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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Moni3 (talk | contribs) at 20:44, 22 January 2024 (→Funeral and reaction). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


Early life

Emmett Till was the son of Mamie Carthan (1921–2003) and Louis Till (1922–1945). Carthan was born in the small town of Webb, Mississippi. When she was two years old, her family moved to Argo, Illinois near Chicago, where her mother's home was often used as a way-station for people who had just moved from the South as they were trying to find jobs and homes. Argo received so many Southern migrants it was nicknamed "Little Mississippi". {{citation}}: Empty citation (help) Tens of thousands of black Americans moved North between 1910 and 1970 as part of the Great Migration to escape lack of opportunity and unequal treatment under the law.[1] Mississippi was the poorest state in the U.S. in the 1950s, and the Delta counties, located in the northwestern part of the state in the watershed of the Yazoo and Mississippi Rivers, were some of the poorest in Mississippi.[2] In Tallahatchie County, where Mamie Carthan was born, the average income per household in 1949 was $690 (equivalent to $8,800 in 2023); for black families it was $462 (equivalent to $5,900 in 2023).[3] Economic opportunities for black people were almost nonexistent. Most were sharecroppers who lived on land owned by whites. Black people were not allowed to vote and they had few legal rights after slavery when they were disenfranchised by Black Codes passed by the Mississippi Legislature, and Jim Crow Laws enacted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries which enforced racial segregation. {{citation}}: Empty citation (help)

[1] [4]

Till was born in Chicago and nicknamed "Bobo" as an infant by a family friend. Mamie largely raised him with her mother; she and Louis Till separated in 1942 after she found out he had been unfaithful, and later choked her to unconsciousness, to which she responded by throwing scalding water at him.[5] For violating court orders to stay away from Mamie, Emmett's father was forced by a judge to choose between jail or enlisting in the U.S. Army which he did in 1943, and died in 1945.[6][7] At the age of six Emmett contracted polio, leaving him with a persistent stutter.[8] Mamie and Emmett moved to Detroit where she met and married "Pink" Bradley in 1951. Emmett preferred living in Chicago, so he relocated to live with his grandmother; his mother rejoined him with his stepfather later that year. The marriage dissolved in 1952, however, and Pink Bradley returned to Detroit.[9]

[10]

Mamie Till Bradley and Emmett lived alone together in a busy neighborhood in Chicago's South Side with extended family nearby. She began working as a civilian clerk for the U.S. Air Force for a better salary, and recalled that Emmett was industrious enough to help with chores at home although he sometimes got distracted. She remembered that he did not know his own limitations at times. Following their separation, Pink Bradley paid her a visit and began threatening her. At eleven years old, Emmett, with a butcher knife in hand, told Pink he would kill him if he did not leave.[11] Usually, however, Emmett was happy. He and his cousins and friends pulled pranks on each other (Emmett once took advantage of an extended car ride when his friend fell asleep and placed the friend's underwear on his head) and spent their free time in pickup baseball games. He was a smart dresser and often the center of attention around his peers.[12]

In 1955, Mamie Till Bradley's uncle, 64-year-old Mose Wright, visited them in Chicago during the summer and told Emmett stories about living in the Mississippi Delta. Wright was a sharecropper and part-time minister who was often called "Preacher". He lived in Money, Mississippi, a small town in the Delta that consisted of three stores, a school, a post office, a cotton gin, and a couple hundred residents, 8 miles (13 km) north of Greenwood.[13] Emmett wanted to see the Delta for himself. His mother was ready for a vacation and planned to take Emmett with her, but after he begged her to visit Wright, she relented. Wright planned to accompany Till and a cousin to Money where another cousin would join them. Before his departure, Till's mother cautioned him that Chicago and Mississippi were two different worlds and he should know how to behave in front of whites in the South. He assured her he understood.[14][15]

Racial segregation, which was pervasive throughout the South, was established and enforced primarily to prevent interracial romantic and sexual relationships. Although this occurred, particularly among white men and black women, the protection of white women from black men was the hinge upon which this severely divided caste system functioned. Although it rarely happened, even the suggestion of sexual contact between black men and white women carried the most severe penalties for black men. Since 1882, when statistics on lynchings began to be collected, more than 500 black Americans had been killed by extrajudicial violence in Mississippi alone and more than 3,000 across the South.[16] The majority of the incidents took place between 1876 and 1930; though far less common by the mid-1950s, these racially motivated murders still occurred. Zealous enforcement of segregation continued following World War II and racial tensions were furthermore on the rise after the United States Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education to allow integration in public schools. Many segregationists viewed the ruling as an avenue to allow interracial marriage. The reaction among whites in the South was to constrain blacks forcefully from any semblance of social equality.[17][18] A week before Till arrived, a black man named Lamar Smith was shot in front of the county courthouse in Brookhaven, Mississippi for political organizing. Three men were arrested but acquitted.[19]




[20]

Younge, Gary (5 June 2005). "Justice at last?". The Guardian.

Encounter with Carolyn Bryant

Murder

When Roy Bryant was told of what had transpired, he aggressively questioned several young black men who entered the store. That evening, Bryant, with a black man named J. W. Washington, approached a young black man walking along a road. Bryant ordered Washington to seize the young man, put him in the back of his pickup truck, and took him to be identified by an as-yet unnamed companion of Carolyn's who had witnessed the episode with Till. Friends or parents vouched for the young men in Bryant's store, and Carolyn's companion denied that the young man Bryant and Washington seized was the one who had accosted her. Somehow, however, Bryant learned that the young man who had done it was from Chicago and was staying with Mose Wright.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). They put Till in the back of a pickup truck and drove to a barn at the Clint Shurden Plantation in Drew. Till was pistol-whipped and placed in the bed of the pickup truck again and covered with a tarpaulin. Throughout the course of the night, Bryant, Milam, and witnesses recall them being in several locations with Till. According to some witnesses, they took Till to a shed behind Milam's home in the nearby town of Glendora where they beat him again and tried to decide what to do. Witnesses recall between two and four white men and two and four black men who were either in or surrounding the pickup truck where Till was seated. Others passed by Milam's shed to the sounds of someone being beaten. Accounts differ as to when Till was shot; either in Milam's shed or by the Tallahatchie River. He was driven to Bryant's store where several people noticed blood pooling in the truck bed. Bryant explained he killed a deer, and in one instance showed the body to a black man who questioned him, saying "that's what happens to smart niggers".[21]

Well, what else could we do? He was hopeless. I'm no bully; I never hurt a nigger in my life. I like niggers—in their place—I know how to work 'em. But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, niggers are gonna stay in their place. Niggers ain't gonna vote where I live. If they did, they'd control the government. They ain't gonna go to school with my kids. And when a nigger gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he's tired o' livin'. I'm likely to kill him. Me and my folks fought for this country, and we got some rights. I stood there in that shed and listened to that nigger throw that poison at me, and I just made up my mind. 'Chicago boy,' I said, 'I'm tired of 'em sending your kind down here to stir up trouble. Goddam you, I'm going to make an example of you—just so everybody can know how me and my folks stand.'

—J. W. Milam, Look magazine, 1956[22]

In an interview with William Bradford Huie in Look magazine in 1956, Bryant and Milam stated that their intention was to beat Till and throw him off an embankment into the river to frighten him. They told Huie that while they were beating Till, however, he called them bastards, declared he was as good as they, and had in the past had sexual encounters with white women. They then put Till in the back of their truck, drove to a cotton gin to take a 70-pound (32 kg) fan—the only time they admitted to being worried, thinking that by this time in early daylight they would be spotted and accused of stealing—and drove for several miles along the river looking for a place to dispose of Till. They shot him by the river and weighted his body with the fan.[22][a]

Mose Wright stayed on his front porch for 20 minutes waiting for Till to return. He did not go back to bed. He and another man went into Money, got gasoline, and drove around trying to find Till. Unsuccessful, they returned home by 8:00 am. After hearing from Wright he would not call the police because he feared for his life, Curtis Jones placed a call to the Leflore County sheriff and another to his mother in Chicago, who, hysterical, called Mamie Till Bradley. Wright and his wife also drove to Sumner, where Elizabeth Wright's brother contacted the sheriff.[23][24][25]

Bryant and Milam were questioned by Leflore County sheriff George Smith. They admitted they had taken the boy from his great-uncle's yard, but claimed they had released him the same night in front of Bryant's store. Bryant and Milam were arrested for kidnapping.[26] Word got out that Till was missing and soon Medgar Evers, Mississippi state field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and Amzie Moore, head of the NAACP's Bolivar County chapter, became involved, disguising themselves as cotton pickers to speak safely with field workers who might know any information to find Till.[27]

Three days after his abduction, Till's swollen and disfigured body was found by two boys fishing in the Tallahatchie River. His head was very badly damaged, he had been shot above the right ear, an eye was dislodged from the socket, there was evidence that he had been beaten on the back and the hips, and his body was weighted to the fan blade, fastened around his neck with barbed wire. He was nude, but wearing a silver ring with the initials "L. T." and "May 25, 1943" carved in it.[28][b]

Confusion about Till's whereabouts and a positive identification of the body retrieved from the river compounded issues in the case that eventually influenced the trial. Before the body was found Hodding Carter in the Delta Democrat-Times, a local Mississippi newspaper, reported that Till may have been in hiding with relatives or perhaps he returned to Chicago for his safety.[29] The body's face was unrecognizable due to trauma and the result of being submerged in water. Mose Wright was called to the river and identified Till. The silver ring Till wore was removed and returned to Wright, and further passed to the district attorney. Stories from witnesses, both black and white, conflict about whether the ring was on Till's body and who knew he had worn it previously.[30]

Funeral and reaction

Till's death immediately eclipsed other racially motivated murders in Mississippi's history, provoking discussions about segregation, law enforcement, relations between the North and South, the social status quo in Mississippi, the NAACP, White Citizens' Councils, and the Cold War, all of which were played out in a drama staged in newspapers all over the U.S. and abroad.[31] When Till went missing, a three-paragraph story was printed in the Greenwood Commonwealth and quickly picked up by other Mississippi newspapers. They reported on his death when the body was found, and the next day when a picture of him his mother had taken the previous Christmas showing them smiling together, appeared in the Jackson Daily News and Vicksburg Evening Post, editorials and letters to the editor were printed expressing shame at the people who had caused Till's death. One read "Now is the time for every citizen who loves the state of Mississippi to 'Stand up and be counted' before hoodlum white trash brings us to destruction." The letter went on to state that Negroes were not the downfall of Mississippi society, but whites like those in White Citizens' Councils that condoned violence.[32]

Till's body was clothed, packed in lime, and placed in a pine coffin and prepared for burial. It may have been embalmed while in Mississippi. Mamie Till Bradley demanded the body be sent to Chicago; she later stated she worked to halt an immediate burial in Mississippi and called several local and state authorities in Illinois and Mississippi to make sure her son was returned to Chicago.[33] A doctor did not examine Till post-mortem.[34]

Mississippi's governor, Hugh L. White, deplored the murder, asserting that local authorities should pursue a "vigorous prosecution". He sent a telegram to the national offices of the NAACP promising a full investigation and assuring them "Mississippi does not condone such conduct". Delta residents, both black and white, also distanced themselves from Till's murder, finding the circumstances abhorrent. Local newspaper editorials denounced the murderers without question.[35][36] Leflore County Deputy Sheriff John Cothran stated, "The white people around here feel pretty mad about the way that poor little boy was treated, and they won't stand for this."[37]

Soon, however, discourse about Till's murder became more complex. Robert B. Patterson, executive secretary of the segregationist White Citizens' Council used Till's death to claim that black people were safer under racial segregation policies and the NAACP was neutralizing their efforts. In response, NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins characterized the incident as a lynching and stated that Mississippi was attempting to maintain white supremacy through murder, and "there is in the entire state no restraining the influence of decency, not in the state capital, among the daily newspapers, the clergy, nor any segment of the so-called better citizens".[38] Mamie Till Bradley told a reporter that she would seek legal aid to help law enforcement find her son's killers and that the State of Mississippi should share the financial responsibility. She was misquoted; it came out as "Mississippi is going to pay for this".[39]

The A. A. Rayner Funeral Home in Chicago received Till's body, and upon arrival, Bradley insisted on viewing it to make a positive identification, later stating that the stench from it was noticeable two blocks away.[40] She decided on an open casket funeral, saying "There was just no way I could describe what was in that box. No way. And I just wanted the world to see."[27] Tens of thousands of people lined the street outside the mortuary to view Till's body, and days later thousands more attended his funeral at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ. Photographs of his mutilated corpse circulated around the country, notably appearing in Jet magazine and The Chicago Defender, both black publications, and drew intense public reaction. According to The Nation and Newsweek, Chicago's black community was "aroused as it has not been over any similar act in recent history".[41][c] Till was buried September 6 in Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.

News about Emmett Till spread to both coasts. Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley and Illinois Governor William Stratton also became involved, urging Governor White to see that justice be done. The tone in Mississippi newspapers changed dramatically. They falsely reported riots in the funeral home in Chicago. Bryant and Milam appeared in photos taken a decade before of them smiling in their military uniforms and Carolyn Bryant's beauty and virtue were extolled. Rumors of an invasion of outraged blacks and northern whites were printed throughout the state so that the Leflore County sheriff took them seriously. Local businessman, surgeon, and civil rights proponent T. R. M. Howard, one of the wealthiest blacks in the state, warned of a "second civil war" if "slaughtering of Negroes" was allowed.[42] Following Wilkins' comments, white opinion began to shift. According to historian Stephen Whitfield, a specific brand of xenophobia in the South was particularly strong in Mississippi, urging whites to reject the influence of Northern opinion and agitation.[43] This independent attitude was profound enough in Tallahatchie County that it earned the nickname "The Freestate of Tallahatchie", according to a former sheriff, "because people here do what they damn well please", making the county often difficult to govern.[44]

Consequently, Tallahatchie County Sheriff Clarence Strider, who initially positively identified Till's body and stated that the case against Milam and Bryant was "pretty good", on September 3 announced his doubts that the body pulled from the Tallahatchie River was Till's, who he speculated, was probably still alive. The body, according to Strider, was planted by the NAACP: a cadaver stolen by T. R. M. Howard, who colluded to place Till's ring on it.[45] Strider was motivated to change after the comments made in the press about the people of Mississippi, later saying, "The last thing I wanted to do was to defend those peckerwoods. But I just had no choice about it."[35][d]

Bryant and Milam were indicted for murder, despite the reservations of the grand jury's prosecuting attorney, Hamilton Caldwell, who was not confident a conviction would ever be returned in a case of white violence against a black male accused of insulting a white woman. A local black paper was surprised at the indictment and praised the decision, as did the New York Times. The high profile comments made in Northern newspapers and by the NAACP concerned the prosecuting attorney, Gerald Chatham, who worried that they would not be able to secure a guilty verdict, even with the evidence they had. Initially, with limited funds, Bryant and Milam had difficulty finding attorneys to represent them, but five attorneys at a Sumner law firm offered their services pro bono. Collection jars were placed in stores and other public places in the Delta, eventually gathering $10,000 for the defense.[47]


Nodjimbadem, Katie (September 2, 2015). "Emmett Till's Open Casket Funeral Reignited the Civil Rights Movement". Smithsonian. Retrieved July 14, 2018.</ref>

Trial

Media discourse

Later events

Till's significance in the civil rights movement

Media representation

See also

Notes

Citations

Sources

Further reading

  1. ^ a b Whitfield 1991, p. 15.
  2. ^ Beito and Beito, p. 116.
  3. ^ Whitaker (1963), p. 19.
  4. ^ Beito & Beito 2009, p. 126.
  5. ^ Till-Mobley and Benson, pp. 14–16.
  6. ^ Till-Mobley & Benson 2003, p. 17.
  7. ^ Houck and Grindy, pp. 134–135.
  8. ^ Till-Mobley & Benson 2003, pp. 36–38.
  9. ^ Till-Mobley & Benson 2003, pp. 56–58.
  10. ^ Till-Mobley & Benson 2003, pp. 41–42.
  11. ^ Till-Mobley & Benson 2003, pp. 59–60.
  12. ^ Till-Mobley & Benson 2003, pp. 70–87.
  13. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation 2006, p. 6.
  14. ^ Hampton 1990, p. 2.
  15. ^ Till-Mobley & Benson 2003, pp. 98–101.
  16. ^ Whitfield 1991, p. 5.
  17. ^ Whitaker (1963), pp. 2–10.
  18. ^ Whitaker (1963), pp. 61–82.
  19. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation 2006, p. 18.
  20. ^ Whitaker, High Steven. "A Case Study in Southern Justice: The Emmett Till Case". Florida State University. Retrieved July 3, 2022. PDF p.26, 39, 56
  21. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation 2006, pp. 60–66.
  22. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Look1956 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  23. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation 2006, pp. 55–57.
  24. ^ Hampton 1990, p. 4.
  25. ^ Whitfield 1991, p. 21.
  26. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation 2006, p. 68.
  27. ^ a b Hampton 1990, p. 6.
  28. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation 2006, pp. 69–79.
  29. ^ Metress, pp. 14–15.
  30. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation 2006, pp. 77–79.
  31. ^ Houck and Grindy, p. 6.
  32. ^ Houck and Grindy, pp. 19–21.
  33. ^ Hampton 1990, p. 5.
  34. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation 2006, pp. 80–81.
  35. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference whitaker2005 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  36. ^ Beito & Beito 2009, p. 118.
  37. ^ Whitfield 1991, pp. 23–26.
  38. ^ Metress, pp. 16–20.
  39. ^ Houck and Grindy, pp. 22–24.
  40. ^ Till-Mobley & Benson 2003, p. 132.
  41. ^ Whitfield 1991, p. 23.
  42. ^ Houck and Grindy, pp. 31–37.
  43. ^ Whitfield, pp. 28–30.
  44. ^ Whitaker (1963), pp. 21–22.
  45. ^ Beito & Beito 2009, p. 119.
  46. ^ Whitfield 1991, p. 44.
  47. ^ Whitfield 1991, p. 28-34.


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