NFL premiers on MLK Day a video spot by Seahawks’ DK Metcalf on the murder of Emmett Till
DK Metcalf has lived since fifth grade with lessons and awareness from the death of Emmett Till in his home state.
Now the Seahawks’ Pro Bowl wide receiver is voicing his thoughts as part of the NFL’s Inspire Change initiative for social justice.
On Monday, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the league premiered Metcalf narrating Till’s story in the latest installment of the Say Their Stories series. The series has included George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others.
Metcalf, who turned 23 last month, grew up in Oxford, Mississippi. Till, a Black teenager from Chicago, visited that state to see family in 1955. Till was brutally murdered by white men and dumped in the Tallahatchie River after the 14-year-old boy allegedly flirted with a white woman in a store.
Metcalf learned of Till when the Seahawks receiver was in fifth grade in Mississippi, where he also played college football for the state’s flagship university in Oxford. This season, the league asked him and other players what name they would like to display on a decal on the back of their Seahawks helmets.
Metcalf chose to honor Till.
“I think a lot of people don’t know about Emmett Till,” Metcalf says at the start of his video. “He got brutally beat — to death, actually — by these white men just for whistling at a white woman when he was down in Mississippi.
“They found him a few days later in the Tallahatchie River, which is, like, an hour away from me, from where I grew up. ...
“He was beaten, hung, drowned — whatever possible you could think of being done to a teenage boy.
“It is very disturbing, in my eyes.”
Metcalf, the son of a former NFL offensive lineman, is speaking from a platform that continues to rise. He just finished his second NFL season with Seattle by making the Pro Bowl. He broke the Seahawks record of Hall of Famer Steve Largent for yards receiving in a season in 2020.
Metcalf says in the 3-minute, 42-second spot, over images of the Klu Klux Klan: “When people are angry at what’s going on in the world, you know it’s nothing new in my eyes, coming from Mississippi. I’ve been around it my whole life.
“Never experienced anything firsthand. But I know what’s going on in the world. I’m not blind to the fact of any of it.”
Of Till, Metcalf says: “His life means awareness.”
Till’s murder helped galvanize the civil rights movement.
Metcalf points out it didn’t change America. Not enough.
The video shows images of social-justice rallies and the Black Lives Matter movement from last year. The early 20th century spiritual song “Wade in the Water” plays over the images.
“Emmett Till is really like a backstory of how cutthroat the world is,” Metcalf says, “how racism has been going on for numerous years, been going on in America.
“And people think it just went on in the South. No, racism is going on across the United States. I’m sheltered because I am an NFL football player — and I’m a Black man first, though. And once I take this Seahawks jersey off, once I leave this football game, then I’m a regular Black man.”
Metcalf finishes by saying: “How are my kids going to view the world? Because I know how I view it. This is not a new problem. We should have done something a long time ago. ...
“Just bring awareness, to help your kids’ kids. The world needs love right now.
“Say his name: Emmett Till.”
This story was originally published January 19, 2021 at 12:30 PM.
