Justice or Politics?

Note to Web Searchers (I get alot of hits from people searching for Till Photos because of this post, so I've edited to help) Here is a great site that tells the entire crime story chapter by chapter, and it includes one chapter, here, that has a funeral photo.]

Probably the first time I developed a truly emotional attachment to the civil rights movement, the first time I actually woke up about it and it was real to me was watching the PBS documentary Eyes on the Prize. I stumbled on it by accident but managed to catch the beginning of the first episode and then watched it every night, and thought about little else in between.

I had heard Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech in elementary school and Junior High, and could recite facts about the Abolitionist movement, about the significant African-American contribution to American culture (I think I did a February report on George Washington Carver 3 years in a row--4th-6th grade--because I like peanut butter), and about the segregated south. But Dr. King didn't make me tear up until Eyes on the Prize, when I got to see the whole story.

And the one moment I remember from that 6 or 8-hour long documentary more than anything else is a name I never heard in school (until college): Emmett Till. I had never seen anything like the funeral of Emmett Till. Ever. Once you see that, you can feel the fury the trial of his killers brings. And once you feel that, you can shutter in awe of the grace and dignity with which the civil rights movement embraced, and suffered through, non-violent resistance.

All of that came flooding back to me this morning when I turned on the TV this morning (C-Span already selected, of course) to find, shockingly, that the Justice Department is re-opening the case of the murder of Emmett Till.

Apparently there's a new documentary that suggests many more people were present for his murder, some of them alive. You don't think they would be doing this just because it's an election year, do you? Nah...not them.

Did everyone else have a civil rights epiphany? Or was I just a late bloomer (which would be like me)? If you did, I'd like to know the story.