Eyes on The Prize Fritz Gallun

Eyes On the Prize Reaction

In Eyes On The Prize I was really moved by the fact that Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were acquitted when it was so obvious that they were responsible for the death of Emmett till. This moved me primarily because of the message that this ruling sent to the black community at the time. By letting Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam off the message was sent that the law and justice system doesn't care about black people and isn't there to protect them. This would be incredibly scary to live in fear that anyone could take your life for talking to someone and not even be punished for it. This also moved me because after seeing Till's corpse it was very difficult for me to grasp the idea that an adult could be so ruthlessly racist to gruesomely kill a child like that. I can't imagine how upsetting this must have been to Till's family, not only was it bad enough to have to see their loved one in the state that Till was in but also to watch as the men clearly responsible for this were able to walk away unscaved for killing a kid. On top of this to add insult to injury Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam in an interview bragged about killing Till and said they would do it again if they had to. This is really as low as you can get as a human being and was upsetting to think about. In the end this showed me really how bad it was in the south, and that racism there was widely supported by law enforcement.