Baby Boy Till

On August 28th 1955, a frightened colored boy was dragged out of his uncle's house by a group of men. The boy's name was Till. He was only 14 years old. No child deserved to be kidnapped and thrown into the back of a pickup truck in the dead of night. The Mississippi night air was smoldering and the frightened African American boy could feel every bit of the heat as he sat in the pickup truck's bed, praying for God to help him.

Till was still in his pajamas and his hands and feet were tied up by a rawhide rope. All the child could do was pray. He thought about his mother telling him to be careful. She told him that Mississippi was an extremely dangerous place for black people. Till was on his summer vacation. He never thought that visiting his relatives near Money, Mississippi would lead to him being kidnapped and pistol whipped by an angry white man. 

There were cuts on Till's face. The nose of a gun put bloody cuts on the child's forehead. Seven days earlier, the boy went to a grocery market with his cousin and a group of other boys. They were having fun together and playing around like most boys do. Till and his cousin ran through the grocery market playing hide and seek. It was not a criminal act to have innocent fun. Till had no idea that playing hide and seek with his cousin would get him in trouble. In the boy's mind, he regretted having a good time with his cousin in the grocery market. The boy and his cousin came to the market to buy candy, but they decided to have fun with each other during their shopping spree. The other boys joined in with Till and his cousin.

Till remembered trying to hide from his cousin and the other boys. He hid himself behind a vegetable stand. The boy could hear his cousin getting closer and he didn't want his cousin to find him. Realizing that he needed to find a new hiding place, Till jumped up and ran. When he ran around the vegetable stand, that's when it happened. The boy didn't mean to do it. He ran into someone and it was an accident. Even though it was an accident, the colored boy knew he would get in trouble for running into a white woman.

"Watch where you're going, nigger!" The white woman shouted at the colored boy.

"I'm-I'm sss-sorry mm-ma'am," Till remembered stuttering to the young white woman after she grabbed his wrist and barked at him. Every time Till would get nervous, he'd whistle. Sometimes he'd whistle to alleviate his stuttering. It was something his mother taught him to do and she felt that teaching him to whistle would help with his articulation. His mother taught him to whistle softly to himself before pronouncing his words.

The boy whistled. But he whistled because he was scared from being grabbed and shoved by the young white woman. Till didn't mean to bump into her and he remembered his mother telling him to keep his distance from white people. He remembered his mother telling him that white people will kill you just because of the color of your skin.

"You keep away from those white people, baby. You have to stay in your place around them so you can stay alive. You understand me?" This is what Till's mother said to him before kissing him goodbye and sending him away on his summer vacation. 

Till could hear his mother's voice in his head. The boy knew that he messed up and to make matters worse, the white woman that he accidentally bumped into was the co-owner of the grocery market. The white woman's husband was away on business and he had shared ownership.

The young white woman had an ominous beauty. Her hair resembled a bouquet of black roses. Her face was alien, pale and dainty. Her eyes were devilish and mysterious. Her pooched up delicate mouth was smothered in her blood red lipstick and her narrow, snooty nose complimented her lifeless mannequin beauty.

Till wanted to get away from the white woman and he couldn't look her in the eyes. It was something about the woman's cutthroat eyes that made the child's stomach convulse. A minute passed before the boy was rescued by his cousin and the group of other boys. The group of colored boys slowly backed away from the white woman as if she had a disease.

As Till sat in the back of the pickup truck crying, he thought about his encounter with the white woman. The boy thought about everything his mother warned him about. The ropes were tight on Till's wrists and ankles. The child's sweat soaked pajamas were clinging to his body and suffocating his skin through the night heat. Till knew that the angry white man who abducted him was going to kill him. He also knew that the white man was the husband of the white woman he accidentally bumped into in the grocery market. 

Till could still hear his cousin crying in his head. Till was sleeping in his cousin's room when the white man barged into the bedroom with a shotgun. Till remembered seeing his uncle and auntie being held by two other men in the hallway. The child remembered the white man threatening his uncle when his uncle pleaded for his nephew's life. Till thought the Devil had come into his cousin's bedroom. He remembered being afraid of the Boogeyman when he was five years old. That fear of the Boogeyman still assaulted the 14 year old's mind. The child had become a prisoner of the Boogeyman and he was trapped in the Boogeyman's pickup truck.

Till could feel his heart pounding in his throat when the white man's truck came to a rolling stop in front of a dilapidated barn. There were two men in the back of the truck with Till, and they were holding the boy like he was a bag of dog food. The men had no shirts on and their faces were covered by rawhide bags with two holes cut into them. Till thought the two men looked like two bulky, shirtless scarecrows that towered over him. The men dragged Till out of the truck and Till could see that the two men dragging him were colored men. 

The colored men were being ordered around by the white man. They were his manservants and they were reluctant to kidnap the boy, but they were forced into doing so when the white man threatened to shoot them. One of the colored men wanted to release the frightened boy, but he knew his boss would kill him in a heartbeat.

"Bring that nigger in here!" The white man roared at the two colored men while pointing at Till. The white man was accompanied by another white man who was his partner.

Till couldn't breathe when he knew that the white man would kill him. The child was being carried into the dark barn like a pig being carried into a slaughterhouse. 

Sweat poured down Till's angelic face. The boy had a sweet face, but the cuts, bruises and tears contaminated his angelic face. Till wanted to be with his mother. He wanted to be back in Chicago. The boy found himself choking on his tears while on his knees with his hands tied behind his back. Till laid in the dirt and he stared up at the mountainous white man and his partner, who was the white man's half brother. Both men casted their enormous shadows over till. Their faces were stone carved and bleak.

Till watched as the lead white man told the two colored men to leave the barn. He put his cold eyes back down on Till while clutching his large, rusty hands around his shotgun. Till whimpered softly while glancing up at the white man through his tear-soaked, pleading eyes.

"Ain't no sense in crying, boy! You're gonna have to answer for what you did to my wife!" The white man snarled down at Till before slapping the colored child across his face with the back of his hand. 

Till shivered and began gasping after getting slapped. The boy kept praying to God. He kept praying for a miracle and he could feel his heart choking him.

"My wife told me what you did. She told me how you flirted with her." The white man kneeled down in front of Till while spitting his words in the child's face. "You wolf whistled at my wife. When you wolf whistle at a woman that means you're flirting with her." The white man whispered harshly, stabbing Till in the chest with his long finger. 

Till swallowed hard while shaking his head. "I-I-I d-didn't w-w-wolf whistle at your wife, s-sir." Till stuttered at the man. The boy tried to plead his case to the white man, but he could see a thirst for blood in the man's eyes.

"Are you calling my wife a liar, nigger!" The white man's deep booming voice shook the tears in Till's eyes.

"I d-didn't wolf whistle a-at yo wife. I w-whistle whenever I g-g-get nervous. I accidentally r-ran into your wife, and she gr-grabbed me and t-t-told me to w-watch where I was going." Till tried to talk while swallowing his tears at the same time. The child's heart was pounding so hard against his chest that it felt like his chest bone was going to snap in half. The boy felt like he had a headache in his chest. The throbbing in the boy's chest was agonizing and he thought he would pass out from the pain.

"Boy, why would my wife lie on you!?" The white man grabbed Till by the throat. He leaned in the child's face while licking his lips. "You black boys think you can do whatever the hell y'all want! Did you think you could whistle at a white woman and get away with it nigger?" The white man chuckled as he squeezed his thick and heavy fingers around Till's neck. 

"I-I was playing with m-my cousin, sir. We w-w-we're playing hide and s-seek!" Till cried out his words while gasping for air. "I-I-I didn't flirt w-with your wife! I'm telling the t-truth, s-sir!" Till kept pleading his case, but every time he'd speak, he could feel the white man's massive fingers tightening around his throat like a noose.

"You black boys think you can do whatever you want," The white man sneered at Till while pressing the nose of his sawed off shotgun beneath the boy's chin. "Niggers think they can take over the world. They're trying to go to the same school with our children. They're trying to run our government. Next thing you know, a nigger might be trying to run for president!" The white man slowly stood up while laughing and aiming his shotgun down at Till's face.

"Please s-s-sir, don't k-k-k-k-kill me!" Till's stuttering became worse when his eyes met the shotgun's dark barrels. The shotgun's barrels looked like two pitch black tunnels in Till's eyes. 

"Now you black boys think you can have our women! I'm gonna teach you a lesson. A nigger ain't gonna flirt with my wife!" The white man flipped his shotgun around and he was about to strike Till in his face with the butt of the gun. 

Till closed his eyes when he thought the white man was about to bring the handle of the shotgun down on his face. The boy knew that the hard blow would break every bone in his face. Till didn't want to die and at that moment, something happened. The boy opened his eyes to see what looked like a woman in black standing behind the white man with her arm around the white man's throat.

At first, Till thought the woman in black was his mother. She was colored like his mother and she was pretty like his mother, but something was different. Till noticed how the woman in black had his mother's same pretty caramel skin tone. But the colored woman wore two black shields over her eyes and she sported a long, sleeveless black leather dress that glistened in the night.

What amazed Till was how the woman in black was choking the lead white man, who was twice her size, while fighting his half brother with her other hand. The boy watched as the woman in black through the white man's half brother through the barn's wall. 

"Tonight, you die, white boy," Till heard the woman in black whisper to the white man as she strangled him with her slender tattooed arm. The boy thought that maybe he was looking up at an angel in black. He couldn't believe that he was watching a beautiful colored woman choke the life out of a white man.

"I-I can't breathe," The white man coughed up his words while clutching at the woman's arm. The white man kept driving his elbow into the woman's stomach hoping that his hard blow would free his neck, but it was no use. Hitting the woman in her stomach was like striking a hard metal surface. The white man fractured his elbow after he struck the woman in her torso. He could feel her breasts pressing into his back and he could feel his throat collapsing beneath her slender, muscular arm.

Within a few seconds, the white man was dead. Till watched the woman in black snap the white man's neck like a chicken bone. Before the man died, he saw all the innocent black men that he lynched. He saw himself as one of the black men hanging from a tree. But instead of being hung by a noose, it was a black woman's arm. The white man fell into eternal darkness after his neck was broken.

After executing the lead white man, the woman in black turned her attention on the white man's half brother. 

Till saw the tall man foolishly run back into the barn after the mysterious woman threw him through a wall. Till saw bloody gashes on the man's face when he stepped back into the barn. The boy could see that the man was injured, but the child could also see that the man's injuries didn't stop him from trying to fight the woman in black.

The man came at the woman after he saw that his half brother was dead. It was time for another white man to die. 

Till watched in amazement as the second white man grabbed his brother's shotgun and began unloading at the woman. What amazed the child is that the woman was still standing after being shot in the chest.

The bullets never penetrated the woman. Instead, the bullets bounced off the woman's cleavage. The second white man kept shooting and he foolishly brought his huge body close enough for the woman to grab him. 

Like a housefly caught in a spider's web, the half brother became ensnared in the woman's hands. The woman broke the man's legs. She broke his arms. She fractured his nose and jawline. Before he grabbed his last breath, he watched the woman remove her sunglasses while kneeling down over him with his brother's shotgun in her hand.

Till watched as the woman in black blew the man's head off with his own brother's shotgun. The woman killed the second white man like a veterinarian shooting down at an injured horse.  

There was a brief moment of silence and after the silence passed that's when Till saw the lead white man's wife. He saw her run into the barn screaming her head off when she saw that her husband was dead. Till knew that it was the same white woman who grabbed him at the grocery market. The child didn't know that the white woman was sitting in her husband's pickup truck and was told to stay in the truck by her husband.

"Roy!!" The white woman screamed out her husband's name as she ran toward his dead body. 

Till watched as the white woman never made it to her husband's body. The boy watched as the woman in black grabbed the white woman's arm. He watched as the white woman fell to her knees screaming after the woman in black snapped the bone in her arm.

"Apologize to him," The woman in black whispered in the white woman's ear while pointing at Till. When the white woman refused to apologize to the boy, she ended up getting her shoulder dislocated by the woman in black. "Apologize to the boy!" The woman in black repeated her order to the white woman. Her voice was smooth yet commanding and it echoed throughout the barn. 

The white woman gulped as she looked at Till. "I'm sorry, Sugar! I love black children and I apologize for lying on you!" The white woman apologized to Till through a desperate gasping cry. After apologizing to the colored boy, the white woman passed out from the pain of her broken arm and dislocated shoulder. 

Till's mouth was gaped open from shock as he watched the white woman fall flat on her face. He couldn't believe that he watched a mysterious black woman kill two white men. He also couldn't believe that he watched the woman in black injure the same white woman that he accidentally ran into in the grocery market. 

It was normal for the boy to feel afraid of the woman in black after seeing what she did. But Till's fear of the woman in black departed from him when she reached down and caressed his young face.

"Who are you?" Till sweetly asked the woman in black after she untied his hands and feet.

The mysterious woman smirked at Till. "I'm your guardian angel, baby. That's all you need to know," The woman in black replied to Till's question, before giving the boy a motherly kiss on his forehead.