"I decided I would reconduct the 'doll test' initially conducted by Dr. Kenneth Clark, which was used in the historic desegregation case, Brown vs. Board of Education." – Kiri Davis Source: American Anthropological Association
Share your thoughts about the clip by commenting on this blog post. Respond to at least one of the following questions in your comment.
1. Were you surprised by the outcome of Kiri Davis's updated doll test? 2. Did you learn something new about race and the pressure to conform? 3. Do you have your own anecdote to add about the social pressure that people can feel because of identity differences?
Read the lyrics of two songs about Emmett Till’s death by Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris. We recommend playing the video while you follow the lyrics. Leave a comment about which version you preferred and why. Be prepared to discuss in class.
1) Death of Emmett Till, by Bob Dylan (1962)
Twas down in Mississippi not so long ago,
When a young boy from Chicago walked through a Southern door.
This boy's fateful tragedy you should all remember well,
The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till.
Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up.
They said they had a reason, but I disremember what.
They tortured him and did some things too evil to repeat.
There was screaming sounds inside the barn, there was
laughing sounds out on the street.
Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a blood-red rain
And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain.
The reason that they killed him there, and I'm sure it was no lie,
Was just for the fun of killin' him and to watch him slowly die. ('cause he was born a black skinned boy, he was born to die)
And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial,
Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till.
But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit this awful crime,
And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind.
I saw the morning papers but I could not bear to see
The smiling brothers walkin' down the courthouse stairs.
For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free,
While Emmett's body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea.
If you can't speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that's so unjust,
Your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt, your mind is filled with dust.
Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood it must refuse to flow,
For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low!
This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man
That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan.
But if all us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could give,
We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live.
2) My Name is Emmett Till, by Emmylou Harris (2011)
