Tag Archives: Civil Rights

31 May 2023Best Books & Fabulous FilmsChinonye Chukwu, Civil Rights, Civil Rights Movement, Emmett Till, Film, History, Leuphana, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Leuphana University Lüneburg, lynchings, Movie, United StatesJanina Malena Sähn

From the Lifeless Pages of History Books to the Big Screen: Chinonye Chukwu’s Till (2022)

By Sabrina Völz

“The lynching of my son has shown me that what happens to any of us

anywhere in the world had better be the business of us all.”

Mamie Till-Bradley in Till

The name Till is one that most Americans and many people around the world will recognize from their civil rights history lessons. In 1955, while visiting family, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy from Chicago, was brutally beaten and murdered for allegedly flirting with and whistling at a married white woman near Money, Mississippi. His bloated body was later found in the Tallahatchie River.

I must admit that when I first heard about the film Till, it immediately sparked my curiosity. Yes, I thought. The heinous crime that caused a media frenzy and galvanized the civil rights movement needs to be brought to new generations. But wait. We live in an age of trigger warnings (statements that alert readers or viewers to potentially disturbing content) and audiences with a heightened sensitivity to violence. So how can film director Chinonye Chukwu draw viewers to movie theaters and simultaneously do justice to the brutality of that crime?

It also intrigued me that Chukwu placed Emmett Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Bradley, in the film’s center. If she’s mentioned at all in American history textbooks, it’s mainly to recognize the role she played in the decision to show the world what Southern hatred looked like. She was the driving force to ensure an open casket at Emmett Till’s funeral. So what does the film reveal that most history books do not?

19 May 2021Access America20-Dollar Bill, 20-Dollar Bill Controversy, African Americans, American Society, Andrew Jackson, Brittany Cooper, Civil Rights, Civil War, Combahee River Raid, Currency Redesign, Emancipation, Harriet Tubman, Indian Removal Act, Kasi Lemmons, Kerry Walters, Leuphana, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, National Identity, Sarah Bradford, Slavery, Time Magazine, Women's RightsHenrike Kattoll

Harriet Tubman and the 20-Dollar Bill Controversy

By Sabrina Völz

Public Domain, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61139114

Mere days after Joe Biden was sworn in as President of the United States, the new administration announced its intention to put Harriet Tubman – known as Moses – on the twenty-dollar bill. The currency redesign – a relatively common occurrence in the 19^th century – was originally set for release in 2020 to mark the centennial of the 19^th Amendment that granted women the right to vote. The majority of Americans supported the redesign in 2016 when the last poll on the issue was taken. President Donald Trump put the project on hold, citing security issues and attributing the Obama initiative to sheer political correctness. While Trump may still view Andrew Jackson as an American hero, historians are quick to point out the complexities of the former U.S. president’s biography. Jackson owned hundreds of slaves and was responsible for the Indian Removal Act that led to the death of about 4,000 Cherokees, forced to walk from the Southern states to modern-day Oklahoma on what is now referred to as the Trail of Tears. Even though he probably should be, Jackson will not be completely removed from the twenty-dollar bill – he’ll just be demoted to the back. The irony of placing Tubman on one side and Jackson on the other on a symbol of national identity has not gone unnoticed and certainly speaks to the division in American society today.

29 July 2020Access America"Colored Area", Alabama, Bigotry, Black Lives Matter, Civil Rights, Civil Rights Movement, Education, Emmett Till, Eric Garner, George Floyd, Justice, Law Enforcement, Leuphana, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, March to Justice, Midwest, Mississippi, Montgomery, Oklahoma, Protests, Race, Rosa Parks, Talking About Race, Voting Rights Act of 1965Henrike Kattoll

The Long March to Justice

By Bobbie Kirkhart

Photo Credit: “Miami Protest, June 7, 2020” by Mike Shaheen

When I was five years old, I announced my new discovery: “Negroes (the polite term at the time) are bad.” My parents tried to correct me, but I felt my logic was unshakable: When the radio reported a crime, the perpetrator was often black. They never said that a suspect was white. I didn’t know any black people in our segregated town, but I knew many white people, and none of them were criminals. This was an open-and-shut case in my five-year old’s mind.

A few weeks later, my father took me downtown to see a parade. He struck up a conversation with a black woman we were standing next to. She had a baby, who captured my interest, though I was more entranced by her Kraft Caramels (my favorite candy at the time) she shared generously with me. This, of course, completely shattered my baby bigotry.

When I was approaching middle age, I reflected on the incident. Only then did I realize that when I was young, parade-viewing areas – as well as everything else – were strictly segregated in Enid, Oklahoma. It must have taken some planning and more than a small amount of courage to arrange for us to stand in the “colored area” next to a friendly woman who just happened to have a cute baby and my favorite candies.

The issue of race did not come up often in our small, mostly white town (at least not in the white community), so I had little need to reflect on what I had learned until Emmett Till’s murder on August 28, 1955, made national news and provoked national outrage.