I have long known of Emmett Till's murder but hadn't realised that Carolyn Bryant was still alive.

Given the times, the place, the prejudice, I think I can understand Carolyn Bryant's perjury and don't believe that it would have made any difference to the court verdict. In that place, at that time, the all white jury would have acquitted the perpetrators regardless.

The events are sickening but sadly, not particularly unique.

What is just as sickening to me is that almost 50 years later, such misguided hatred, prejudice, bigotry continues to promote not only disadvantage to non-white citizens of mainly white, 'developed' nations but a continuation also of bullying, abuse, physical attack and even killings that often go unpunished.

Given that humanity is composed of just one race and that our race originated in Africa, it is even more irrational and insane that differing ethnic groups, religious groups or ideological groups choose to demean, dehumanise and attempt to destroy one another.

How is it, I wonder, that humanity has made such amazing progress in science and technology, yet almost none, if any at all, in the affective domain?

It seems that we are far too easily conditioned and led, or should I say, 'misled'. Perhaps our one hope is that the awareness, courage and leadership of young people such as Malala Yousafzai, Greta Thunberg, Damilola Odufuwa and Odunayo Eweniyi, Alaa Murabit, Luisa Neubauer, Grace Tame and so many others whose names ought also to join this list.

In my 75th year, it is these women and their like that mitigate the devastation, horror and bewilderment I feel at the gross and malevolent actions that some human beings will take against others. Just as, past women of courage and awareness, such as Harriett Tubman, Carolyn Chisholm, Louisa Lawson, Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin, Ida B. Wells and, again, so many others have done, the amazing young women of today set an example that suggests there is still some hope that the human race will eventually achieve a universal humanity.