Today, we went to Mississippi: Hollandale and Money. The former is where we met kids from Simmons High School. I went in thinking they would have subpar facilities and be impoverished. I was absolutely wrong, as far as I can see, the kids were all joyous and just like normal high school kids. Something I don't necessarily agree with, religion, facilitated their interconnected, loving community. It was admirable to see that all of the kids held the utmost respect for their teachers, counselors and administrators. I was very nervous of meeting new people, but as I ride on the bus with them now, though they are not very vocal, they are here among us and I don't feel the same reproach anymore. Not to say I am completely comfortable with them yet, but they are all very nice and approachable. I love their accents.
After touring the school facilities we left and grabbed lunch on the way to somewhere where disgusting things have occurred, somewhere I despise, only after today. I will have to separate this paragraph from the next, despite its short length, because food and the following topic should not be written about in the same stroke of the pen or typing of a keyboard.
Emmett Till. A boy who was brutalized for allegedly crossing a color barrier in 1955 by flirting with a white women. I shan't go into his life story, go experience it for yourself, but I will describe my feelings after researching it for myself and visiting the place that pushed the stroller holding human morality downhill: Money, Mississippi. I researched Till and his story, starting with his background, ending with the trial for his untimely murder. I read and I read and I read, and it only took me twenty seconds to read about the horrible events that occurred and, subsequently, become horrified and distraught and hateful and disgusted and so, so much more. Thoughts such as, "I hope they [racist people] all die" and "That's abhorrently disgusting" rang though my head. I hated the story, I was disgusted of the people and their actions. "How could someone stand to defend such reprehensible human beings, such filth?" I asked myself. As I write this my feelings have subside and my writer's voice has come out, and I find it harder and harder to express the disgust and internal rage I felt. I was lost for words.
As we stood in Money at the Bryant's store, I watched others laugh and socialize happily, not fully realizing the terrible things which had occurred at that place, while I found it difficult to exit the bus, to even rise from my seat. I resented their happiness and their blind disregard to the history which had began there. I teared up so much on the bus and was still tearing up on the ground of the dilapidated store. I may as well have been in Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen: Tills murder, though not at as large of a scale, was holocaustic. I went back on the bus afterwards and remained silent for some time. Disgusted and harboring pent up ire, I held my words until they became too painful to withhold. I was angered at the persistence of some of the students to disregard the moment and the privilege which they'd just had in experiencing such history. I had to speak. No, I didn't denounce them for their ignorance, but I did express my disgust and hatred of the Bryant's and all their supporters and all of the racist people, and frankly, though it didn't say it, the South.
That's all I have to say for now: this day is just one more reason for me to hate the world, it is such a horrible place in which the racism is still abundant.
-Antonio Lunn
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