MLK Film Festival
The Uncivil Image
How Emmett Till and Bloody Sunday awoke the conscience of America.
“Seventy million people are watching this.” —Andrew Young
Emmett Till was a 14-year-old boy from Chicago, Illinois. On summer vacation 1955, he was visiting relatives near Money, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta. While standing outside a candy shop, Emmett bragged to his friends about a white girlfriend back home. Not believing Emmett, his friends dared him to ask the white woman behind the counter on a date. Emmett went in, bought some candy, and on the way out, yelled back to Carolyn Bryant, the cashier, “Bye, baby.”
Several nights later, Roy Bryant, Carolyn’s husband and store owner, and his half brother J.W. Milam went to Till’s uncle’s house armed and abducted Emmett Till. Milam and Bryant mutilated Till, beating his back, hips, face, and dislodging his eye. They then shot him under his right ear and fastened a fan blade around his neck with barbed wire in order to sink him in the Tallahatchie River. His body was found three days later.
Emmett Till’s story stood out against hundreds of other stories similar to it due to Till’s mother, Mamie Till Bradley. Mamie insisted on holding an open casket for Till’s funeral. David Jackson’s photographs then exposed the world to the unforgettable image of Till’s mutilated body.
This image traveled across the country. Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago and Illinois Governor William Stratton plead to Mississippi’s Governor White, for justice for Till. Justice was never directly given, only through the influence of Emmett Till’s story was Till served justice. Emmett Till’s death was seen as a catalyst for the African American civil rights movement to come. Shortly after Till’s death, the Montgomery bus boycott began, an event that led to a supreme court case, ruling segregation on busses unconstitutional.
The notability of this story, like many others, is reliant on the images that were born of it. Images invade our minds, whether parasitically or mutualistically, they are not easily forgotten and they are not easily ignored. Everyone remembers the photos taken by Dorothea Lange as she traveled the world with her husband, Paul Taylor, taking photographs for the FSA. You may not remember her name, you may not remember her husband, you may not remember the FSA. But you remember the photos, the photos documenting desperation, hardships, the photos documenting The Great Depression. Migrant Mother, The Unemployed, Two Children Sitting on a Porch in Arkansas (a bit of a lengthy title), and Farms for Sale to name a few. These images are trapped in your mind, they can’t be chased out and they won't be forgotten. This is the power of the uncivil image.
On MLK day 2021, my school held an African American film festival. Every student had to choose from a list of African American movies to watch. I chose Tuskegee Airmen. I assume my school didn’t see this choice because I was put on the movie Selma. I did turn in my choice one maybe two days before we actually watched the films so that’s fair. Selma it was and it was a good movie with really great music.
Selma is a film following Dr. King’s (David Oyelowo)journey leading the civil rights movement in 1965. From meetings with President Lyndon B. Johnson to being placed in jail, to his alleged affair, to the civil march he led, this film understands every dimension of the historical character, Martin Luther King Jr. But the most powerful scene of this film only involved Dr. King as a spectator. This scene is known as “Bloody Sunday.”
Bloody Sunday is a historical moment involving John Lewis leading the first march from Selma to Montgomery. As they reach the end of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, John Lewis and his followers meet a wall of police officers who tell them to turn back. The civil rights activists refuse to do so and stand peacefully in line, waiting for the police to let them through. However, the police officers push into the crowd of peaceful protesters and beat them with nightsticks. This attack, however, was captured on camera. The image of John Lewis being beaten by police officers until his skull was fractured went viral. This uncivil image served as fuel to the civil rights movement in 1965
Ava Duvernay, the film’s director, understood the idea of the uncivil image and its importance to the civil rights movement. This understanding was displayed throughout the film Selma, but most prominently in the “Bloody Sunday” scene.
This scene and the images that came of it wrenched hatred into the hearts of their viewers on both sides of the fourth wall. Between clips of black protesters being beaten by white police were clips of white and black civilians reacting to the scene as they viewed it on their TV. Andrew Young (André Holland) says to Dr. King in reaction to the event, “Seventy million people are watching this.” An image of Annie Lee Cooper (Oprah Winfrey) being beaten by police was shown, followed by a clip of a white woman on the verge of crying being comforted by her husband in her living room. A clip of a black man on his knees pleading for mercy being bludgeoned in the face by a police officer was followed by a clip of nine black men in a barbershop watching the event. Then a clip of both Lyndon B. Johnson (Tom Wilkinson), and J. Edgar Hoover (Dylan Baker) reacting to the scene was shown.
This scene understood everything there is to know about the civil image. It has two types of characters; the participants and the viewers. The participants are the subjects of the images. The viewers are affected by the civil image, they are the ones who provoke change, and change came. Many people, both white and black, traveled to Selma to partake in the march due to these images. And President Lyndon B. Johnson, one of the viewers, ensured the safe passage of the activists two marches later.
It’s a sad thing when a country needs people being beaten, lynched, mutilated, and images of these actions to provoke change. But we’ve come a long way. In 1963, the majority of African Americans could not vote due to literacy tests, poll taxes, and other methods used to limit the African American vote. In 2008, the first African American was elected president of the United States. But there’s more progress to be made. George Floyd was another example of the civil image and sparked a movement protesting police brutality towards African Americans.
