Speaker 1: Hey is Kadija. This episode will tell the story of
Speaker 1: how one incredibly dark moment in our country's history sparked
Speaker 1: a seventy year movement that we're still feeling the benefits
Speaker 1: of today. But in order to tell that story, we're
Speaker 1: going to be discussed in racially motivated violence and murder.
Speaker 1: If you are someone you love has been affected by
Speaker 1: any of the themes that come up in this episode,
Speaker 1: we left some links in the description that offer resources
Speaker 1: and support. Take care of yourself. I Matil was a
Speaker 1: fourteen year old boy when he took a trip to
Speaker 1: visit his family in Money, Mississippi. It was nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 1: Much of the US was still in the era of
Speaker 1: Jim Crow's segregation. It was a time when violent racism
Speaker 1: was the norm and where one small bad encounter could
Speaker 1: ruin your life, which is what happened to Emmitt. After
Speaker 1: being accused of offending a white woman in a grocery store,
Speaker 1: he was abducted and lynched in a horrific case that
Speaker 1: shocked America. You've probably heard his story before in high
Speaker 1: school lessons are Hollywood movies. You might have seen black
Speaker 1: and white photos of him and assumed it happened a
Speaker 1: long time ago, but the past is not as distant
Speaker 1: as it seems.
Speaker 2: I am Marvelle McCain Parker, and I am the wife
Speaker 2: of Reverend Wheeler Parker, who is the last surviving eyewitness
Speaker 2: of the kidnapping of Emmitt Till. Not only was he
Speaker 2: and I witness to the kidnapping, but he and Emmitt
Speaker 2: from the age of seven. They grew up together.
Speaker 1: They were cousins and best friends.
Speaker 2: Emmett actually traveled to Mississippi with Wheeler, and Wheeler came
Speaker 2: home alone.
Speaker 1: Doctor Parker's husband lost his childhood friend into a racist lynching,
Speaker 1: but Emmett's murders sparked a movement, a movement that continues
Speaker 1: to inspire me and Nikki and our activism and justice work.
Speaker 2: The open casket funeral of Mmittil at Robert's Temple, Church
Speaker 2: of God in Christ is said to have been the
Speaker 2: catalysts that sparked the civil rights movement. Rosa park said
Speaker 2: when she refused to give her seat up on the
Speaker 2: bus that September of nineteen fifty five, that hot day,
Speaker 2: she refused to give up a seat, she thought about Mmittil,
Speaker 2: and she stayed in her seat and we know that
Speaker 2: that one act was the birth of the Montgomery bus
Speaker 2: boycott that brought doctor King of town, that gave birth
Speaker 2: to the civil rights movement. Emmitt's death was the spark.
Speaker 1: The civil rights movement started with a few ordinary but
Speaker 1: deeply passionate organizers determined to fight against the status quo
Speaker 1: regular people like you and me. In this episode, I'll
Speaker 1: be talking to doctor Parker about her remarkable life fighting
Speaker 1: for social change, and she'll share some of her top
Speaker 1: tips for how to rally your own community around the
Speaker 1: causes that you care about the most.
Speaker 2: Oh God, I'm.
Speaker 1: Kadida herdaway from the teens at Novel and iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 1: This is the girlfriends Untouchable by Guys Bonus, Episode five,
Speaker 1: sparking a movement, Doctor Parker, it is so lovely to
Speaker 1: see you and talk to you as always.
Speaker 2: Good morning, Kadija. It's so nice to see you this
Speaker 2: Monday morning and to have this opportunity to share with you.
Speaker 1: Doctor Parker has a long and story career. She's the
Speaker 1: executive director of the Imma Till and Maybe Till Mobley Institute.
Speaker 1: She graduated with a doctorate from Seminary School, wrote a
Speaker 1: book about the impact of HIV and AIDS on African
Speaker 1: American women and spent her life mentoring activists like me.
Speaker 1: But if you asked her what shaped her commitment to
Speaker 1: social justice work, she'll tell you it was the Till
Speaker 1: story and the pivotal role that played in the civil
Speaker 1: rights movement. In nineteen fifty five, her husband, Wheeler Parker,
Speaker 1: then a teenager, and his friend Emmett Til traveled from
Speaker 1: Chicago to Mississippi visiting relatives for a summer vacation. The
Speaker 1: two boys were asleep when a group of men broke
Speaker 1: into the house they were staying in during the middle
Speaker 1: of the night. They came in with a gun and
Speaker 1: a flashlight, pulled Emmett out of the bed and dragged
Speaker 1: him away. It was the last time Wheeler saw him alive.
Speaker 1: The aftermath of the luncheon traumatized Wheeler.
Speaker 2: For all of these years, he's had survivor's guilt, but
Speaker 2: he didn't want to talk about the story. It was
Speaker 2: such an unpleasant story to him, and living with the
Speaker 2: guilt that he came home and Emmett didn't. It was
Speaker 2: not something that he felt he wanted to visit every
Speaker 2: day or every week. Publicly, he didn't want any fame,
Speaker 2: any claim. He said, I'm not a hero, I'm a survivor.
Speaker 2: He sat back, he let Mami tell the story Maye
Speaker 2: being Emmett Till's mother. But eventually we decided to share
Speaker 2: his perspective. He was convinced that he needed to write
Speaker 2: his book tell the authentic story. We haven't been asked
Speaker 2: by Mami before her death to ensure that the legacy
Speaker 2: of Mmititil was told in perpetuity.
Speaker 1: Most things are catapulted by storytelling. In the case of Mtil,
Speaker 1: the story has been told in many different versions. I
Speaker 1: identified very much so with storytelling. When it comes to
Speaker 1: the work I've done in Windot County, it's pretty much
Speaker 1: what moves the needle. But I've also found that people
Speaker 1: have very strong desires, and the desires center around their
Speaker 1: ego and them wanting to tell their version of a
Speaker 1: story that may not even be true or even helpful
Speaker 1: toward moving the needle for the entire project. Can you
Speaker 1: talk about that a little bit and how you navigated that.
Speaker 2: Our goal was to make sure that the story was
Speaker 2: told truthfully, because the people that were being featured on
Speaker 2: CNN and other news outlets, some of them weren't even
Speaker 2: born when the story happened, and they told a distorted story.
Speaker 2: So we were just, I guess we were just forced
Speaker 2: to tell the true story because there were so many
Speaker 2: miles out there painting the picture and it was false.
Speaker 1: So, alongside other friends, family and supporters of the Till family,
Speaker 1: Doctor Parker made it a part of her mission to
Speaker 1: ensure the true version of that story stayed alive.
Speaker 2: Then twenty twenty one we created what is called the
Speaker 2: m Matil It Made Me Tell Mobiley Institute, and it
Speaker 2: was created to ensure that the story of Immittil is
Speaker 2: told correctly and truthfully, and that the resources that would
Speaker 2: be made available in order to erect or dedicate national
Speaker 2: sites to the memory of he and his mom were
Speaker 2: brought to fuition. So as exactly kative director of the
Speaker 2: Immitil and Maymi Till Mobili Institute, we were successful in
Speaker 2: getting the sites dedicated as a national monument. President Joe
Speaker 2: Biden signed a proclamation creating the Immittill and Maymi Till
Speaker 2: Mobili National Monument with three sites. It is the first
Speaker 2: non contiguous national monument in the United States. The three
Speaker 2: sites are one Roberts Temple Church, of God in Christ
Speaker 2: in Chicago, where Immit's funeral was held. It is said
Speaker 2: that over one hundred thousand people passed by and viewed
Speaker 2: the mutilated body of the slain fourteen year old boy.
Speaker 2: And the courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi, where the infamous trial
Speaker 2: was held and his confessed murderers were found not guilty
Speaker 2: by a jury of their peers. And the third site
Speaker 2: is gray Ball Landing where Emmitt's body was retrieved. So
Speaker 2: we are working now to restore the church to its
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty five facade. We've received two point nine one
Speaker 2: eight million dollar grant to begin that and that's ongoing.
Speaker 2: We've been able to acquire property, the property where in
Speaker 2: its childhood home stood, and we memoralized that site, and
Speaker 2: we continue to advocate for the poor. So busy, busy, busy, busy.
Speaker 1: But they didn't achieve that by just making the right
Speaker 1: calls and waiting for change to happen. Doctor Parker and
Speaker 1: those she worked alongside spent years building up a community
Speaker 1: of people to join their calls, a feat that would
Speaker 1: inspire me and the other women of Kansas City when
Speaker 1: it came to the challenge of trying to take detect
Speaker 1: the Roger Gluski down and after the break we'll look
Speaker 1: at ways you can spark that kind of change in
Speaker 1: your community. When you see activists who have achieved incredible
Speaker 1: things like changing laws or sparking nationwide campaigns, it can
Speaker 1: be easy to think that you need to have it
Speaker 1: all figured out to make a meaningful difference, but you don't.
Speaker 2: You just got to start with what you've got. We
Speaker 2: don't need money to accomplish the things that we're trying
Speaker 2: to accomplish. I tell people when they come to me
Speaker 2: to ask me about you know, how do we get funding?
Speaker 2: We want to do ABCD. I said, you get funding
Speaker 2: by doing ABCD, and then people will fund what you're doing.
Speaker 2: My husband and I we financed the organization for many
Speaker 2: many years. We provided the office space in our building,
Speaker 2: all of the office equipment, did all of the legal work.
Speaker 2: Somebody's got to in kind their skills to help you
Speaker 2: accomplish your goal.
Speaker 1: You remind me so much of the Rosa Parks story
Speaker 1: and how the NAACP got is footing, which in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways didn't have any income. But again they
Speaker 1: knew that they needed to make a change, and they
Speaker 1: organized and used their human capital to make that happen.
Speaker 1: How do you pick a good team that supplies the
Speaker 1: in kind donations or the kind service that we're talking about,
Speaker 1: that gives up their elbow grease and the sacrifice of
Speaker 1: what they actually want to see come out of it.
Speaker 2: You look for key stakeholders, and for me, key stakeholders
Speaker 2: were people who lived in the community, worked in the community.
Speaker 2: They were stakeholders because their survival was dependent on the
Speaker 2: community surviving. A lot of times we try to bring
Speaker 2: in people who are not stakeholder, which means that they're
Speaker 2: not tied or linked to the issue or to the need,
Speaker 2: and so their human capital or their contribution could be fleeting.
Speaker 2: They've here today and gone tomorrow. But key stakeholders are
Speaker 2: people that are going to benefit.
Speaker 1: It's something doctor Parker also saw when she tried to
Speaker 1: create change in her town, Summit, Illinois.
Speaker 2: The target was to make my community aware of the
Speaker 2: resources that they were entitled to that they weren't being
Speaker 2: able to access, and challenging the elected officials to be
Speaker 2: fair in distributing the resources. In the black community, the
Speaker 2: church is the anchor institution in the black community. So
Speaker 2: we began our first meeting with the pastors, made them
Speaker 2: aware of the problems and the issues we were facing
Speaker 2: and the need for us to come together as a community.
Speaker 2: Our first community meeting, the meeting room could not hold
Speaker 2: all of the people that we listened to the residents,
Speaker 2: and we had created an agenda of issues that the
Speaker 2: community wanted to be heard about and that wanted to
Speaker 2: be answered. Then after we created the form of agenda items,
Speaker 2: then we ask them to prioritize, you know, everything. We
Speaker 2: can't do everything at once, so now tell us, you know,
Speaker 2: let's prioritize our needs and then let's begin to systematically
Speaker 2: address them with the powers that be. So you might
Speaker 2: start off with a very small nucleus of people as
Speaker 2: key stakeholders, but as you begin to move forward and
Speaker 2: people become proactive in wanting to be involved, you will
Speaker 2: bring on people, and a small group of people deeply
Speaker 2: invested in their community can be pretty powerful community mobilization.
Speaker 2: Usually it begins with an issue that there's something that
Speaker 2: needs to be addressed. In order to mobilize a community,
Speaker 2: we found that as long as everything was going smooth,
Speaker 2: you know, people don't have time to attend meetings, but
Speaker 2: you let something happen and everybody's ready to fight. Really,
Speaker 2: mobilization helps you to be able to address the issue
Speaker 2: as a community, which will bring your elected officials to
Speaker 2: the table because we know that every four years, every
Speaker 2: two years, there's an election, so mobilizing is important as
Speaker 2: it relates to politics. That's how community mobilization paid off
Speaker 2: for my neighborhood. We now have senior housing, we got
Speaker 2: all of our new streets, new alleys. All of these
Speaker 2: resources were there, but they weren't being channeled to my neighborhood,
Speaker 2: which was the poorest neighborhood in the community and of
Speaker 2: course entitled to the resources, but they were going to
Speaker 2: other places. So community mobilization, where there's unity, their strength.
Speaker 2: And if you're organized without anger and without animosity, you
Speaker 2: become a mover and shaker. And that's what happened in
Speaker 2: my time.
Speaker 1: But what do you do when you're trying to organize
Speaker 1: in the midst of a tense political climate like the
Speaker 1: one we're living through right now. How do you form
Speaker 1: alliances with the people you don't see eye to eye
Speaker 1: with and a time when it feels more important than
Speaker 1: ever to fight for our civil liberties.
Speaker 2: That's after the break I got you I got you.
Speaker 2: I got you.
Speaker 1: I have always been told when it comes to making change, fundamentally,
Speaker 1: it literally only takes two to three people, But when
Speaker 1: it comes to actually moving that forward, it.
Speaker 2: Takes the vote. It takes we the people.
Speaker 1: If I can't get the people to come out and
Speaker 1: vote and stand and measure for that, then we have nothing.
Speaker 2: I know, in my community, I.
Speaker 1: Think only thirty percent of the population votes, and a
Speaker 1: very small percentage of that is black. How do we
Speaker 1: move the needle of voter registration and raise those percentages
Speaker 1: up across the country.
Speaker 2: That's what I asked, doctor Parker. Our whole system of
Speaker 2: government is being challenged. I see no respect for the Constitution.
Speaker 2: I see no respect for the Supreme Court. I see
Speaker 2: absolutely no respect for the separation of powers. And it's
Speaker 2: frightening to me when you talk about voter registration and
Speaker 2: people getting out the vote. That is the biggest challenge
Speaker 2: to anybody that has ever run for office, because people
Speaker 2: will not go out and vote. They say that vote
Speaker 2: doesn't matter or understand it why it's not important, especially
Speaker 2: for black people who, of course, one hundred years ago,
Speaker 2: I think women couldn't vote. And you know how long
Speaker 2: it took for our people to be able to vote
Speaker 2: in Mississippi in the South, and the things that they
Speaker 2: had to go through in order to be able to vote,
Speaker 2: and how many people lost their lives. I mean, my
Speaker 2: grandmother's church was burned down in the sixties because the
Speaker 2: civil rights workers were having meetings there trying to teach
Speaker 2: people how to register the votes. We got this right
Speaker 2: to vote through blood, sweat and tears. Me Nicki and
Speaker 2: other activists I know often talk about what it takes
Speaker 2: to pull people out of apathy and inspire them to action.
Speaker 2: For some people, it takes a personal connection or crisis.
Speaker 2: It's a multitude of things. For doctor Parker like her
Speaker 2: past experience and personal connections, but one of the constants
Speaker 2: that keeps her fighting is her faith. My husband and
Speaker 2: I are both third generation members of the Church of
Speaker 2: God in Christ, so we were raised in a Pentecostal family.
Speaker 2: We were taught to live by the Gospels. But for him,
Speaker 2: he says that you know, it was his faith in
Speaker 2: God that allowed him to survive the ordeal that he
Speaker 2: went through because on that night when emmittt was kidnapped,
Speaker 2: he prayed to God to spare his life and to
Speaker 2: allow him to live and that he would serve him.
Speaker 2: And he has kept that vow. He has kept that
Speaker 2: vow and that commitment to God. I embrace his role
Speaker 2: in preserving the legacy of emmitt. Our faith in God
Speaker 2: helps us to endure the things that we've had to endure.
Speaker 2: The theme of our work with immit Tell's story is love, forgiveness,
Speaker 2: and reconciliation. So you know, the Bible tells us, and
Speaker 2: I'm on my soapbox right now, the Bible tells us
Speaker 2: that we have to love our enemy. And I say
Speaker 2: to my students, if we have to love our enemy,
Speaker 2: who's left to hate nobody? Because we definitely love our
Speaker 2: brother and our sister, and our mother, and our father
Speaker 2: and our friends. He told us to love our neighbor
Speaker 2: as ourself. Then he tells us to love our enemy.
Speaker 2: I'm like my God, who can I hate? He says, nobody.
Speaker 2: So hate is not even on the table. Now. It's
Speaker 2: a challenge to love your enemy. But doesn't mean I
Speaker 2: want to go to dinner with him or take a
Speaker 2: vacation with him. But I can't hate him. So hate
Speaker 2: is not an option. And because hate is not an
Speaker 2: option and love is commanded, of us. We have to
Speaker 2: dig deep within our soul and ask God to give
Speaker 2: us what he has told us we can do. He
Speaker 2: said we can love our enemy. So if he said
Speaker 2: we can do it, by golly we can do it.
Speaker 2: We can do it. And the closing of my interrogation
Speaker 2: or my speech is to visitors to the monument, I
Speaker 2: say that my husband and I are in the twilight
Speaker 2: of our life, and you know, we've got to work
Speaker 2: the work of him that sent us whiles day, because
Speaker 2: the night coming when no man can work. And what
Speaker 2: I'm trying to do now is train younger women to
Speaker 2: carry on what I do and what I've done.
Speaker 1: I often wonder what the future of Kansas City, Kansas
Speaker 1: will look like. Most of the victims and survivors never
Speaker 1: got justice will happen to them, and even the ideal
Speaker 1: of justice itself feels flawed.
Speaker 2: What does justice.
Speaker 1: Even look like when a woman has been killed or
Speaker 1: a family has been destroyed by the actions of one
Speaker 1: man who's not allied to face the consequences. Doctor Parker
Speaker 1: doesn't know, but in the case of Immittil, it's his
Speaker 1: legacy that remains.
Speaker 2: This year, we celebrating seventy years since his death. His
Speaker 2: murder in money in Mississippi is kidnapping in money and
Speaker 2: his subsequent murder. We don't celebrate it because it's pleasant.
Speaker 2: It's an unpleasant event. But we celebrate his life because
Speaker 2: of what his life has contributed to all of America.
Speaker 2: I have a picture of we the hold in the
Speaker 2: hand of Emmitt, the statue of Emmitt in Greenwood, Mississippi,
Speaker 2: which is about eighteen feet and he's holding his hand
Speaker 2: and he said, you're bigger in death than you would
Speaker 2: have been in life.
Speaker 1: I just hope that the women of Kansas City whose
Speaker 1: lives were cut short are looked back on in the
Speaker 1: same way that the stories of their murders are used
Speaker 1: to shine a light on glucpi's crimes, and that their
Speaker 1: ongoing investigation exposes corruption. I hope that by continuing to
Speaker 1: tell these stories will inspire the people of Kansas City
Speaker 1: and beyond to fight back against the forces that seek
Speaker 1: to suppress and prey upon us. Thank you, doctor Parker
Speaker 1: for all your work that you've done. It's truly amazing
Speaker 1: to see a lot of it come to fruition. I
Speaker 1: greatly appreciate not just hearing the words, but being able
Speaker 1: to watch you grow and expand knowledge and education around
Speaker 1: EMMIT TIL. To learn more about doctor Parker's work and activism,
Speaker 1: visit www dot doctor Marvell Parker dot net.
Speaker 2: What an inspiring conversation.
Speaker 1: I really admire doctor Parker's lifelong commitment to fighting against
Speaker 1: social injustice and preserving the part of our country's history
Speaker 1: that can be difficult to hear. It's more important than
Speaker 1: ever to fight back, So rally your community, mobilize them
Speaker 1: around the issues you care about, and get to work.
Speaker 1: Because no person, system, or form of oppression is ever
Speaker 1: truly untouchable when regular people like you and me come
Speaker 1: together to make a change. In the next and final
Speaker 1: episode of The girlfriends Untouchable, I'll be having a conversation
Speaker 1: with the journalists to Mary Cherry about how survivors, families,
Speaker 1: and activists can use the media to put a spotlight
Speaker 1: on the injustice in their communities.
Speaker 2: Here's a sneak peek.
Speaker 3: You cannot adequately take care of yourself unless you take
Speaker 3: care of that person who's sharing their traumatic story, because
Speaker 3: you can be traumatized by the traumatic stories of others,
Speaker 3: and the best way to protect yourself from that is
Speaker 3: to support them in an ethical trauma informed way.
Speaker 1: The Girlfriend's Untouchable is produced by Novel for iHeart podcast.
Speaker 1: For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio. This episode
Speaker 1: was hosted by me Kadija Hardaway. It was produced by
Speaker 1: Mohammad Ahmed and Referro Masurua. The editor is Joe Wheeler,
Speaker 1: the researcher is Aiyana Yusuf. Production management from Sharie Houston
Speaker 1: and Joe Savage. The fact checker is Vindo Fulton. Sound design,
Speaker 1: mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempsen with additional engineering by
Speaker 1: Nicholas Alexander. Music supervision by Refriro Mazurua, Nicholas Alexander and
Speaker 1: Joe Wheeler. Original music by Amanda Jones. The series artwork
Speaker 1: was designed by Christina Limku, Novels Director of Development in
Speaker 1: Selena Metta. Willard Foxton is Novel's creative director of Development.
Speaker 1: Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan are executive producers for Novel.
Speaker 1: Katrina Novo and Nikki Etour are the executive producers for
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts, and the marketing lead is Alison Kenttour And
Speaker 1: a special thanks to Carley Frankel and the whole team
Speaker 1: at w m E.
Speaker 2: I got you, I got you. I got you, I
Speaker 2: got you.