For Matthew and James
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
A few days ago I visited the DuSable Museum of African American History here in Chicago. The museum is uniquely this country’s first and oldest such tribute to the history and culture of African Americans.
One of the most difficult artifacts on the walls of the museum’s civil rights exhibit is the historic photo of the open casket where the swollen, beaten and mutilated body of Emmett Till lay in rest. The 1955 murder of this young 14-year-old child mobilized the civil rights movement and remains a point of deep pain for many Americans involved in the movement and is particularly poignant for African Americans of that generation and those following. Though I was born several years later, it was recounted to my peers and myself many times. This telling and retelling of this horrible true story is indicative of its place as one of those tragic “lest we forget” events in the psyche of Black America.
This year, October 28th, President Obama signed into law the Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act which expands the existing federal hate crime laws to now grant federal protection on the basis of gender, gender identity and disability. The law was named after two men who were murdered for no other reasons than racism and homophobia. Matthew Shepard was tortured and left to die tied to a fence in Wyoming in 1998 because of his sexual orientation. James Byrd was tied and dragged behind a truck in Texas, in 1998 because he was black. It has been over a decade since these crimes and over a half century since the murder of Emmett Till.
Despite the opposition from the politicians representing the state of Wyoming, the law was enacted with overwhelming approval. I’m so thankful for this new law! Creating this law was - has been - the right thing to do. For the memory of Till, Shepard, James and so many more.
