For civil rights fighters, Derek Chauvin guilty verdict delivers a measure of justice – By Ivey DeJesus (Pennlive) / April 20 2021
A jury of 12 on Tuesday delivered something an all-white jury was unable to deliver in 1955 nor seldom after: Justice for a Black man.
For the men who have been fighting for racial and social justice in Harrisburg for decades, the acquittal 66 years ago in the Emmett Till murder has remained a gaping wound in the fight for justice. Three white men acquitted in less than an hour by an all-white jury of the murder of a 14-year-old Black boy in Mississippi.
On Tuesday, history turned a new chapter as a mixed race jury deliberated for only two days to reach a guilty verdict in the case of Derek Chauvin, the white former Minneapolis police officer accused of killing George Floyd, a Black man.
“It lets us know that America is no longer blind to egregious acts of violence,” said Joseph Robinson, president of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership Development Institute in Harrisburg.
