Surrounding Events In The 1920's

Martin Luther King once said “We are not makers of history. We are made by history," which interprets how the surrounding events played a big role in my great grandfather’s life. At the age of 103, T.W. Cooper, my great grandfather witnessed plenty of extravagant events. Some of these events include: The Waco Horror, KKK, Emmett Till case, The Watergate scandal, O.J. Simpson trial, and the Trayvon Martin Trial.
The Waco horror took a great toll on the African American community in 1916. Jesse Washington, a 17-year-old African American, was convicted in the murder and rape of a white woman in Waco on May 15, 1916. He was snatched from court and mutilated and burned alive outside City Hall before some 15,000 spectators -- half of Waco's
The KKK became really famous in the 1950s due to their racially motivated attacks on African Americans. Klansmen were content to intimidate the black population by sweeping through the night in white robes, riding horses with muffled hooves, and pretending to be the Ghosts of the Confederate dead returning to exact retribution. The main targets were the former slaves, but many whites who sympathized with the Republican agenda were victims of Klan violence as well. The main accomplishment was keeping African Americans from voting, install Democratic rule, and return the African American population to subjugation. Various Klan organizations have continued to exist in diminished form and, though clinging to some of the old traditions, have begun to merge with or evolve into the paramilitary and neo-Nazi organizations that have taken up the banner of white supremacy .To this day there is an estimated amount of 8,000 active members in the United States (Leonard, James S.
The woman’s husband and his half-brother took Till from his great-uncle’s house, beat him unmercifully, shot him in the head, and threw him into the Tallahatchie River tied to a heavy piece of machinery. Till’s mother insisted on an open casket at his funeral, a picture of his mutilated body was published, setting off nationwide protest over the verdict and strongly stimulating the emerging civil rights movement. Bryant and Milam were quickly identified as the killers and held without bail. Within two weeks they received a trial in the segregated courthouse of Sumner, Mississippi. In spite of their testimony, an all-white, male jury found the defendants not guilty. They had deliberated for slightly more than an hour and made the decision based on the inability to positively identify Emmett Till’s mutilated body. Bryant and Milam were released. Protests erupted all over the country and letters poured into the White House demanding justice. Mobley began to travel, making speeches in churches and homes and inspiring African Americans to demand an end to Jim Crow laws and discrimination in the courts. Rosa Parks became fed up with the discrimination and so upset with Emmett's case that she refused to give up her seat to a white male, which sparked the civil rights movement