Africans the Governor declared martial law and sent out the 21st Fusileers and the 1st West Indian Regiment under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Leahy, aided by a volunteer battalion. The Africans by this time were armed mainly with cutlasses and bayonets on poles and a small number of rifles captured from plantations and were no match for the heavily armed white military but they fought bravely. The white suppression of the uprising was brutally violent. On Tuesday, August 19, there were major confrontations at Dochfour Estate and Good Hope Estate where an estimated 21 Africans were slaughtered by the white military. On August 20 some 300 Africans were massacred at Bee Hive plantation, Elizabeth Hall Plantation and Bachelor’s Adventure plantation.


The Africans had tried to negotiate with the military at Bachelor’s Adventure plantation suggesting that they were willing to compromise for a two to three day a week workload and be allowed time to work independently the rest of the week. Jack Gladstone, leader of the uprising even presented a letter signed by many plantation owners saying that they had not been abused by the Africans. A report prepared by the British Governor Murray two days later praised the military slaughter of the Africans and noted that only one soldier was slightly injured.


The Governor proclaimed a full and free pardon to all enslaved Africans who surrendered within 48 hours, provided that they were not considered leaders of the uprising. He also offered a reward of 1,000 guineas for the capture of Quamina. Quamina who was the reason no white person was killed during the uprising. In spite of the governor’s assurance/promise there were impromptu court-martials of captured Africans and those who the white people considered “leaders” were immediately executed by firing-squad or by hanging. Many of the Africans were decapitated and their heads were nailed on posts along the East Coast Demerara public road.
Some of the Africans who escaped were hunted down and shot by appointed Amerindian “slave-catchers.” Quamina was shot dead by the Amerindian slave-catchers in the back lands of Chateau Margot plantation on September 16, 1823 and his body was later publicly displayed by the side of the public road at Success. Jack Gladstone was later arrested and also sentenced to be hanged; however, his sentence was commuted but he was sold and deported to St. Lucia in the British West Indies.


The East Coast Demerara slave uprising of August 18-20. 1823 was a major blow to colonial rule and chattel slavery and definitely helped to hasten the end of the enslavement of Africans by the British.
Murphy Browne © August 18-2017

ON AUGUST 1-1834 SLAVERY WAS ABOLISHED IN CANADA

August 1st is Emancipation Day in Canada and other countries that were once British colonies. Africans who had been enslaved in Antigua, Barbuda, Canada and South Africa were freed on August 1, 1834. Africans who had been enslaved by the British in several Caribbean islands including Barbados, Dominica, Trinidad and Jamaica, in British Guiana (Britain’s sole South American colony) and in British Honduras (Britain’s sole colony in Central America) were subjected to a system of “apprenticeship” which lasted from 1834 to August 1, 1838. Africans were forced to continue living on the plantations of the people who had enslaved them and worked 40 hours a week without pay (paid a pittance for work over 40 hours) as “apprentices.” They were forced to pay taxes and rent for the dreadful hovels in which they lived on the plantations. In 1838 two British men Thomas Harvey and Joseph Sturge documented the brutality of the “apprenticeship” system when they published The West Indies in 1837: Being the Journal of a Visit to Antigua, Montserrat, Dominica, St Lucia, Barbados and Jamaica, Undertaken for the Purpose of Ascertaining the Actual Conditions of the Negro Population of Those Islands. Harvey and Sturge wrote;

“A new kind of slavery under the name Apprenticeship; an anomalous condition, in which the negroes were continued, under a system of coerced and unrequited labour.” They also observed that “the planters have since succeeded in moulding the Apprenticeship into an almost perfect likeness of the system they so unwillingly relinquished. An equal, if not greater amount, of uncompensated labor, is now extorted from the negros; while, as their owners have no longer the same interest in their health and lives, their condition, and particularly that of mothers and young children, is in many respects worse than during slavery.”

While the Africans were suffering in slave like conditions under the apprenticeship system, white people in Britain were in self congratulatory mode. The Guardian, a British newspaper, published the following piece dated Saturday August 2, 1834:

“Throughout the British dominions the sun no longer rises on a slave. Yesterday was the day from which the emancipation of all our slave population commences; and we trust the great change by which they are elevated to the rank of freemen will be found to have passed into effect in the manner most accordant with the benevolent spirit in which it was decreed, most consistent with the interests of those for whose benefit it was primarily intended, and most calculated to put an end to the apprehensions under which it was hardly to be expected that the planters could fail to labour as the moment of its consummation approaches. We shall await anxiously the arrivals from the West Indies that will bring advices to a date subsequent to the present time.”

Meanwhile on August 2, 1834, a group of Africans were on their second day of demonstrations in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad because they were furious that complete freedom was still 6 years away. Africans in the Caribbean had learned that those who worked in the fields would be apprenticed until 1840 and those who worked in the homes of the slave holders or were skilled tradesmen would be apprenticed until 1938. It is hardly surprising that on August 1, 1834 a group of angry Africans had gathered at Government House in Port of Spain. Governor George Fitzgerald Hill sent the militia out to intimidate the group but the furious Africans stood their ground recognizing that the “apprenticeship” system was a scam used by the white plantation owners and the government representatives in the Caribbean to use free African labour for a further 6 years. In spite of the presence of the militia, the protest continued until nightfall when the protesters strategically withdrew because they were not allowed to be in the town during the night.

On August 3rd, when the group of protesters returned to Government House, Hill gave the order to arrest them. There were scuffles with the militia and some of the protesting Africans were arrested, tried, sentenced to hard labour and flogging and taken to the Royal Jail. Their incensed compatriots were forced to flee but returned on the Monday to continue the protest. The numbers had swollen by Monday and there were more clashes with the militia. Some of those who were arrested on the Monday were publicly flogged in Marine Square. The protests continued the entire week before it was quelled, but several of the Africans refused to return to the plantations and instead “squatted” in districts known today as Belmont and East Dry River.

On July 25th, 1838, Governor Hill called an emergency session of the Council of Government to seek approval of a special proclamation he had drafted which ended the apprenticeship period for Africans in Trinidad on August 1, 1838 whether they worked in the fields, homes or were skilled workers. Africans throughout the region protested their continued enslavement under the Apprenticeship system and on August 1, 1838 slavery was abolished in all the British colonies.

Since the abolition of slavery Africans have celebrated August 1st as Emancipation Day or August Monday. British author J.R. Kerr-Ritchie in his 2007 published Rites of August First: Emancipation Day in the Black Atlantic World: Antislavery, Abolition, and the Atlantic World has written about the global impact of August 1. In her 2010 published Emancipation Day: Celebrating Freedom in Canada, African Canadian author Natasha Henry has researched and written about the history of August 1 celebrations throughout Canada including the connection of Caribana (modeled on Trinidad’s carnival) to Emancipation Day. The government of Trinidad and Tobago was the first of the former British Caribbean countries to declare August 1 a National holiday in 1985. In 1997 the Caribbean Historical Society (CHS) of Trinidad and Tobago, supported by the Ontario Black History Society (OBHS) advocated for global recognition of August 1st as Emancipation Day. The OBHS has been successful in gaining recognition of August 1st as Emancipation Day at the Municipal and Provincial level and there is petition online urging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to recognize August first as Emacipation Day Federally. https://www.change.org/p/justin-trudeau-make-august-1st-emancipation-day-in-canada

EMANCIPATION WAS DELAYED FOR MANY UNTIL AUGUST 1-1838

On this day (July 31) 183 years ago my ancestors were anticipating being freed from chattel slavery. It was Thursday July 31, 1834 and Africans had been enslaved, first by the Dutch beginning in the 1500s in Essequibo and then, Berbice and Demerara. Later they were enslaved by the British (which included the English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh) we have the names to prove that all of them enslaved our ancestors (Jonas/Irish name, Hughes/Welsh name, McLeod/Scottish name, Bennet and Henry/English names.) Unfortunately the news was not so good next day on August 1, 1834 when my enslaved African ancestors thought they would at last be free. Instead they were informed that although on paper they were free, they had to remain on the estates, plantations and houses of their "former" enslavers for another four years (skilled and domestic "workers" and six years for field "workers.") While they remained on the estates/plantations/houses of their former enslavers they would have to work for free 40 hours a week and "paid" a pittance for any work they did after working for free the 40 hours. Not only that, they would have to pay rent for the little hovels in which they were forced to exist. This new system (slavery by another name) was called the "apprenticeship system" and was just made for more exploitation of Africans. There were protests from the beleaguered Africans which included the protest led by Damon in n Essequibo. Although it was a peaceful protest against the “apprenticeship system” where all the Africans did was refuse to work for a few days and flew their own flag as they marched, they were all arrested. Damon recognized as the leader was hanged on Monday October 13, 1834. Damon was hanged in Georgetown on a scaffold specially erected in front of the new (opened April 3, 1834) Public Buildings (now the Guyana National Assembly building.) Protests in other places including Jamaica and Port of Spain, Trinidad eventually forced the British to end slavery on August5 1, 1838.
Meanwhile the white people who had enslaved received 20 million pounds (17 billion pounds in today’s currency) for the loss of their “property.” To this day the descendants of enslaved Africans have not received a cent in compensation. James Blair an MP who owned homes in Marylebone, central London and Scotland received £83,530, the equivalent of £65m today, for 1,598 Africans enslaved on the plantation he had inherited in British Guiana (Blairmont Estate). Nick Draper a White British professor and Director of the “Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership” at University College London, says as many as 1/5 of wealthy “Victorian Britons” derived all or part of their fortunes from the “slave economy.” That was the unpaid labour of enslaved Africans. Many Africans were worked to death during their enslavement.
To add insult to injury during the four years of apprenticeship” the British government made an extra 47 million pounds. These people who still benefit from the unpaid coerced labour of my ancestors now owe me Reparations. Reparations now!!