On October 8, 1955, Jackie Ormes’ Patty-Jo ’n’ Ginger panel in the Pittsburgh Courier showed Patty-Jo standing next to a door as she tells her sister, “I don’t want to seem touchy on the subject . . . but, that new little white tea-kettle just whistled at me!” Ginger leans on a couch, looking at her younger sister. She hold a newspaper behind her back, hiding the headline from Patty-Jo. While we cannot make out the entire headline, we can read “Till,” and this name indicates that it deals with the murder of Emmett Till and the news that a jury in Mississippi found Till’s murderers, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, “not-guilty.” Ginger wants to shiled her sister from the news, but Patty-Jo’s statement highlights that even though she may not know about Till’s murder or the verdict she knows about racism and oppression because she links the “white tea-kettle” to it.

In Coming of Age in Mississippi, Anne Moody talks about how she learned about Till’s murder and the impact it had on her life. Like Till, Moody was fourteen at the time. Walking home from school one day, Moody heard a group of high school boys talking about Till. The boys point out Till’s age and that his murder will cause the whites in Centreville, about 200 miles south of where Till was murdered, to “start some shit.” One of the boys, like Patty-Jo does in Ormes’ panel, points out the hypocrisy of white men murdering a Black teenager for supposedly whistling at a white woman while white men rape Black women. He asks, “Everybody knows it too and what’s done about it?”

Listening to the boys, Moody had questions, and she finally asked who they were talking about and what happened. Eddie tells her, “Everybody talking about that fourteen-year-old boy who was killed in Greenwood by some white men. You don’t know nothing that’s going on besides what’s in them books of yours, huh?” Eddie’s question causes Moody to think about what she knows and doesn’t know. She writes about how Eddie made her realize she didn’t really realize what went on around her; instead, she focused on school and work, not paying attention to anything else. This caused her to not be around teenagers her own age, and as she puts it, “you never were told anything by adults.”

At home, Moody asks her mom about Till, and her mom tells her to not talk about, warning her that if the “white folks” hear that Eddie and the boys were talking about it “they gonna be in trouble.” Moody questions this, asking her mother about freedom of speech and expression, saying, “People got a right to talk, ain’t they?” Her mother pushes this question aside, telling her daughter to go to work for Mrs Burke and to feign ignorance about Till’s murder, even if Mrs. Burke asks her about it.

Moody wonders why she has to pretend to not know anything about Till, asking herself why everyone seems so “scared.” When Mrs. Burke asks her if she has heard about the murder, Moody acts ignorant, even when Mrs. Burke asks her if she knows why Till was murdered. Mrs. Burke proceeds to tell Moody that Till was killed because “he got out of his place” and should have “known better,” adding that since Till was from up North him and other Northers Blacks “have no respect for people” and that he came down here just to stir “up a lot of trouble.” Mrs. Burke’s comments drip with racism, blaming Till for his death, not the murderers who lynched him and lied about Till even whistling at a white woman.

Mrs. Burke’s comments, coupled with the Guild meetings that Moody overhears in her house where members talk openly about violence against Blacks in the community, leads Moody to fear for her own life and safety, just because of the color of her skin. She had known “the fear of hunger, hell, and the Devil,” but Till’s murder and the statements she heard from people like Mrs. Burke and even her own mother caused her to experience a new fear, “the fear of being killed just because [she] was black.” Moody didn’t know what to do or not do to keep from being killed, and she concludes that it didn’t really matter: “Probably just being a Negro period was enough, I thought.”

Till’s murder awakened Moody not only to her own oppression, but it awakened her to ways to fight back against that oppression. During one of Mrs. Burke’s Guild meetings, Moody hears the women mention the NAACP, and when she asks her mother what the NAACP is, her mother tells her to never mention the organization to Mrs. Burke or other whites. Undeterred in her quest for understanding, Moody goes to her teacher, Mrs. Rice, and asks her the questions that her mother won’t answer. Over dinner, Mrs. Rice tells her about the NAACP and how it “was established a long time ago to help Negroes gain a few basic rights” and how they worked to try and convict Till’s murderers.

Mrs. Rice couches her comments, even intoning that she shouldn’t be telling Moody any of this; however, she continues, informing Moody about organizations and people fighting against Jim Crow and racism. After dinner, Moody writes, “I digested a good meal and accumulated a whole new pool of knowledge about Negroes being butchered and slaughtered by whites in the South.” Moody learned about white supremacy and the violence against her. She learned about individuals seeking to end white supremacy, and from this moment on she paid attention to the world around her, the ways whites oppressed her and the ways that some, even in her own community, acquiesced to whites in the hopes of the succeeding financially.

Eight years before Till’s murder, Moody heard her mother talking about a Black man who was lynched. Moody asked her mother who did it, and her mother simply replied, “An Evil Spirit killed him.” Moody didn’t know who the “Evil Spirit” was, but she knew that in order to keep clear of it she had to be good. Till’s murder, though, eight years later, taught her that the “Evil Spirit” was white supremacy, racism, and oppression.

Just as Ginger sought to keep the “Evil Spirit” away from Patty-Jo, Moody’s mother tried to do the same for her daughter. Both sought to do this in order to protect those they loved, to keep them innocent for as long as possible while teaching them means of survivial. However, they could not keep the “Evil Spirit” away forever. It would make itself known, in one form or another, and at that point, what would they do? Moody’s mother tried to protect her daughter by not addressing anything directly. Mrs. Burke used it as a means of control and violence. Mrs. Rice presented the truth to Moody in a straightforward manner.

We often wonder when is the right time to talk about things with our children. When it comes to racism and history, we question when is the right time and how should we do it? The answer to these questions is simple. It is the right time when children ask questions, and we answer them in the most honest way we can. Writing about “divisive concept laws,” Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell point out, “Young people ask questions. It’s what they do. These pressure and intimidation campaigns are intended to ease ‘discomfort’ of white parents who wish to avoid answering these questions.” By differing and deflecting, we refuse to confront our own selves and our own discomfort. It’s understandable why Moody’s mother deflected. It was for survival. However, we do not need to deflect. We need to confront racism and history head on.

There is much more to say here. What are your thoughts? As always, let me know in the comments below. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @silaslapham.