Chicago

Presentation by Irish Consul in Chicago to Mother Jones Heritage group

/ Admin / Leave a comment

Presentation by Irish Vice Consul in Chicago to the Mother Jones Statue Campaign committee of the Mother Jones Heritage Project.

We attach a report from the Mother Jones Heritage Project.

“Our Mother Jones Chicago statue sculpture fundraising is off to a glorious start. Proud to accept a generous check from Sara Keating, Vice Consul General of Ireland for Chicago and the Midwest today for $36,000 for this project as a kick start, from their Emigrant Support Programme grant program. We worked hard to have a chance at this grant.  We need to raise a lot more, though (more details soon), but this is going to happen.

Presentation by Irish Consul

Left to right, members of the statue committee: Helen Ramirez-Odell, Brigid Duffy, Elliott Gorn, Vice-consul Keating, Rosemary Feurer, David J. Rathke, Margaret Fulkerson.

We are building our committee and will update.

This project has wings!! We will be sharing more news and specifics in a future newsletter. Please let us know if you want to help.

We also received $9700 funding for our grant application from the Irish Emigrant Support Program, for a St Louis-based project on Fannie Sellins, the Irish-American labor organizer who was murdered 100 years ago. Fannie was Mother Jones’ comrade, and she got her start in the Women’s Trade Union League of St. Louis.  We’ll be updating on that later as well.”

The Cork Mother Jones Committee wish the organisers well in their fundraising efforts to erect a fitting monument to Mother Jones in the City of Chicago and urge anyone interested to support their great efforts.

The Story of Emmett Till: Let the People See

/ Admin / Leave a comment

Professor Elliott J. Gorn will tell the story of Emmett Till at the Firkin Crane Theatre on Saturday afternoon 3rd August at 3pm.

Let the People See.

Emmett Till

14 year old Emmett Till from Chicago visited some of his family in Mississippi in August 1955.

He allegedly whistled at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant who was working behind the counter of a country store in Money, Mississippi on 24th August. Emmett was kidnapped by Mrs Bryant’s husband Roy  and half brother J.W. “Big” Milam a few days later. They beat him and then shot him.

Emmett’s tortured body was found in the Taallahatchie River on Wednesday August 31st, with a cotton gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire.

 

 

Instead of quietly burying the remains, Emmett’s mother Mamie Till-Mobley decided to have an open casket at the funeral in Chicago.

 

She proclaimed         “Let the people see what they did to my boy.”  

The mutilated face of Emmett Till

A hundred thousand people did see his face as they filed past the casket and millions saw the photos in the African-American press.

The burial aroused a storm of wider media interest and the story was featured extensively all over America. Yet just a month later the all-white jury found the killers of Emmett Till not guilty of murder in spite of strong evidence presented.

 

 

Prof. Elliott Gorn’s book

African Americans were shocked and horrified while many white Americans were forced to question the systematic racism which infected American society. The lynching of Emmett Till became a defining moment for many African Americans from Muhammad Ali to Rosa Parks. On 1st December 1955, Parks refused to give up her seat at the front of the bus in Montgomery. A few days earlier she had attended a meeting where the Emmett Till case was discussed.

The Till murder sparked a generation to create the greatest mass mobilisation of the twentieth- century in the American civil rights movement.

The lynching of young Emmet Till forces everyone to look hard at the realities of racism today as racially motivated violence continues despite the haunting image of young Till and the determination of his brave mother Mamie to let the people see!

Elliott J. Gorn

Author Elliott J. Gorn will talk of the short life and death of Emmett Till at the Firkin Crane Theatre on Saturday 3rd August at 3pm.

Elliott’s book,  The Story of Emmett Till……Let the People See is published by Oxford University Press 2018. He is also the author of Mother Jones – The Most Dangerous Woman in America and will speak about Mother Jones on Wednesday evening at 8pm at the Firkin Crane Theatre. All welcome.

Mother Jones continues to draw huge interest in the USA

/ Admin / 1 Comment

Some news in from our friends at the Mother Jones Heritage Project in Illinois with thanks to Prof. Rosemary Feurer.

Firstly there’s an update on two exciting musical events

Tickets go on sale tomorrow, 4th February for what promises to be a highly impressive performance of the 2019 Siamsa na nGael – a Celtic Celebration of the Arts, Song, Dance and Stories.

Tickets are on sale beginning February 4. Post performance and sponsorship packages are available by calling 312-798-2348. The event takes place at the Old St. Patrick’s Church in Chicago.

Next there’s the equally exciting performance of the musical Mother Jones in Heaven by the inimitable Si Kahn who performed at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival in Cork in 2014.   The musical will be performed on Wednesday, March  27th 2019 at 7.00pm at the Irish American Center in Chicago.

There’s also the Mother Jones May Day Birthday Party on May 1st celebrating Mother Jones unofficial “American birthday” at the same venue, followed by the opening of a brand new Mother Jones exhibition by artist Lindsay Hand.  The exhibition and works are funded by the Government of Ireland.