Guest Contributor by Derek Liebertz, Current President of the Southern Minnesota Poets Society
Dave Tell, an associate professor at the University of Kansas, re: the sign struck with dozens of bullets memorializing the location where Emmett Till was killed —
“It is as powerful as an image I have. It moves people. It’s not just a 1955 story. It’s still something that matters in the present. Replacing it means erasing the material evidence of the way the story still grips us.”
If it were up to him, Tell said, he would leave the sign up. Bullet holes and all. Like the open casket, it forces us to look.
Mississippi time slid slow into muck
decades murdered as blithely as Emmett Till
years of potential reparation
lynched from the lofty perch of racism
Over sixty years have died
each dragged from its soft riverbank bed
fed back to itself to drown at night
when white sin could not be seen
Less than sixty minutes was killed by a jury
deliberating the innocence of those accused
free men they walked away
unlike Emmett Till
Fifty-two years
[approximately four young black lives]
bled out before our society’s glacial maturation
deemed the blight worthy of memory
and raised a red hand to history
That first sign was stolen from the land
just like Emmett Till
thrown in the river to rot
just like Emmett Till
Eventually a second sign was born
and summarily shot full of holes
[over one-hundred rounds]
disregarded for over eight years
it too slowly died
breathing muggy Mississippi air
Soon it will be sixty-five years
[approximately one old white life]
since Emmett Till inhaled liquid
since Emmett Till slept with a barbed wire necktie
since Emmett Till wasn’t white
In August 2018 [finally]
another marker was christened
aside the reeds and embarrassment
two witnesses to a crying river
despondent in its inability to cleanse
Emmett Till’s legacy
What does it say of us when
water grieves more history
than we can ingest
The second replacement sign was perforated
[it took only thirty-five days]
given the same damning treatment
shown the same lack of decency as
Emmett Till
How many generations are required
before tragedy is acknowledged
before baleful attitudes drown
Exactly how many more
Freddie Grays
Philando Castiles
Alton Sterlings
Jamar Clarks
Walter Scotts
Tamir Rices
Michael Browns
Eric Garners
George Floyds
Emmett Tills
do we need
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