Fifty years ago, white people allowed Emmett Till’s killers to get away with murder. Last week, one of America’s most prominent black civil rights leaders stood in the way of justice. The Rev. Jesse Jackson helped stage a news conference to oppose exhuming Emmett’s body for an autopsy.

Emmett’s death is among the most famous of unresolved civil rights-era murders. He was the 14-year-old Chicago youth who went to Mississippi to visit relatives, had the audacity in that day to whistle at a white woman and wound up so badly mutilated that his mother allowed his coffin to remain open so people could see what hate literally did to her son.

That was in 1955.

Two men were quickly arrested for the crime. But the racist codes of the day prevailed.

An all-white jury took only a few minutes more than an hour to acquit the men. Later, jury members said the acquittal wouldn’t have taken that long, except they took a soft-drink break.

The two acquitted men then accepted payment from a magazine reporter for their story and admitted to committing murder. Those two men are dead, but people familiar with the case have long believed that others were involved in Emmett’s death. That might mean people still living are walking around thinking they, too, have gotten away with the brutal killing.

Apparently, Jackson does not understand the nuances of the case. Maybe he is being swayed by an understandable reluctance to disturb a grave.

But even that is interesting, because two years ago Jackson introduced – at the funeral of Emmett’s mother – the two men who are largely responsible for the FBI and the state of Mississippi investigating the case today: Alvin Sykes and Keith Beauchamp.

Sykes, of Kansas City, Kan., is a legal activist with a track record of convincing government prosecutors to pursue racially motivated crimes. Beauchamp, a Brooklyn documentarian, spent the last 10 years painstakingly tracking down and interviewing people associated with the case. Beauchamp’s evidence – shaped with the help of Sykes – is what helped persuade the Justice Department to open the case.

Wednesday, another news conference is to be held, this one with Beauchamp, the Rev. Al Sharpton and the cousin who was in the room when Emmett was kidnapped. They will voice support for the exhumation.

There are sensitivities, of course, to exhuming a body. But as gory as it sounds, exhuming Emmett’s body is absolutely necessary to lay him to rest. If new charges are filed, the body must first be established as Emmett.

The acquittal of the two men originally accused of the murder came largely because some claimed the body was not Emmett. A Mississippi sheriff accused the NAACP of digging up a corpse and planting the body in the Tallahatchie River to stir up trouble.

The case will go forward, with or without Jackson’s blessing. Federal investigators do not need anyone’s OK to proceed.

Here’s another point: If new charges are filed, the defense of the accused will probably want the identity of the corpse established. This way, the Till family members can be more involved, perhaps offering the spiritual blessings Emmett deserves as his grave is disturbed.

Jackson, in his comments, accused the federal investigator of using Emmett as a “trophy” and of grandstanding. The question was also asked, “Why now?” The answer is that 2005 is different from 1955.

Emmett’s uncle broke every racial code when he stood up in a courtroom and identified the two white men who kidnapped Emmett from his bed. Then, a poor black man risked his own life and the life of every member of his family with such a charge. Today, the lead prosecutor in Mississippi, Joyce Chiles, is black. The state of Mississippi is said to have more elected black officials than any other state. Sykes and Beauchamp are black. The legal team piecing the new case together includes a Latino, whites, blacks and an Asian.

The nation should be ashamed 50 years passed before Emmett’s death was given a fair review. But it is happening. And for Emmett’s sake, no one should stand in the way.