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Seattle Seahawks wide receiver DK Metcalf vowed to educate his followers about Emmett Till during Black History Month, which is February.
Through the first four days of the month, Metcalf has kept his promise.
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The brutal death of Emmett Till is one of the most talked-about acts of racism in the U.S. and he became an icon of the civil rights movement in the wake of his murder.
Till was a 14-year-old boy visiting family in Mississippi in August 1955 when he was accused of whistling or flirting with a White woman named Carolyn Bryant. The accusations ‒ Bryant would admit more than 50 years later that her claim that Till grabbed her was false ‒ would lead to his death. Bryant’s husband and his half-brother abducted Till and killed him.
Metcalf wore Till’s name on his helmet this season
(Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
An all-White jury found the two men not guilty of Till’s kidnapping and murder.
In 2018, the Justice Department reopened Till’s case citing “new information.”
EMMETT TILL KILLING REOPENED BY GOVERNMENT OVER ‘NEW INFORMATION
Metcalf wore Emmett Till’s name on the back of his helmet during the 2020 season.
“Emmett Till is really like a backstory of how cutthroat the world is,” Metcalf said as part of the NFL’s “Say Their Stories” campaign this season. “How racism has been going on for numerous years in America and people think it just went on in the South. No, racism is going on across the United States and I’m sheltered because I’m an NFL football player and I’m a Black man first though. Once I take this Seahawks jersey off, once I leave this football game, then I’m a regular Black man. How are my kids going to view the world because I know how I view it?
“This is not a new problem and we should have done something a long time ago.”
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Metcalf said in the video he learned about Till’s story when he was young and it affected him deeply because of how close he was in proximity to the Tallahatchie River, where Till’s body was found.
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