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WEDNESDAY • AUGUST 28 • 2013
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A newspaper in education supplement TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Learn more at:
Credit: National Park Service
Resource:
The National Park Service has created
excellent lesson plans entitled Teaching With
Historic Places. Learn more about the landmark
Brown v. Board case and find a related Teaching
With Historic Places lesson plan at:
/
lessons/121brown/index.htm
…My dad spoke with someone and then he went into the inner office
with the principal and they left me outside. And while he was in the
inner office, I could hear voices and hear his voice raised… And then
he immediately came out of the office, took me by the hand and we
walked home from the school. I just couldn’t understand what was
happening because I was so sure that I was going to go to school with
Mona and Guinevere, Wanda, and all of my playmates.
— Linda Brown Thompson
Source: Black/White & Brown, transcript of program produced
by KTWU Channel 11 in Topeka, Kansas aired May 3, 2004
Thurgood Marshall
Born in Baltimore,
Maryland on July 2,
1908, Thurgood Marshall
was the grandson of a
slave. His father, William
Marshall, instilled in him
from youth an apprecia-
tion for the United States
Constitution and the rule
of law. His accomplish-
ments include:
• 1930, Graduated
with honors from
the historically black Lincoln University in Chester
County, PA.
• 1930, Applied to the University of Maryland Law School,
but was denied admission because he was black.
• 1933, Received law degree from Howard U. (magna cum
laude); begins private practice in Baltimore.
• 1935, Successfully sued the University of Maryland,
which had rejected him, to admit a young African
American graduate Donald Gaines Murray.
• 1936, Became Chief Counsel for the National Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
• 1940, Won first of 29 Supreme Court victories (Cham-
bers v. Florida).
• 1954, Won Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, land-
mark case that demolishes legal basis for segregation
in America.
• 1965, Appointed U.S. solicitor general by President Lyn-
don Johnson; wins 14 of the 19 cases he argues for the
government.
• 1967, Became first African American elevated to U.S.
Supreme Court (1967-1991).
Learn more at:
On August 28, 1955, Emmett Louis
Till, a 14-year old African-American
boy, was murdered in Mississippi after
reportedly flirting with a white woman.
Bobo, his nickname, was from Chicago,
Illinois. He was visiting relatives in the
Mississippi Delta region.
There were reports that he asked
21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the married
proprietor of a small grocery store, for
a date and whistled at her as he left the
store. This violated accepted Jim Crow
norms in the South. A black male was
never to ask a white woman for a date or
whistle at her.
Several nights later, Bryant's husband
Roy and his half-brother J. W. Milam
arrived at Till's great-uncle's house
where they took him, transported him
to a barn, beat him and gouged out one
of his eyes, before shooting him through
the head and disposing of his body in
the Tallahatchie River, weighting it with
a 70-pound cotton gin fan tied around
his neck with barbed wire. His body was
discovered and retrieved from the river
three days later.
His body was returned to his mother,
Mamie Till, in Chicago. She insisted on
a public funeral service with an open
casket to show the world the brutality of
the killing. Tens of thousands attended
his funeral or viewed his casket. Images
of his mutilated body were published
in black magazines and newspapers,
rallying popular black support and white
sympathy across the U.S.
Bryant and Milam were acquitted
of Till's kidnapping and murder by a
sympathetic white jury. Justice did not
prevail. Months later, protected against
a second trial by double jeopardy, they
admitted to killing him in a magazine
interview. Till's murder is noted as a
pivotal event motivating the African-
American Civil Rights Movement.
Emmett “Bobo” Till, Murder in Mississippi
…There was a clear plate glass
over the coffin. And I just remember
looking down, and an awful scene.
I remember the kids saying, “Is that
Bobo?” Some of the kids were saying,
“Look what they did to Bobo.” Kids
were just in awe; just frightened and
saying, “Why did they do that? What
did he do? What happened?” It didn’t
make any sense.
—Theresa Joiner, a neighborhood friend
