Probably more than any other even of
the early 1950s, the murder of 14 year old Chicago native Emmett
Till in Money, Mississippi by two bigoted white men brought the
criminal side of Jim Crow to the American public's
conscience.
Emmett Till's mother, Mamie Till
Mobley, originally from the Tallahatchie County area in Mississippi
where Money is located in the Delta region, sent Emmett to spend the
summer of 1955 with his great-uncle Mose Wright who was a cotton
sharecropper.
While Emmett may have been street-wise
to the ways of Chicago, he was unfamiliar with the Jim Crow world of
Southern white supremacy where African-American men were called
"boy" to their face, African-American women were called by their
first name regardless of age, and lynching was considered
justice. As we will see, his ignorance would lead to his
doom in the small town of Money.
On August 24, 1955, while hanging out
with his cousins, young Emmett, was caught in a dare. He had
told the other youngsters a white teenager in a picture he carried
was his girlfriend back in Chicago. They dared him to go into
a small grocery store in Money owned by the Bryant family and say
hello to the white woman working there. Emmett went in, bought
some gum with a couple of pennies, and then said, "Bye, Baby" to
Caroyln Bryant, the store owner's wife.
This juvenile prank led to a nightmare
come to life. Three days later, in the dead of the night, two
men, Roy Bryant and his brother-in-law, J.W. Milam, invaded the home
of Mose Wright, dragged Emmett from the house while holding off the
Wright family at gunpoint. Over the next few hours, these two
sons of the South behaved worse than animals--actually, just like
barbaric savages: they flogged Emmett, drove him to a place
near the Tallahatchie River, forced him to strip naked, gouged out
his eye, shot him in the head, and then tied his mutilated dead body
to a cotton gin fan stone with barbed wire and disposed of his body
in the water. Three days later on August 31, Emmett's body was
found floating near the bank of the river.
When Emmett's body was sent home to
Chicago for burial, his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, bravely met
the train at the Illinois Central Railroad Station and demanded the
casket be opened. She confirmed the identification made in
Mississippi of the murdered child, namely recognizing an
initial ring on the finger of the mutilated body. Enraging the
racists in the South, especially the bloodthirsty supporters of the
Jim Crow lynch justice dispensed in Money and the surrounding
counties, Mrs. Till insisted her son be waked in public with an open
casket. Jet Magazine, a national African-American, made sure
all of America was able to see the results of Jim Crow justice by
printing photographs of Emmett in his casket.
The shame and attention brought upon
Mississippi forced the authorities there to indict Bryant and Milam,
but they were acquitted in a kangaroo court two weeks later
consisting of an all-white jury despite Mose Wright identifying both
as the men who kidnapped Emmett from his home in the middle of the
night. Sometime later, they told their story to William
Bradford Huie, a major magazine journalist and author, in exchange
for money since they could not be prosecuted a second time due to
double jeopardy.
In 1999, part of my vacation was a
"civil rights movement sightseeing tour." Following a
much-folded map of Mississippi and the directions in my "Weary Feet,
Rested Souls" guide to movement landmarks, I turned south off
westbound Mississippi Route 8 just east of the Tallahatchie River,
and followed a dusty county road south for probably 15
minutes.
Just as the road slid out of one curve
and opened into a T-intersection, a scene out of history appeared in
the hazy, dust-covered intersection--the abandoned Bryant Grocery
where Emmett allegedly said "Bye, Baby" to the store owner's
wife.
To say you could feel the evil hanging
in the air as you stepped out of the car is an understatement.
There was no one in sight, no wildlife creeping around, no insects
buzzing around--not even a sound to be heard. I was
struck by this sensation of nothing moving, almost as if Mother
Nature was saying, "This is a place where something wicked
happened." Weeks later, when my film was developed I noticed
the stream of light coming down from the heavens to the ground in
front of me--a light stream not visible when I took the
picture! I'll let you draw your own conclusions on that
issue.
As you might imagine, there's a lot of
folklore and history intertwined in this story. I urge you to
read this Washington Post story to get another story on it.
You'll be struck by how the reporter felt the same sense of evil I
felt in Money when I was near the abandoned grocery store.
Deep down, I feel like that feeling comes from the thought of Jim
Crow being crushed under the foot of Justice.
===== MAY 2004 UPDATE
=====
The US Department of
Justice re-opened the Emmett Till murder investigation as recent
information indicates more people may have been involved than Milam
and Bryant. Recent research indicates some of these additional
people may still be alive. Details can be found at the US
Department of Justice web site:
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2004/May/04_crt_311.htm
=====
FYI --
Court TV's web site, www.crimelibrary.com, used
this photo in their Notorious
Murders story series on the Emmett Till Murder in July
2003.
For additional information, visit
these great web sites:
Story on Heroism.Org's web
site
Interview with Curtis
Jones, Emmett Till's Cousin, who was with Emmett the
night of the incident in the grocery
Picture of Emmett Till
Grave in Alsip, IL near Chicago
* * * *
*
TENDER EYES
WARNING
* * * *
*
THE LINKED
PAGES BELOW CONTAIN
GRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHS
OF WHAT
HAPPENED TO EMMETT TILL.
PARENTAL
GUIDANCE IS SUGGESTED FOR THOSE UNDER 18
The Death of Emmett Till Memorial
Site
"Complete Photo Story of Till
Murder Case" photographed and printed by Ernest C.
Withers in 1955 - an excellent source!
Lisa Cozzens'
Essay on the Civil Rights Movement which starts with
the Emmett Till Murder
