Letters to the Editor: Biden won’t let the memory of Emmett Till be erased from history

To the editor: Leave it to a man of compassion, empathy, tolerance and decency such as President Biden to spearhead the establishment of memorials to commemorate the savage murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy.

Till was kidnapped, tortured and murdered, his body thrown into a river by racists. Calling to mind Till today would not be popular in some parts of the country in which America’s racist underpinnings is deemed too uncomfortable to acknowledge, something which needs to be erased from history.

It is gratifying that a president to whom civil rights has always been important has made it more likely that the memory of an atrocity, one for which the perpetrators tragically were not called to account, will endure. The president’s actions bring comfort to surviving members of Till’s family and to all whose lives have been affected by racial animus.

Oren Spiegler, Peters Township, Pa.

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To the editor: Emmett Till’s mother required an open casket for her son, so the world could see his mutilated body.

This act changed the United States forever.

The lesson from this horrific event is that until America sees the mutilated pictures of children and adults from Texas to Illinois, New York to California and Florida, that occur when an AR-15-style assault rifle is used to kill, America will not force federal and state governments to enact and enforce gun control.

Learn the lesson from history, take action immediately — print the photographs.

Robert L. Graham, Manhattan Beach