Emmett Till's Cousin Remembers

<p>Emmett Till’s lynching is credited as the spark that set off the Civil Rights Movement. In 1955, the 14-year-old boy was visiting family in Mississippi when he was <a href="https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/nbc-chicago-to-broadcast-1-hour-special-the-lost-story-of-emmett-till-the-universal-child/2785957/" target="_blank">kidnapped and murdered</a> for whistling at a white woman. Days later his bloated body was dragged out of the Tallahatchie River and sent home to his mother, <a href="https://www.nbcchicago.com/top-videos-home/new-non-profit-honors-legacy-of-emmett-tills-mother-mamie-till-mobley/2692405/" target="_blank">Mamie Till Mobley</a>, in Chicago. When pictures of his mutilated face were published around the country, it shocked the national consciousness, bringing people <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/video/death-of-emmett-till-revisited-history-of-the-1955-murder-1194367043799" target="_blank">off the sideline</a>s and into the fight to recognize Black Americans’ basic humanity.</p><p>Congress first considered antilynching legislation at the turn of the twentieth century. On January 20th, 1900, <a href="https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/W/WHITE,-George-Henry-(W000372)/" target="_blank">Representative George Henry White</a> of North Carolina, the only Black member of Congress at the time, introduced a bill that would have subjected people involved in mob violence to the potential of capital punishment. Since then, antilynching legislation has been introduced in Congress <a href="https://qz.com/1322702/the-us-has-tried-to-pass-anti-lynching-laws-240-times-and-failed-every-single-time/" target="_blank">more than 200 times</a>. It had failed every time. </p><p>That changed <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/video/president-biden-signs-emmett-till-anti-lynching-act-into-law-136519237899" target="_blank">last week</a>. At the end of March, President Biden signed the <a href="https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/explainer-whats-behind-the-new-federal-anti-lynching-law/2794922/" target="_blank">Em