Day 1 – Just Minding Their Own Business

Towards the end of the gallery in the Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro, a glass wall stands, etched with the names of over thirty black individuals brutally and unlawfully murdered from the early 1950s to 1970. Alongside each name is a detailed description of the manner of death. As I read through each of these descriptions, I was speechless and heartbroken. One couple was shot on Christmas day, the same day as their wedding anniversary. One individual was beaten, tortured, then tied to an engine block and thrown in a river to drown. Another man was pressured at gunpoint to jump off a bridge to his death. Emmett Till was burned, beaten, mutilated, and drowned. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain and grief experienced by these individuals’ families and the entire black community. I am truly amazed at the courage that black people continued to have to stand up for their rights amidst such horrifying realities. If I was in their shoes, I am sure that I would have been too scared to act. Many of the individuals on this wall were simply minding their own business when bullets fired. And it’s crazy to realize that these tragedies were occurring only fifty years ago, when my parents were in their teenage years. Why did America take so long to call out and combat these atrocities?

          Jane Mylin

 

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