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61 " The so-called war on drugs successfully targets young African American men, even though blacks and whites use and sell illicit drugs at roughly the same rate. "
― Timothy B. Tyson , The Blood of Emmett Till
62 " Because if we in America have reached the point in our desperate culture where we must murder children, no matter for what reason or what color, we don’t deserve to survive and probably won’t.”30 "
63 " In politics, everyone regards themselves as a moderate, because they know some other sumbitch who's twice as crazy as they are. "
― Timothy B. Tyson , Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story
64 " Most of us would rather claim to have always been perfect that admit how much we have grown. "
― Timothy B. Tyson
65 " Lord you gave your only son to remedy a condition, but who knows but what the death of my only son might bring an end to lynching. "
66 " What the migrants learned by word of mouth has since been established as fact. Mississippi outstripped the rest of the nation in virtually every measure of lynching: the greatest number of lynchings, the most lynchings per capita, the most lynchings without an arrest or conviction, the most female victims, the most multiple lynchings, and on and on. "
67 " This was “a cautionary tale,” she said, a tale of horror rooted in real experience, whether or not it was precisely true in its particular details. “Was this a true story? I don’t know. But I do know this: Somewhere between the fact we know and the anxiety we feel is the reality we live. "
68 " Mamie now envisioned God’s purpose for her life—and for her son’s life: “I took the privacy of my own grief and turned it into a public issue, a political issue, one which set in motion the dynamic force that ultimately led to a generation of social and legal progress for this country. "
69 " Rather than arrest the assailant, white police officers hauled off a black bystander who objected to their inaction. "
70 " Milam and Bryant were not on a political mission when they pounded on Moses Wright’s door, and they did not kidnap Emmett Till beneath the banner of states’ rights, racial integrity, or white supremacy. The white men carried out their brutal errand in an atmosphere created by the Citizens’ Councils, the Ku Klux Klan, and the mass of white public opinion, all of which demanded that African Americans remain the subservient mudsill of Mississippi—or die. "
71 " According to William Bradford Huie, Milam later justified Till’s lynching using the terms of violent racial and sexual politics: Just as long as I live and can do anything about it, niggers are going to stay in their place. Niggers ain’t gonna vote where I live. If they did, they’d control the government "
72 " The Dixiecrat revolt of 1948 captured the electoral votes of Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina and presaged the rise of a two-party South.8 Judge Brady was already a fuming Dixiecrat, calling for a new party “into whose ranks all true conservative Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike, will be welcomed” to battle “the radical elements of this country who call themselves liberals.” Senator James Eastland of Mississippi termed the Dixiecrat revolt “the opening phases of a fight” for conservative principles and white supremacy, and “a movement that will never die.”9 "
73 " People everywhere are joining to fight because of the way Emmett Till died—but also because of the way he was forced to live. "
74 " After all, how do you give a crash course in hatred to a boy who has only known love? "
75 " They beat hell out of you for any reason or no reason. It’s the greatest pleasure of their lives. "
76 " Like many white citizens over the years, members of the Council believed that anything that weakened white supremacy or challenged the existing social hierarchy in any way was socialism. But this was largely code for preserving the country’s racial caste system, centuries in the making. "
77 " But as I’d learned my new trade at a deeper level, I’d discovered that I had not escaped the call to ministry as cleanly as I might have thought. I had not only followed my mother into the classroom but my father into the pulpit, never mind that I preached on weekdays instead of Sundays. There I was, pacing the lecture hall with chalk dust on my pants, day after day. "