Abstract
This paper explores the legacy of the Emmett Till case as one of the core elements which binds together the Civil Rights Movement and the current Black Lives Matter in the US. Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017 has magnified the escalating racial tension of recent years and has, at the same time, fueled several forms of social activism across the United States. Acting as the catalyst for Black Lives Matter, the assassination of seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012 stirred the race question in the country as the Till lynching had similarly done fifty seven years before. At the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, the complex relations between race, class, and gender within the South helped to set the atmosphere for one of the starkest assassinations in US history. Till’s infamous murder soon gave rise to an empowering narrative among the African American community that not only contributed to putting an end to the voracious rule of Jim Crow in the US South but that, with the passage of time, has also become a banner of justice in the current fight against racism, as it seems that recent violent events resuscitate the latent white supremacist ghosts of one of the world’s most powerful nations.
Highlights
With an updated scope focused on the ongoing struggle for racial equality, Black Lives Matter activists have joined other voices in denouncing the stark inequalities currently faced by black people before US law, which, there are others, mainly revolve around three interrelated legal geographies of systemic subjugation of the African American community: mass incarceration, racial profiling, and police brutality
Amid the restrictive times of the pandemic, George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old African American man, was murdered on May 25, 2020 by a Minneapolis police officer who asphyxiated him after applying an excessive chokehold to restrain him while, as viral cellphone video clips show, Floyd remained lying face down on the pavement with his hands cuffed behind his back during the arrest
This new act of police brutality exerted on an African American has raised heated protests in Minneapolis and other parts of the country as a collective reaction to the searing vulnerability of black lives in the US
Summary
Donald Trump’s refusal to explicitly denounce the rally’s white nationalists, together with his statement blaming both protesters and counter-protesters for the violent outcome have helped to normalize the xenophobic discourse of the far-right His inauguration as 46th President of the United States in January 2017 had magnified an already existing climate of escalating racial tension after a presidential campaign that focused on isolationist trade policies, the reinforcement of law and order, and racially provocative antiimmigration policies—with a relentless and ruthless rhetorical attack on the USMexican border. For instance, the harsh state repression targeting the African American community during the civil rights era; the images of firefighters hosing peaceful protesters, German shepherds attacking them, and white people filled with racial hatred throwing stones at black students who were attending college or punching, kicking, and beating African Americans who were claiming basic rights to access public spaces like eateries, hotels, schools, and workplaces Given this historical context, what does Make America Great Again mean?. This was the first ‘Black Lives Matter’ story.” With an updated scope focused on the ongoing struggle for racial equality, Black Lives Matter activists have joined other voices in denouncing the stark inequalities currently faced by black people before US law, which, there are others, mainly revolve around three interrelated legal geographies of systemic subjugation of the African American community: mass incarceration, racial profiling, and police brutality
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