Emmett Till was visiting his relatives in Mississippi during the summer of August 1955. A teenager at the time, I do not know if he realised that a conversation he would have with 21 year old Carolyn Bryant, a white woman, would change the course of the civil rights movement in America. Their paths crossed in a grocery store where it was alleged that Emmett Till made physical and verbal advances at Carolyn. These actions were confirmed by Carolyn in her testimony in court and Till’s testimony wasn’t heard by the jury because the judge ruled it as inadmissible in court.
It was unacceptable for a black man to talk to a white woman unless spoken to and he had gone as far as touching her. Till was later abducted from his relative’s home to be taught a lesson. That was the last time he was seen alive, his mutilated, beaten and bloated body found days later in the Tallahatchie River. I can’t imagine how Mamie Till felt when she received her 14 year old son’s body back in Chicago but what she did showed great strength and foresight. She insisted on a public burial with an open cassette for the world to see what had been done to her son.
All the major publications in United States published the story and this sparked and reenergised the civil rights movement. It showed the ugliness of racism leading to a national-wide reflection of what they had become. Emmett Till became a civil rights icon and the series of events that happened after bore the fruits of racial rights in United States of America. We now know that the testimony by Carolyn was false as she admitted herself that Emmett Till did not touch her. Surely his murder was not in vain, solely because of a courageous mother.
You might have enjoyed a picnic, bike ride or walk in Karura forest. If you haven’t maybe you’ve witnessed occasions of national importance hosted at Uhuru Park like the promulgation of our current constitution. I, for one have enjoyed the fruits of her labour, as a broke upcoming rapper in my teens, meeting with my rap partner at central park to practice our lines. We had no other practicing area and this green space in the CBD was everything to us.
Where do I even begin to describe the efforts of a woman who fought for human rights and the environment since her days in The University of Nairobi to her days in parliament? The late Wangari Maathai fought with her body, mind, words and soul. When she found out the ruling party, KANU was planning to build a 60-story complex at Uhuru Park she wrote letters to every concerned institution and to the British high commissioner in Nairobi. They eventually broke ground for the building but her resolve did not break, she persevered through arrests and humiliation until the plan was stopped. She battled for equal rights for female workers at the University of Nairobi, and even though she lost in court, she won the war with changes made to accommodate her concerns. She had many tree planting initiatives but the most prominent was the Green Belt movement, which she once run from her home because the government of the day had chased her from the Green Belt headquarters. In 1998 there were plans to privatise some areas of Karura forest which is public land. Wangari Mathaai had already suffered at the hands of the government on numerous occasions but still had it in her to oppose this land grab. Again she was victorious through blood shed, physical and emotional abuse.
One was the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize and the other opened the eyes of a nation blinded by hate. One saw with clarity what needed to be done in grief and the other sacrificed everything for a future she might have not gotten a chance to see. “When I see Uhuru Park and contemplate its meaning, I feel compelled to fight for it so that my grandchildren may share that dream and that joy of freedom as they one day walk there.” (Wangari Muta Maathai – Unbowed).
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