University students cause outrage with 'offensive and hurtful' photo
Three students have been suspended from their university housing over a photograph of them posing with guns in front of a bullet-riddled sign commemorating a 14-year-old African-American boy who was tortured and lynched.
The photo was reportedly posted to one of the students’ Instagram accounts before it came to the attention of news media.
The image showed the University of Mississippi students brandishing weapons and grinning in front of a roadside plaque commemorating the spot Emmett Till’s mangled body was found in 1955.
The young teen’s horrific murder played a large role in the civil rights movement.
Three students were suspended from their fraternity house, Kappa Alpha, after we shared an Instagram photo one of the men posted that was taken in front of a sign commemorating the murder of the 14-year-old black youth in 1955. https://t.co/TjaevSmo2a
— ProPublica (@propublica) July 25, 2019
According to the Mississippi Centre for Investigative Reporting and ProPublica who first reported the incident, the photo was posted to Instagram in March along with the caption: “One of Memphis’s finest and the worst influence I’ve ever met.”
The student who shared the image, Ben LeClere, can be seen holding a shotgun while fellow student, John Lowe, squats beneath the sign.
A third young man stands on the opposing side of the vandalised sign with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.
The post was deleted by Mr LeClere after it made headlines.
Prior to the photo’s removal from the social media platform, a complaint was filed to the University of Mississippi which stated: “The photo is on Instagram with hundreds of ‘likes,’ and no one said a thing,” according to ProPublica who reviewed a copy of the document.
“I cannot tell Ole Miss [The University of Mississippi] what to do, I just thought it should be brought to your attention.”
It is not clear whether the students were the ones who damaged the sign.
All three boys were suspended from the University of Mississippi’s fraternity house, Kappa Alpha, on Wednesday (local time) after ProPublica showed them the image.
“The photo is inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable. It does not represent our chapter,” the president of the fraternity house told the news outlet in an email.
“We have and will continue to be in communication with our national organisation and the university.”
The students appear not to have been suspended from the university itself despite widespread outrage over the image.
Thursday, the day after the trio were suspended from their fraternity, would have been Till’s 78th birthday, with many marking the occasion on social media.
Emmett Till would be exactly 78-years-old today. Yet more than 60 years after he was so brutally murdered on August 28, 1955, people in Mississippi are still shooting his memorial signs and markers to this day.
The hatred against him still lives on strong. pic.twitter.com/vPLl3HxYCc— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) July 25, 2019
The gun-toting students in front of the plaque for Till were met with horror and disgust across social media, with many expressing the belief the incident was proof race relations were worsening across the United States.
“What's horrifying is that we have a whole new generation of racists being raised. It's not dying out,” one person said on Twitter.
Rolling Stone journalist Jamil Smith wrote that the “pockmarked plaque” the students with guns stood beside showed “just how alive racism remains in this ugly country of ours”.
University of Mississippi officials called the boys’ conduct “offensive and hurtful” but told ProPublica the image did not present a violation of the university’s code of conduct.
Emmett Till was murdered at 14. He would’ve been 78 years old today. Racists love to shoot the sign marking where his body was found. That pockmarked plaque is the inverse of a gravestone, showing just how alive racism remains in this ugly country of ours. https://t.co/SH0GaU9xbu
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) July 26, 2019
The bullet-riddled sign in the image has been repeatedly vandalised since it was erected in 2008 to mark the point in the Tallahatchie River where 14-year-old Till’s badly beaten body was recovered in August 1955.
He had been abducted, tortured and lynched by two white men after a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, accused him of sexually harassing her at a grocery store.
Decades later, she revealed to historian Timothy Tyson her account was largely fabricated.
“Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him,” she said.
Her husband at the time and another man were prosecuted for Till’s murder before they were acquitted by an all-white jury. They died without receiving convictions for the crime.
After Till’s badly mangled body was retrieved from the river, his mother demanded he have an open coffin at his funeral so the world would see the horror inflicted on her son.
News of his slaying and the shocking pictures from his funeral along with the acquittal of white suspects became a galvanising force for the civil rights movement in the United States.
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