tv Lectures in History CSPAN July 19, 2015 12:00am-1:01am EDT
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or innervation. >> when you go back to earlier technologies like railroads those were regulated as common carriers. regulator said prices. they set terms rules, we all know what happened. and it telephoned until they were all deregulated. all of those common carriers were undone by congress. it was so clear that innovation was being suppressed and that the u.s. was falling behind. that was the backdrop for the bipartisan consensus the 1990's that the internet would be different. this would be the clinton administration, a clear consensus democrats and republicans that unlike the earlier technologies the internet was going to be largely
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unregulated. >> monday night at 8:00 eastern. each week american history tv sit in on a lecture with one of the nations college professors you could watch the classes here every saturday evening at 8 p.m. and midnight eastern. next is west virginia university professor krystal frazier talks about the complexities of family life for african americans in the north as well as the south during the mid-20th century. the emmett till case is mentioned as a watershed moment in many of the stories that she highlights. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon. professor frazier: welcome back. thank you for paying attention to the e-mails that i sent out.
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they were reminders about your papers. we are fortunate to have this collection. just because it is a paper on the south come it doesn't count for your paper. please pay attention to that. and the concert is on the 23rd. that could count as your activity. consider that one. remember to ask me about the ones that you have in mind. a lot of work over school break and answer questions. we will talk about that today and talk about emmett till. i want us to back up to where we were before spring break.
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were talking with the world that migrants created. by the 1930's there is a slowdown of migration rate. the great migration happened around world war ii -- excuse me, world war i. we talked about all the ways we could learn about the world and why they migrated. we talked about oppression and terrorism. and finding jobs and steady work. we could see images of young children knowing it is the case of children moving with their families when they move. this map talks about the movement. people are traveling via trains. they're going north.
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that's how we get to cleveland, ohio which is called the alabama north there are new migrant communities. we are able to get ebony magazine. including black churches and voting blocs. they pay attention to african-americans who have voting power. when we look at the book there's a good moment of understanding what happened for the migration. he's born in 1945, and he gives us a portrait of life inside african-american communities internal moments within segregation so we can understand what is happening behind the veil in the 1940's and 1950's.
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with a second wave of migration, we get high levels of the moving out of the rural south so we can get a portrait of life where people are leaving these places where they are. work was not very profitable. listen to the statistic. in 1940 at the beginning of the second wave, there's a much smaller number of african-americans working outside agriculture than what we see by 1941. networking agricultural labor.
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by 1945 the number goes up. there is quite a significant difference. it's about 1.5 million people. we get to dislike detroit where the numbers than quadrupled. that is a large number. there are many people going away. those were in the south are still affected by migration. take a moment to look deep into these families to think about what the world is like for children who are in communities where they have been affected by migration. before we get to what is said that migration, let's talk about what else he shows us. congregation. remember that term. we could really see this. what are some examples of this act is of congregation?
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just at home on the radio. why are people excited? i'm from north carolina. i grew up liking duke which is kind of sacrilegious. that was true for me. people thought that was crazy. it does not like the same kind of strong connection people had in st. louis. what is the difference? why do they care? what does joe lewis represent for them? sure. of african-americans doing well. what else? >> when she was on the deathbed,
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they were all around the house and just being there with her as she passed and being supportive to the family as well. professor frazier: this is the grandmother. people not just in the immediate family. people were like family to him. we know it is a story that people read as children. let me ask you this? what is missing in this story? what do we not hear?
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ok. >> violence is missing from the story. professor frazier: violence. we talked about racial terrorism across the south. right. there's not much of a depiction of that. it'll your integral racial terrorism. -- there is no racial terrorism. if he was born in 1945, he is about 10 when emmett till is killed in 1955. emmett till is often seen as a sacrificial lamb of the civil rights movement. people talk about emmett till being important to the start of the civil rights movement.
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what we will be discussing, we have been building up to our appreciation and not just bringing it up in the 1950's. we have been talking about garvey, and phillip randolph. we have been talking about a build up to the civil rights movement. there are many who talk about emmett till's death being influential to influence them to actively engage in civil justice. why do you think he is not talking about racial violence? what is his goal in doing that? >> he wanted to show that there
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were good times. it wasn't all bad. professor frazier: right. he wants to show what is not commonly known. there is more research for us to do. the case is that it is a significant part of the people in the south. with emmett till's death, it is something that is made very public. the mother had an open casket. 50,000 coming to see his body there. the people are able to see this
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around the world. there are newspapers that are tried to show how the united states is a troubled place in the middle of this cold war. 1955. the cold war is going on. this is not looking good for the u.s. internationally. african-american activists will maximize that in the struggle. there is a protest that actually happened in october. not just people in the south. his mother is able to do what he does because she's in chicago. she's able to put pressure because of the assistance of black politicians who are in position and the media has come out of chicago. joyce ladner is also a movement veteran.
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right? these young people who come of age and who often decide to become active in many parts of the result what happened with emmett till. that can't be all of the story? there are parts of the story that shape who they become. we will use emmett till's story, it his window to explore african-american life. that is my area of arsenal -- personal research. look at the history. african-american families need to be listed for black schools and churches that are part of how we understand what people are able to do. we're going to look at the back story.
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figure what happens after his death. we're going to shift and look at his life and look at the family world in which he was raised. we're going to look at some people's stories. does think about the fact that his family is a part of this collective of people who create a trans regional system where the families are in more than one place. some of you may go home to visit relatives. i'm so excited and going to go to to the beach. yes. right? i'm born and raised in north carolina. lots of times to go to south carolina to visit my grandparents, right.
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this is a old tradition. my parents didn't send me home for quite the same reason that people send their kids home from chicago and detroit and cleveland and new york in the 1920's. not that quite old. let us think about people traveling. this is one of the teachers. these migrants are on their way to chicago. i want you to think about emmett till's family. his grandfather migrated in 1924. he went up to chicago -- the chicago area. he went to argo, illinois, it is a sleepy town, they said. it got the nickname little mississippi.
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he got a job at a refinery company. the talked about this. when he goes up he says to his family, come on up. she is born in mississippi, but raised in chicago. ♪ in chicago she meets emmett till's father. they marry and later separate. emmett till is born in 1941. that is a baby boomer. those born around the time of world war ii. his family is a part of this world. they moved to chicago. he's raised in chicago. he is a chicago kid.
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just like other migrants, he knows things about the south. he learns things about the south from family members from the south. he actually visited the south before. he had done so as a toddler. he had had migrants around him all the time. he also learned some people in his family -- he had grown up visiting chicago. there are lots of things -- there is a really rich church community. his grandmother was a founding member. she said my mother took in relatives and friends of our relatives. even some relatives are -- even some people are relatives did not know.
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that is just what we did. how cool is that? how many stores we do here about people list -- stories what you hear about people escaping? they found the promise land was not as promising as they had hoped. they met jack crow, what i call the northern version of jim crow. emmett would have learned things about the south. he didn't know the same way that other southerners did. when you think about this network, have ever heard about sylvia's soul food? there they are.
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she is from hemingway, south carolina. small town. you read this in my article, about her mother migrated and her mother was in new york. while her mother was gone, she and her sister stayed with her grandmother. her father died. her mother goes north. she's able to send enough money home by some property to expand the family farm. then she comes home. she spent a little time in new york. she working on hair and cosmetics. she meets a man there who is also from the south.
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they come back home, get married, and her mother then takes care of the children for a little bit of time. sylvia is only able to do that because of her mother's assistance it her mother is only able to do what she did -- he is not leaving trying to find work because she is tired. she's try to make a better life for her family. her goal is not even necessarily to get out of the south, but to make where she is safe for her completely. she leaves and she goes north. we see this network expand. we see this pattern repeated. she's able to help build this empire. children are really central -- when we observe them, we get a
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quarter of african-american life that is more complex than that of simply comparing a set of parents and their children. if you're going to understand the way families are working, we need to look at them. we see this intergenerational connection. let's look at other examples. let's look at these exchanges. there is a famous author. in that memoir, he talks about his experiences with joint sees as a young man in new york. they recognize they could send
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children home. one of the reasons children might send children hundred the summer is to keep them out of trouble. he hated it. he didn't like the food. he didn't like much of anything. he didn't like working out in the sun. he confirmed what he had assumed about the migrants that he knew. he thought that they were ignorant and backwards. that his parents minds were stuck in the cotton fields of south carolina. on the other hand, we have charles whom we see pictures when we talk with the freedom singers. he talks about the experience with his family. and him not being really too impressed.
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he thought about how he appreciated the kind of independence that his family had. they're able to have more freedom. this is true for another man who is from columbia georgia. he says the same thing. he felt his community was more involved with entrepreneurial activities. it is not a one-sided thing where the south is bad and the north is good. we can see more of that story. i think these examples are interesting.
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the elders were still around that were participating in that protests. in troy, alabama, he went to school with a principal who was his uncle. they used to come home from their holidays. they would share with him all of these experiences. made him see the north is this magical place. he takes him north. they go and a visit. he sees things that change his mind. he said, i cannot. i was never the same.
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really in a space of his family, these are people who look like me and they aren't counting airing -- and they are encountering life this way and i'm encountering life in this way. where is the cousin from? you remember the state? louisiana. her cousin really wants to come visit her. the caretakers are saying, no way. do they say why? my fingers are making quote signs. is the north better? that is her cousin. school is out.
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this is what emmett till said to his mom. i want to go south. he had two daughters came to live with him. what is the answer? kevin? quite similar to one of the ladies that wanted to get out of the south because they figured she was not free-spirited, but outspoken. professor frazier: that is what they say. you cannot go down. you'll get in trouble. you don't know how to behave. what is going to happen to her? you are onto something.
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you want to say it? she might get uppity. cork certain cultures, they figured if you are north they figured if you went north, somehow you got caught up with the ncaacp. they learned to have this language that did not appreciate the south culture anymore. professor frazier: there is this expectation of what you will subdue -- do with the south. they don't want her to go north and getting in her mind that she could act like whoever she might encounter and maybe in an unsafe space. there are certainly african-americans were in the south. you will get in trouble.
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we know that quote comes from -- there is the boss hogg who is in charge. it is the one who runs the trials for the murder case of emmett till. his quote is where i got the title for the article. in his mind, black people didn't think about what was going on in the south. they were content until they went somewhere else and had outside agitators giving them ideas that something was wrong. we know that is not accurate. the people understood what the trouble was. when carolyn sees these segregation cases unfold on tv.
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she is a new sensitivity. she thinks about ways to connect them, but with a person in her family. when you lose a loved one, it hurts more than if someone else loses a loved one. you can feel sorry for them, but when it is your family, especially if you are a child, the impact could be quite severe. she's able to think about what is happening. this is happening in my family. and it shapes who she becomes. these are two bank particular southerners with a powerful understanding of what happened. right? she has in texas and another predominantly black area in san antonio. she goes to boston later in life
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she said it was more dangerous than things she encountered living in the south. she grows up. people are often afraid because they were made to feel afraid because of the violence they encountered. what you learned about emmett till's death, it wasn't particularly riveting. it was a pattern. she grew up knowing. and he grew up in mississippi
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home of oprah. when he grows up there, he is also in this place where violence is always occurring. they didn't really have fantasy ideas about the north. they also came from people who were activists. when the family migrates and goes to greensboro north carolina and have a movement there, and they go to connecticut and encounter those who are not too keen on the struggles. they have the same kind of critique of society that she was cultivated in the south. all these are the people are part of emmett till's generation. do you recognize this name?
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that is your textbook. he is the author of your textbook. he is a sociologists. dr. horton is a historian. both of them come to their careers through their struggles. dr. horton actually note that in the case of emmett till's murder was one that made him do what? >> [inaudible] it further put himself to the cause. professor frazier: yes. he wants to understand what could be the case to create this space where a child could be murdered. he is trying to figure it out.
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she says when emmett till was killed -- she thought the northerners were protected. she thought they had a different experience. it's meant for her if this could happen to a child from the north, it could happen to anyone of us. it is knocks down all the excitement that was had. remember when we did an exercise and we talk about the trauma? of the year 1892, we calculated we got to more than two lynchings a week. how traumatic that was for people? the elation for many people to say the federal government is on the case and we are going to
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fight this and we note he segregation efforts are not just about sitting around and holding hands, but rather it is about trying to get full access for the rights to become -- access to citizenship. the full freedom of self-determination. when this case happens, he is really excited. it kind of smashes him if this young child could be killed in this kind of way and they give their report were they have to get chicago out -- these young -- he should not feel that he is elevated. these young people say they are going to employ themselves on this site.
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this generation i think has a unique perspective in this kind of second-generation migrants. they enter a world of migrants. much like you might have friends who are second-generation. there's a different perspective than their parents may have. we know that they are connected to their families for different reasons. sometimes that happens. how does migration effect -- what does he say? do you remember what you wrote for that?
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>> it affects them in that you will have a place to go. it is also on the other side. his family will go there and not come back. professor frazier: we have some people who their cases, their effort is to go and go away. there are family members who migrated. it is that movement in which they changed their names. they didn't come back into her world until in recent years. her daughter was married. they were invited to the wedding i contacted the family and introduced themselves again. they are able to reconnect. it could send people very far away.
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very often we also see this circulation. there's this recirculation of items like i loved when i could go to new york and come back with my cool whatever i got for fashion and come back to family members did you might have family members that traveled. that is still something we can think of today. but for this time period looking at a child in the 1950's, what a child is able to access as opposed that in mississippi as opposed to chicago would be very different. what else in this migration world? newspapers.
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ok. news is circulating. news of ideas, thoughts, activities you get exposure of new ways of thinking. what else? when we're in class last we were jamming to a song. it is a product of this migration moment. music comes out of this migration. what kind of music goes into it? gospel, blues. tell us what the blues looked like. >> a majority of the blues comes
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from the old songs -- field songs and gospel church songs. then it got electrified. in the chicago clubs, turned into different type of music. professor frazier: they got shocked in the world chicago. that is a metaphor we can work with. electric guitars and acoustic guitars. maybe you did not have electricity where you were in mississippi. you've got a new style, but also a new experience in chicago. you brought a lot of the old experiences to help create this world i could help this music. when she sings "in the upper room" she begins the same the
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background part in a single lead part. that is how you get the music the day. it starts in this migration moment. what else? what else comes out of this migration? what else is circulating? we have items, ideas. there's another "i.” institutions. churches, right? they're getting funding from the north. what else? we have been talking about -- individuals, yes.
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they are moving back and forth. you've got the mama living in the south and the kids living in the south a little while and then moving. there's a moving of individuals. what does this mean for identity? i don't even know that i planned that. we go to ideas and individuals. how does this shape identity? is emmett till southern? mama is southern. are you southern? i'm from chicago. i say this is the south. i feel like i know. i'm a real southerner. however, some say it is debatable. is it debatable? why?
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even though they are residing in chicago they bring in the packed , in terms from the south and some experience. he is immersed in that. they are bringing all the baggage from jim crow. the baggage from slavery. professor frazier: bringing the baggage. what is the baggage? >> violence. professor frazier: the impact of what happened to them -- tradition doesn't necessarily have to be baggage. and baggage doesn't necessarily have to be bad. you brought the collective of whoever you are to this new space. are they also northern or not northern? emmett till's cousins who are your age, are they northerners yet?
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>> he did whistle at a white woman. he wasn't raised to think that was bad. he had a white girlfriend. they mixed with white people. when he did good on to the south he did not know. he was insulated from that. professor frazier: when you say he could know a woman who was a white woman and it wasn't quite as big of a deal -- that made him northern, yeah? remember what i also said, we don't have to live in the either or. you saw another woman singing
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she said, you don't have to do , that. maybe it is not just one or the other. maybe there is a lot going on there. emmett till's mother says she prepared him. she says this is summer camp for our kids. this is as close as they are going to get. we are going to take them what , do tell them in that conversation? >> [inaudible] things weren't the same as it was in chicago. he had to watch himself. he likes to talk. he didn't grow up in the atmosphere.
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people were integrated and it wasn't such a big deal. professor frazier: he had some freedoms that maybe his counterparts didn't have in the south, yeah? if that is the case, for the question of identity, you might take of himself as a northerner. or maybe he wasn't as keen to think about it. his mom says this town didn't have the same kind of markers you are familiar with. when we started the semester we talked about all the ways of the breakdown of segregation and not thinking of whites only or colors only water fountains.
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it is the immediate portrait for many people. we need to think about -- i know you got this -- when we think about jim crow, we're not just thinking about segregation. we are thinking about congregation. [laughter] professor frazier: when we think about separation we also thinking about subordination. not just black and white people being kept from another, but rather the effort to basically reinforce that people are under. subordinated. that goes back to what was expected of a young man like emmett till. more thoughts on that identity. when we look at how he was viewed by people in the south, how do they see him?
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>> kind of this wide-eyed kid. he just didn't know how to deal with being in the south. he had these ideas that he could talk to anybody wanted to. he did not grow up feeling he had to be segregated. he did not quite understand that. that separated his identity. i don't think he really understood our gave it a lot of thought. it was no big deal. professor frazier: let's go back to charles over here. he said not that big of a deal. what did you say, charles?
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>> i don't think there are too many 13 euros who have a concrete sense of identity. you might want to retroactively impose -- i don't think you understand what that meant himself. professor frazier: what his mother said that their children in the south that have something deep in their consciousness. understanding their place in the south. even if they are not thinking about this in terms of use the words identity, how do they understand themselves? what is an moody say about she is really troubled. she is troubled by these discussions that are around her after the murder of emmett till. she hears these adults being quiet. she is mad. she says she hates the white
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people for what they did and the black people not doing much about it. she has an awareness, and she now has to think about things. if you have these young people who are not having -- the average 14-year-old, is that freedom that teenagers in the south are afforded? remember what we talked about with the baptisms, these young people have to recognize their space in the hierarchy really early. they are babies, a lot of them. my niece is that little. i would hate for my little relatives to have that.
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we could use a less concrete term than identity. we could have a self-awareness of what it is that to be in that space. what does that do for some of these young people emmett till , was kind of carefree. he thought that he knew what she was talking about. i know have to say yes, ma'am and no, sir. and i will be polite, i will do this or that. he didn't have that consciousness that some of his cohorts had. many children went home to their families in the south and were not abused to the same kind of way. they were plenty where a what to do and what not to do. they would not have done what he had done. some of that could be in personality. but still we would all agree it didn't make sense for a child to be murdered or have that kind of assault. even it's uncle pleads with the
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murderers and says maybe just rough him up. he learned his lesson. that is not how it worked out though. let's talk more about the people who are politicized in this moment who are now forced to think about a spirit what are some of those examples? -- forced to think about themselves. what are some examples? >> it happen to a kid from the north. it could happen to anyone. ignorance will not protect you. being a child won't protect you. professor frazier: what about this being a child part? i gave you some background in the article. do you remember? is he seen as a child?
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>> no. professor frazier: you don't think so. i think you are right. how is he viewed? >> they are acting like he is a grown man. he is not afforded the status of child. definitely not. professor frazier: he is not seen as a child. he is seen as a man figure. we talked about the stereotypes the way their shipping way african-americans are seen. you remember this we have to stop this. yes to be killed to prove this point. you cannot come down here in act like that. and think that will be a way to make it ok.
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this makes other people have to ask the question of who am i? and it makes them have to think about what they are going to be. when emmett till is killed -- and carolyn dylan is from indiana and hasn't had her cousin visit, she understands that could have been someone in her family. this could have been my cousin. this could have been someone that i know. it could been someone close to me. it could have been me. that gives us a framework for thinking about how this comes to
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work. we certainly don't want to argue that there's no civil rights movement for emmett till. i think emmett till becomes emmett till. other people die. when they are dragging other bodies in 1964, they find other bodies. people had just gone missing or supposedly went away for tried to leave. their bodies are in the river. they talk about -- in the mississippi river lord, lord lord the in the mississippi river song talks about the bodies coming out of the river.
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he is not an anomaly. he is not the only person to be killed. it rattles some people, even mr. timothy jenkins later joins -- he talks about knowing the atrocities across the south. when the emmett till case happened, it doesn't necessarily mean anything surprising to him did he is owing to philadelphia. what is the context of his place where he learns the politics and could critique things? say it again. the barbershop. the barbershop is on your list of places where you can go.
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you can go in there and experience what we are talking about. in this barbershop -- i love this barbershop. the people in this barbershop are a lot of people we study in history. all kind of dignitaries. all kinds of non-dignitaries. all kinds of working-class people and professional people. he has the lawyer and the shoeshine man. all of the brothers made a haircut. there are lots of different migrants. they are talking. he is listening. he is a youngster. he is listening. he learns about the south from that world. the south is an something foreign to him. she is a part of the movement.
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she said, i knew southerners because i knew their family members. i had seen them in my father's church. i have lived in new jersey for eight years and i was in rochester. where they say the snow is made. i'm still southern on my sleeve. near my accent. i'm southern. is there a point when people become northern. does that happen? some people work hard to lose their heritage -- leave the heritage behind. a lot of that might have to do with cutting off your family. going back to how these people are politicized, it has to be in the broader context of these trans regional families.
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we get a person like mr. cleveland sellers he is from denmark, south carolina. he talks about emmett till. he is from the upper south. it is not a heavy area for activity. but he says that emmett till riveted him. another reason why even among people who were aware of racial atrocities and were not surprised that it happened, i don't think you want to be desensitized to a murder a time it happens. people are saddened. wow. that happened.
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