New thoughts on past vs. present

I thought about hurricane blogging today, but we're really so far from the coast that it seems a bit ridiculous. Still, I hear the Decatur stores are running short of milk and bread (nothing to put in between bread slices, but by damn we'll all have milk and bread) and I won't complain a bit if the president decides that we need to close the college tomorrow. Still, I have a more serious topic for today.

The last few years there seem to have been lots of prosecutions of old former (at least they claim they're former) klansmen for crimes from the 1950s and 1960s. I hate to admit this, but I have been of a mixed mind on these trials. On the one hand, I certainly realize that these folks were not prosecuted as they should have been at the time of the crimes and if they were they certainly did not receive a fair trial by any measure that we'd recognize today. I feel sure that many of them walked away unpunished from horrendous crimes and I think that is wrong on many levels. On the other hand, I've sort of felt that it's also unlikely they'll get a "fair" trial today either. Put an old klansman, likely still a bit of a racist, on trial today and show horrible pictures of a past crime and I figure your odds of conviction are pretty darned good despite the fact that the crime is 50 years or so old and I just don't see how witnesses and evidence can be that reliable after that long. I'm not saying they shouldn't be prosecuted, I just wondered if we weren't convicting a bunch of old men (who were guilty of SOMETHING at least) to make ourselves feel better. Terrible deeds were perpetrated by the klan in those days, these guys were klansmen in those days, 2+2=4: they're guilty. Plus, it seemed to me that these were vestiges of the past and I wondered just what good came from dredging all that up.

As of this past weekend, however, I've changed my thinking. As Faulkner said in Requiem for a Nun, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." What brought about this change of heart? I read a story on Emmett Till in the local newspaper. For those who don't know, Emmett Till was a 14-year-old black teen from Chicago. In the summer of 1955 he was visiting relatives in Money, MS when he made the mistake of "talking big" and, more significantly, whistling at the wife of the local store owner. As a result, he was taken from his relatives' home in the dead of night, tortured, killed, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River. When his swollen and mutilated body was pulled from the river three days later, it was unrecognizable even to those who knew Emmett. Two local white men were tried and quickly acquitted.

It's a familiar tale, in part due to Lewis Nordan's Wolf Whistle. I figured I knew the story and it wasn't a pretty story. Though I enjoy Nordan's work, I've never even bothered to read the book -- partly, I must admit, out of racial and regional guilt. Again, sort of a the past is the past feeling. This story, though, changed my feelings on these prosecutions.

What was it that led to my change of heart? It wasn't the story itself. The details in the newspaper story were nothing I'd not seen and heard before, though I must admit that I'd never before imagined just how terrified a whole race of folks must have been at that time. It's not just that whistling at a woman could lead to a murder in retaliation -- I imagine that could still happen. No the terrorizing part, to me, is that I got the feeling the local blacks sort of knew what was coming or at least were not surprised by it. A teenager could be tortured and killed for such a slight with absolutely no fear of legal punishment. At least one of the acquitted men apparently later felt free enough to talk about how he'd gotten away with torture and murder. Still, that's not what changed my thinking -- again, that was then. What really got to me was that the story included a relatively recent picture of the store owner's wife -- "a crossroads Marilyn Monroe" as she was known then. What shocked me is that this woman looked like a great aunt I'd see at a family reunion today. No, I'm not saying I think the woman is related to me, it's just that she looked so "normal" to me.

I realize my revelation may be sexist, but I'm used to thinking of the perpetrators of these crimes as bitter old men still wearing their tattered klan robes. This woman , though, was familiar -- polyester pantsuit, old Southern woman hair that you know is "done" once a week at the beauty parlor, etc. No one claims she did the killing, but there were indications that she was along the night of the abduction and identified Emmett as the whistler, thereby signing his death warrant. I'm sure that was a power rush for her at the time, but seeing her in a current photo, ... Wow!

This realization rocked me. These folks are not dinosaurs, a curiosity of a shameful, but thankfully past, era. These folks are still here and they SHOULD be punished. Unfortunately I can't find an online link to the local story I read and the MSNBC link I did find doesn't include the woman's picture. Even if it did, I doubt everyone would have the same reaction I did. In fact, I can't explain exactly why I had the reaction myself. I simply found myself very disturbed. So, go after Bobby Frank Cherry, Edgar Ray Killen, and Carolyn Bryant (if she is indeed guilty). I still worry that folks might be convicted simply because we think someone has to pay, but I no longer think these things should just drift off into the past. The past really isn't dead and it really isn't even past. I get it Mr. Faulkner.