Justice Deferred

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Illinois has declared July 25th as Emmett Till Day. It's a noble thing to do. And it's nowhere near enough.

Remembering Emmett Till matters. His murder in 1955 shocked the conscience of our nation, and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, refused to let America look away. She insisted on an open casket for Emmett's mutilated and bloated body, and the world saw what hatred had done to her 14 year-old son. That courage was called for and necessary, and it helped set fire to the Civil Rights Movement.

His story deserves to be remembered. But remembrance has a way of becoming comfortable.

It's easy to honor the victims we can all agree were wronged. It's easy to condemn horrors that happened 70 years ago. (And let's keep in mind that it really wasn't all that long ago. My father was just one year older than Emmett.) It’s easy to issue proclamations once history has already given its verdict.

The harder question is what do we do when justice is still unfolding?

What do we do when families today are still searching for answers? When communities ask whether investigations have been thorough and fair? When people aren't pleading for some kind of symbolic dove released into the air, but for accountability?

And whatever happened to Carolyn Bryant? She was able to ease her conscience with an off-the-record confession in 2008 before dying in 2023, never having to answer for what she had done. Does that sound like justice?

Those questions are much less comfortable.

Cases like those involving Nolan Wells and Kohen Wiley remind us that public trust is not built through commemorative days. It's built when every single investigation is conducted with integrity, every family is treated with dignity, and every community can believe that justice is pursued without privilege or favoritism.

Whether one agrees about the details of any individual case is beside the point. Justice cannot become something we celebrate only in hindsight.

And justice isn't only about the state. Where is the outrage of everyday citizens? Where are the allies? I am sick and tired of these injustices never growing beyond being temporary blips on our Facebook feeds. 

It's tempting to treat declarations like Emmett Till Day as evidence that hallelujah! We have arrived! — as though remembering and contemplating yesterday somehow gives us a reprieve from examining today.

It does not.

If Emmett Till's life teaches us anything, it's that ordinary people must refuse to look away when justice is inconvenient. His legacy isn't simply about remembering one boy. It's about asking difficult questions in every generation.
Otherwise, these proclamations aren't much more than a pat on the head.

"We remember."
"We care."
"We've learned."

These words ring hollow! They are not matched by a commitment to pursue truth and justice for people who are living now. 

This very summer, a 1 year-old baby boy was shot dead by the police in a Walmart parking lot, people. Over a box of diapers THAT HIS MOTHER PAID FOR.

The greatest way we could honor Emmett Till wouldn't be by adding another date to the calendar that, let's be honest, people aren't likely to remember — much less observe. It would be a justice system trustworthy enough that no family wonders whether their loved one's life mattered less.

Emmett Till can no longer ask anything from us. Declaring July 25th a day in his honor costs us nothing. 

Memory is important, but justice is better. Justice has some meat on its bones.

The truest memorial we can build for Emmett Till is not some proclamation. It's demanding that justice be lived as a present tense verb. 

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