IMAGE: CNS photo/Jean Gonzalez, Florida Catholic
By Jean Gonzalez
ORLANDO,
Fla. (CNS) — In 1955 in Mississippi, a white woman lied and told her husband that
Emmett Till, a black teen, flirted with her in the grocery story. In
retaliation, her husband and another man kidnapped, beat, shot and lynched the
youth.
His
body was found three days after his murder and returned to his native Chicago.
His mother had an open casket for the 14-year-old’s funeral, where tens of
thousands visited his body. Among them were an 11-year-old Edward Braxton, his
brother, Lawrence, and his uncle, Ellis. They waited two hours in line to view
the body.
“I
peered into the glass coffin and beheld the terrifying remains of a vicious
murder,” said the now 73-year-old bishop of Belleville, Illinois. “He did not
look like a human being. Emmett’s mother was sitting in a chair, uncontrollable
crying, saying, ‘My baby. My baby. Why? Why did I send him down South. I looked
into her red-rimmed eyes not knowing what to say.”
Uncle
Ellis repeatedly told his nephews, “I don’t want you ever to forget this
night.” And Bishop Braxton never did. Emmett’s killers were never convicted of murder.
And when he visited the National Museum of African American History and
Culture, he was transported to that day in 1955.
“For
me personally, the most devastating experience in the history gallery was coming
face-to-face with the original coffin of dear Emmett Till, which I had not seen
in 60 years,” Bishop Braxton said during his keynote address July 8 at the National
Black Catholic Congress in Orlando, adding that “dear Emmett Till” was one of
3,446 African-Americans lynched between 1882 and 1968.
“I
have never forgotten (my uncle’s) words. I have never forgotten the unrecognizable
bloated, totally mutilated face behind the glass in that coffin. … Seeing that
coffin again brought it back again,” he said.
That
was only one piece of history at the museum that registered great emotions for the
bishop, who has written extensively on the racial divide in America from a
theological and pastoral perspective.
Among
his writings are two pastoral letters, “The Racial Divide in the United
States: A Reflection for the World Day of Peace 2015” and “The
Catholic Church and the Black Lives Matter Movement: The Racial Divide in the
United States Revisited,” issued in 2016.
In
his congress address, he described how the National Museum of African
American History and Culture museum is in eyeshot of the monument to George
Washington and the memorial to Thomas Jefferson, both of whom owned
“enslaved free human beings.” Not too far away are the Capitol and
the White House, both built in part by “enslaved free human beings,”
as he put it.
The
history presented at the museum is not pretty but so important, and he urged
everyone to visit the museum, especially the lower levels.
“I
realized 60 percent of the museum is actually underground and it is underground
deliberately because the architect wanted to give you the feeling that you were
… maybe inside a slave ship crowded with very little room to move
about,” Bishop Braxton said.
“The
images in the museum reminded me of what happened to free human beings as they
crossed the Atlantic in the Middle Passage,” he continued. “Human
beings chained side by side on top of one another in unspeakable squalor,
cramped in darkness. … An estimated 2 million people lost their lives during
the Middle Passage of this African holocaust.”
In
January, he wrote an essay on the museum titled “We, Too, Sing ‘America’:
The Catholic Church and the Museum of African American History and
Culture.”
Although
he recognized the museum as an outstanding achievement, Bishop Braxton in his
remarks to the congress lamented the lack of references there to leading
African-American Catholics such as Father Augustus Tolton, the Sisters of the
of the Holy Family, Sister Henriette Delille, Father Pierre Toussaint, Mother
Mary Lange, or Sister Thea Bowman at the museum. There are nearly 68 million
Catholics in United States, but only 2.9 million are black.
“These
absences reminded me that African-American Catholics then and now were already
invisible in the larger influential black church,” Bishop Braxton said.
“At the same time, African-Americans were and remain all but invisible in
the larger influential and largely European-American Catholic Church.”
The
bishop told congress attendees they could all do something to know their own
history and to be engaged in the community. They must exercise their rights to
vote, participate in public life, run for public life, use resources that
develop discussion about the racial divide, inspire young people to become
involved.
“I
give you these imperatives: Listen, learn, think, act and pray,” he said.
“African-American Catholics need to get into real conversations with
others in the community about this history so we can grow by means of
knowledge.”
Before
closing, Bishop Braxton brought up a theme that he has “raised for years, to no
avail” — that “people of color should no longer accept the designation of
African-Americans as a minority. We are not a minority; we are Americans.” Referencing
the words of the poet Langston Hughes, “We, too, sing America.”
“The
word minority group is a term used to divide, not to unite,” he said. “The God
who is God has no color, has no race, has dimensionality. It is so important
that we depict the universality of the mission of God, showing diversity of the
city of the kingdom of God.”
In
his remarks, Bishop Braxton also spoke about the prophet Micah, known as the
prophet of social justice, whose warnings and criticism of political corruption
and urging of caring for the poor still ring true 2,700 years later. A passage
by Micah provided the theme of the congress: “The Spirit of the Lord is
upon me: Act justly, love goodness and walk humbly.”
The
bishop said the prophet would not be satisfied with those words solely
emblazoned on T-shirts, banners and bags.
“Micah
would demand to see these words written in our hearts, in our daily actions
when we leave Orlando and return to our dioceses, neighborhoods, parish
communities and families,” Bishop Braxton said.
In
talks a day earlier, Bryan Stevenson, a public interest lawyer, and Tricia
Bent-Goodley, a professor and director of the doctorate program at Howard
University School of Social Work, separately spoke about black communities, and
the justice system and black family life.
Stevenson
shared his work fighting mass incarceration, racial bias and poverty through
the legal system. He founded the Equal Justice Initiative, which works to
eliminate excessive sentencing, to exonerate innocent death-row inmates, and to
challenge the abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill. Stevenson praised
black Catholics for “raising their voice in support of social justice and
all the commands of the Gospels.”
In
speaking about “The Black Family: Challenges and Opportunities,”
Bent-Goodley described the impact of mental health issues, community violence,
and domestic violence on black families. She called on black Catholics to face
these issues with both the power of prayer and the help of professionals.
She
noted that too often, black families don’t get the care and counseling they
need; sometimes because of a lack of access and sometimes because of a
reluctance to seek help.
–
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Gonzalez
is on the staff of the Florida Catholic, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Miami
and the dioceses of Orlando, Palm Beach and Venice.
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