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Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
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Emmett Till kin blasts exhumation plan |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Tuesday, 10 May 2005 |
By Charles Sheehan
Tribune staff reporter
May 5, 2005
A cousin of Emmett Till, the young black man brutally murdered 50 years ago in Mississippi, lashed out today against federal investigators who want to exhume the boy's body.
Bertha Thomas, who also is president of the Emmett Till Foundation, said Till's mother would never have wanted the boy's body exhumed and that the family would fight any attempt by the government to do so.
"They had over 40 years to do this, and my major question to the FBI, the Department of Justice and anybody else involved, is why now?" Thomas said.
The youth's mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, demanded an open casket funeral for her son when his body was returned to Chicago in 1955. Photographs of the 14-year-old boy's battered body shocked the nation and exposed racial hatred in the South, and was a crucial event in beginning the civil rights movement.
Till-Mobley died in 2003.
Some family members now say they oppose opening the boy's casket again.
"If I have to, I will fight this, and I am more than prepared to fight this … the FBI, the Department of Justice and anybody else that steps up to the plate," Thomas said at a news conference today at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition offices in Chicago.
Emmett Till was killed late in the summer of 1955 in Mississippi during a visit from Chicago. While buying bubble gum at a local grocery, the boy allegedly whistled at a white, female clerk who was married to the owner of the store.
Several days later, Till was rousted from bed at his uncle's home. His badly beaten body was found soon after in the Tallahatchie River, tied with barbed wire to a large fan from a cotton gin.
Two men were tried and acquitted in the murder. Once safe from further prosecution, they admitted in an interview with LOOK magazine they had been a part of the killing.
Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr., who stood beside Thomas at today's news conference, said Till-Mobley's decision to have an open-casket funeral was "the big bang" that sparked the civil rights movement.
Jackson accused the federal government of using Till as a "trophy" and the FBI of grandstanding. He said investigators would learn nothing new by exhuming Till's body from the Oak Lawn Cemetery in Alsip.
State and federal law enforcement did little to bring the original killers to justice 50 years ago, and Jackson said the federal government needs to use its resources to investigate racism today.
"We know he was shot, know he had barbed wire around his neck, know he was in the river for three days. We know that," Jackson said. "We challenge this Department of Justice and this FBI to deal with the current state of racial injustice, racial terrorism and racial inequities in our current day."
Thomas' statement exposed a rift in Till's family.
At least two relatives of the slain youth have stated they want the body exhumed, but Thomas said those relatives are in the minority.
Additionally, Wheeler Parker, 66, a cousin of Till, told the Tribune in an interview Wednesday the majority of the family opposes the exhumation.
No autopsy ever was conducted after Till's death.
In a written statement issued this afternoon in response to the Rainbow/PUSH news conference, Department of Justice officials said the exhumation would go forward because they believe there may have been accomplices in Till's murder who have never been charged.
"No scientifically conclusive cause of death was ever established," Justice spokesman Eric Holland said in the statement.
"Family members known to the FBI have been informed that an exhumation and forensic examination of Emmett Till's remains will be conducted in the near future and agree that the exhumation is necessary," Holland said.
Thomas said today no one had contacted her about the federal authorities' plans to exhume Till's body, and that she learned of it Wednesday when she saw it on television news.
The Justice Department announced plans last year to reopen the investigation, citing information including a documentary that claimed to have found new evidence.
William Haglund, a forensic anthropologist and director of the International Forensic Program for Physicians for Human Rights, said investigators probably will be able to identify the body, but determining a cause of death may be more difficult.
"We're always at the mercy of the condition of the remains," Haglund said. "Sometimes, after 13 years, I have seen soft tissue on well-embalmed bodies. And where you have soft tissue you can sometimes see bruises. ... You can't really predict what you are going to find."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-050505till2,1,4698914.story?page=2&cset=true&ctrack=1&coll=chi-news-hed |
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Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Quote Repository
“Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later, delicate death.” Walt Whitman
Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
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