Dear Progressive Reader,
History matters. This was, to me, perhaps no more apparent than when, during this past week’s Republican National Convention, former NFL star and Republican candidate for the House Burgess Owens decried Democrats who “support the same socialism that my father fought against in World War Two"—apparently forgetting that in World War II, the Soviet Union was a crucial ally of the United States in the fight against fascism!
This week was an important week for remembering our history. On August 28, the “Commitment March: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks,” sponsored by the National Action Network founded by the Reverend Al Sharpton, gathered tens of thousands in Washington, DC in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic. The gathering took place on the fifty-seventh anniversary of the legendary March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Writing in The Progressive in October 1963, John M. Walsh, president of Teachers for Integrated Schools, said of the marchers: “These people were of the stuff which made this country great. There is a lesson for Congress in all this. There must be complete freedom for all, now.”
Friday’s march also coincided with the sixty-fifth anniversary of the brutal murder of Chicago-teenager Emmett Till in Mississippi. Murray Kempton covered the trial of his killers for the New York Post and The Progressive. They were acquitted. “The jury was out an hour and eight minutes and came back with the appointed not guilty verdict,” wrote Kempton. In 2004, when the Justice Department announced that it was reconsidering the case, Andrea Lewis wrote for The Progressive: “What made the Emmett Till case so different was that graphic evidence of his violent murder was widely circulated in the media. When Till's body was brought back to Chicago for burial, his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, insisted that the casket be left open ‘so all the world can see what they did to my boy.’ ” In 2018, the case was again reopened and remains unresolved. In June 2020, an anti-lynching bill in Congress, named for Till, was blocked by U.S. Senator Rand Paul.
Today, the murder of Black Americans continues, exacerbated by a highly militarized police force. Speakers at yesterday’s rally in Washington included relatives of many of the victims, including the father of Jacob Blake, shot seven times in the back by Kenosha police. “We're gonna hold court today. We're gonna hold court on systematic racism,” Jacob Blake, Sr. told the crowd. This past week, our website has featured numerous articles on the murder of Blake and the demonstrations that have followed. Daniel Brown provides a photo essay of one night of the protests; Brianna Nargiso describes the events and the tragic killing of two protesters by a white vigilante; and Hana Kiros compares the way police treated the young armed white teen with the way in which a Black teenager would be regarded by law enforcement. Thinking of Jacob Blake’s young children, who witnessed his murder, she writes, “When I think of those kids and that family—of the devilishly cruel, unjustifiable violence Jacob Blake endured—I feel trapped in the same disbelief and despair that I got my first taste of at thirteen [witnessing the impunity given to Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman].”
Sadly, “America is still killing Emmett Till, and often for the same reasons that drove the violent segregationists of the 1950s and 1960s,” historian Timothy Tyson wrote in his 2017 book, The Blood of Emmett Till. But today may be a time of reckoning, as Jacob Blake Sr. told the assembled crowd in Washington yesterday, “we're not taking it anymore, I ask everyone to stand up. No justice, no peace!"
Keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.
Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher
P.S – our new 2021 Hidden History of the United States calendar is now available for purchase through our website. They make great gifts and hang well on walls and refrigerators.
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