Willie Reed, an African-American man in Mississippi in 1955, saw a young man, Emmett Till, murdered.
Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till of Chicago had gone to the deep south to see his great uncle. At a time of titanic bigotry, Till made the mistake of flirting and whistling at a white woman.
While to those who never saw the African-Americans having to sit at the back of the bus, having to use the “colored” bathroom, and having to face discrimination simply because of the hands of fate, it is unimaginable.
The two white men who murdered Till were acquitted although Reed testified as an eyewitness at the trial of this most heinous murder. Afterward, he moved to Chicago and assumed a false identity.
But his strength to stand up for what was right, to say “enough” galvanized the civil rights movement and changed the world for African-Americans today.
Battles remain.
There are wrongs in this country, in this state, in this town.
Children are bullied, people lie, children and wives beaten and molested, and the innocent victimized.
It is the individual that can make a difference. It is you that can call the police when the sounds of fists hitting flesh echo.
It is you that can make a difference when hierarchy refuses to believe a child was molested.
It is you  who can choose to stand up and say “this is wrong”- or not.
It is you.

Karen La Pierre