Slow Motion

The Justice Department recently announced its intention to reopen the Emmett Till case. Although the federal statute of limitations has long since expired, the federal files will be made available to assist with the State of Mississippi's promised criminal prosecution of perhaps as many as ten new suspects. For almost fifty years the case has stood as an unfortunate marker of unfinished business and was credited with having lent the civil rights movement its most powerful moral rallying point. The two men originally accused were never convicted, despite lots of evidence. Although there were always credible allegations that more than just two people were involved in Till's abduction and execution, such reports were until now dismissed as "rumor" and needless incitement. It was only after the exhaustive, independent efforts of documentary filmmakers Stanley Nelson and Keith Beauchamp that the case was resurrected.

Reactions to the news of this renewed prosecution have varied from "let sleeping dogs lie"; to a kind of muted cynicism about whether, if it happened today, it would take another fifty years before we got serious about punishing those who did it; to celebration of the potential for "closure"; to delight that the wheels of justice, while grinding exceeding slow, are going round and round just as nicely as you please.

I guess I'm in the camp that believes that justice unreasonably delayed is most likely justice miscarried. At the same time, I recognize that the culture of Mississippi and of the nation has changed significantly for the better as a direct result of this case; the very fact that two African-American filmmakers found a wide audience for their work is testament to that transformation. But after all these years I wonder if "closure" is really what we should be looking for. We would do better to try to utilize the memory--respectfully--so that it does not harden or haunt us in unbidden ways. I think that's what it means to witness our history, or to never forget. And so I ponder the ingredients of such prolonged inaction about so egregious a wrong.

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