I just discovered http://photosthatchangedtheworld.com/, which features memorable news photos. Some of them I remember seeing before. Some are very upsetting, but all are worth seeing.
I hadn’t heard of Emmett Till before. As a 14-year-old he went from Chicago to visit relatives in Mississippi, and while he was there he whistled at a shop girl.
He was black. She was white. This was 1955.
Three days later, two men took him away in the middle of the night and tortured him to death. The police found them, but the jury (all white from the defendants’ home town) found them not guilty, although in 1956 they confessed to a magazine.
It’s a disgusting story, but the really disgusting thing is the comments. Some people haven’t changed, although the percentage of people like that has.
Being proud of winning the Nobel Peace Prize, I can understand. being proud of making really good scones, I can understand. Being proud of a genetic predisposition to sunburn and skin cancer, I find very, very strange.
