Old North News

It has been a long time coming, but a North Carolina A&T professor is pleased that President Joe Biden recently signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, making lynching a federal hate crime.

"I think it's great," English professor Byron Turman told ABC 45 this week, responding to the new law. "Obviously it took too long, but evidently this Congress took about two years to get something done."

Emmett Till, a 14-year-old, was lynched on Aug. 28, 1955, in Money, Mississippi; the ABC 45 report said. The incident came four days after he was said to have whistled at Carolyn Bryant. In what is known as one of the most brutal lynchings in America, Till was kidnapped, beat and tortured. He was then shot in the head, tied up with barbed wire and thrown into the Tallahatchie River.

"I think it just gives a sense of comfort to a lot of people," Turman said of the new law. "I'm interested to see just how far it will go in terms of the George Floyd case being covered under the Emmett Till Antilynching law."

Biden signed the on bill March 29. Turman bemoaned it taking 67 years for anything to be done at the federal level, attributing the delay to racism.

"Black folk in our country have been at the bottom of the totem pole for a very long time," he told ABC 45. "So it's upsetting that it always takes an enormous amount of time to get some form of justice. When other groups seem to get it a lot faster, I don't think that has anything to do with political power. Black people in the 21st century have a bunch of political power, it's a bunch of elected officials. I think it's just a bunch of blatant racism and hate, and that's existed...since we've stepped foot on this turf here in America."

Still, Turman expressed hope about the significance of the bill.

"I do believe this perhaps signals a new time in America where we are saying at least, 'OK now, let's make sure that we have some laws in action,'" the professor said. "That can hopefully prevent the kind of unnecessary violence against Emmett Till and others. We know Emmett wasn't the first and unfortunately he wasn't the last, so hopefully, with this law in effect it will signal a new day and age as far as punishing those folks who commit acts of violence against Black folk."

The responsibility to teach about such atrocities doesn't rest solely on the government's shoulders, though. 

"I think one of our missions here at A&T and most HBCUs is to provide that kind of understanding about our culture and history," Turman said in the ABC 45 report. "That's oftentimes not taught, omitted, and oftentimes glossed over in previous levels of education. So in elementary, secondary school, K-12 don't get a lot of that information. I think college is a really good place, I think A&T is a really good place, it's a great place to have those discussions."

Part of the challenge is that children today view such things as lynchings as being part of the distant past, "when in actuality you're only talking about two to four generations of Black folk; and if you trace your lineage back, you're going to find a great-great-great-grandfather or mother who experienced slavery." Turman said. "So we're not that far removed. And if you think about particularly young people, life is so quick to them, and somebody like myself in my 50s, I seem like ancient to these young people."

With the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black female Supreme Court Justice, Turman thinks the country might have turned the corner.

"The Emmett Till Antilynching law is long overdue, I'm glad that it's happened," he said. "I think it's great. ... I think as Black folk the future looks a lot brighter than it perhaps has in previous generations, and I'm glad to be a part of it."