Emmett Till remembered 55 years later

Photo credit: Mamie Till Mobley

Most people believe that the beginnning of the Civil Rights Movement was when Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to White Man on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama during the Jim Crow Segregaton era. Parks actions ignited the year-long Montgomery Bus Boycott, which introduced Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the world. However many will say that it was the day that Emmett Till was murdered.

Emmett Louis Till in the summer of 1955 in Mississippi, allegedly whistled at a white woman near a local grocery store. Days later a mob of white men -- gathered by the white woman's husband -- pulled the vacationing 14-year old Emmett Till out of bed at Till's uncle's home and viciously beat and tortured Emmett with various weapons disfiguring his face, shot and killed the young Till.

On August 31, 1955, Emmett Till's corpse was pulled from the depths of Mississippi's Tallahatchie River, with a 75-pound cotton gin fan tethered to his neck with barbed wire, his right eye hanging midway to his cheek, his nose flattened, and a bullet hole through his head.  (seven-part videos below by PBS)

Mamie Till, Emmett's mother, decided to show the scars from Emmett's fatal beating at the viewing and funeral in Chicago. An estimated 50,000 people filed past the open casket of Emmett Till at A.A. Rayner Funeral Home and at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago September 3-6, 1955, witnessed the open-casket of fourteen-year old Emmett Till. And because of the Till's brutal murder, and the public viewing of the fatal wounds (published nationally in Jet Magazine - Johnson Publishing Company), millions believe this brutal murder was the spark of King-led Civil Rights Movement.

There are many other claims of the civil rights movement origins. Many historians will tell you that it was the when Jack Johnson became the first Black Heavyweight champion causing riots in many U.S. cities, where Coloreds (named at that time) bravely fought back with dozens of deaths of both Blacks and Whites. 

Still others will state the Civil Rights Movement's origins came when Negro soldiers, that fought for America's and its' Allies freedom, returned from World War II with not a free heroes welcome, but sadly placed back into a legal "Seperate but Equal/Segregation/Jim Crow" society. 

Additional moments in history can be claimed as the genesis of the Civil Rights Movement, but the spark that lead to the 1964 signing of the Civil Rights Bill was the torture of Emmett Till in 1955.  

Following is a timeline written by Keith A. Beauchamp published in the Black-Collegian, which provides detailed information of Emmett Till's murder, the trial, and the significance that the murder of Emmett Till had on the Dr. King-led Civil Rights movement. Though Beauchamp does not mention the terror, beatings, lynchings, murder, slavery, and overall sacrifices that African-Americans made to get the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, Beauchamp does a fine job chronicling the events that lead to that Bills' signing. 

Beauchamp could have also recognized the accomplishments of African-Americans thoughout the 20th century leading towards the eventual Presidency January 20th, 2009. Accomplishments that stemmed from thousands (even millions) of sacrificial lambs that led toward the signing of the Civil Rights Bill and other significant bills such as the Voting Rights Bill that Medger Evers gave his life fighting for. 

Beauchamp's article below. 

Links:

http://www.life.com/image/50828669/in-gallery/23001/civil-rights-emmett-tills-murder

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1866753,00.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1969702

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The Murder Of Emmett Louis Till -- The Spark that Started the Civil Rights Movement

Story by Black-Collegian

Written by Keith A. Beauchamp

Unless you know the story of Emmett Louis Till, you do not know the racial dynamics that led to the Civil Rights Movement. The murder of Emmett Till was the first media event of the Civil Rights Movement. It demonstrated the horrors of racism in an event circulated throughout America and around the world. African Americans clearly understood that all African Americans were under attack, that no African-American male in the South was safe. The murder of Emmett Louis Till was to African Americans what the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was to Americans in December 1941, or the attack of 9/11 to Americans of our own day. We therefore take refuge in telling you what happened only because why it happened is too difficult to handle, so irrational as to be incomprehensible.

Emmett Louis Till was a fourteen-year-old African American born July 25, 1941 on the south side of Chicago, Ill. He was murdered by Roy Bryant and his half brother, John W. Milam, in Money, Mississippi. on August 28, 1955 for "Wolf Whistling" at Carolyn Bryant, wife of Roy Bryant.

When Emmett was two years old, his father, a soldier, was hanged in the Italian campaign of WWII directed by General Dwight D. Eisenhower. At five, he contracted the polio that made him stutter. At fourteen, he had just finished the eighth grade. At McCosh Elementary, in Chicago, Emmett, "Bobo" as he was called, was known as a 160 pound, energetic, practical jokester who was a fair student always at the center of attention. One of his teachers described Emmett as a natural leader. Saturday, August 20, 1955, Emmett and his cousin, Wheeler Parker, boarded the Illinois Central train to visit Emmett's great-uncle, Mose Wright, his second cousin, Simeon Wright, his cousins Maurice and Robert Wright, and friends, all of whom he had visited before in the Mississippi Delta, near Money, Mississippi. They arrived in Mississippi on Sunday, August 21st. With their stories of life in Chicago, the two cousins were the center of attention. Monday morning, Emmett and his cousins began picking cotton for his great-uncle, Mose Wright, a sharecropper whose farm was near Money, Mississippi.

On Wednesday, August 24th, Emmett (14), along with Simeon (12), Maurice (16) Wright, Wheeler Parker (16), Roosevelt Crawford (15) and Ruthie Mae Crawford (18), went into town, Money, Mississippi, after a day of picking cotton. Each had a few pennies for candy, bubble gum, and soft drinks. Downtown Money, Mississippi. consisted of four buildings, one of which was Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market, owned and operated by Roy Bryant. The Bryant's store catered to African-American field hands, so African Americans often hung around the store playing checkers and otherwise having fun after a day in the fields picking cotton. Carolyn Bryant, wife of Roy Bryant, and Juanita Milam, wife of J.W. Milam, ran the store that afternoon. Roy Bryant was away.

Wheeler Parker went into Bryant's Grocery first, made his purchase, and returned outside, rejoining his friends. Emmett then went into the store for his purchase. Simeon Wright, Emmett's cousin, went into the store to get Emmett who was then on his way out. Ruthie Mae, the only female among the Black teenagers, watched Emmett through the store window the whole time that he was in the store. She saw Emmett Till place the money into Carolyn Bryant's hand, rather than on the counter as he was supposed to do. An eyewitness to Emmett's actions inside Bryant's store, she would have seen any unusual gesture towards Carolyn Bryant had Emmett made any. The testimony of Ruthie Mae, and that of Wheeler Parker, is still available. In court, Carolyn Bryant testified that Emmett Till grabbed her around the waist and made lewd acts toward her.

Carolyn Bryant followed Emmett and Simeon outside the door of the store. As soon as she came outside of the store, Emmett turned around and "wolf-whistled" at her. Someone yelled that Carolyn was going to get a gun, so the boys jumped into Mose Wright's car and headed home, Mose's cabin. While the car was racing down the highway they looked back to find a car overtaking them. Thinking that the car contained Carolyn Bryant with her pistol, they quickly pulled to the side of the road, ditched their vehicle and ran into one of the cotton fields. They had not been followed. Carolyn Bryant never told her husband about the incident with Emmett Till, whom she did not know. But because of the number of African-American men outside of Bryant's Grocery at the time, the news of Emmett Till's "wolf-whistle" began to circulate around the African-American community. Emmett, his cousins, and his friends agreed not to tell Mose Wright, fearing that the boys would be sent home, back to Chicago, before their vacation was up.

Informed of the incident two days later, Roy Bryant and his half brother, J.W. Milam, began looking for Emmett Till. They found him at 2 a.m. the morning of August 28, 1955 at his uncle's cabin. Entering the cabin with flashlights and Colt 45 pistols, they carried Emmett away, "To teach him a lesson," they later reported to William Bradford Huie, a journalist for Look magazine. Three days later, on August 31, 1955, Emmett Till's corpse was pulled from the depths of the Tallahatchie River, with a 75-pound cotton gin fan tethered to his neck with barbed wire, his right eye hanging midway to his cheek, his nose flattened, and a bullet hole through his head.

After days of lobbying state officials, Emmett's mother obtained a writ of court ordering the Mississippi sheriff to release Emmett Till's body for return to Chicago. The court order was received three hours before Emmett was to be buried in Mississippi without notice to his relatives, without ceremony, and without witnesses. Upon releasing Emmett's body, the sheriff ordered the casket pad-locked and sealed with the Mississippi State seal. He prohibited anyone from opening it. In Chicago, Funeral Home Director, A.A. Rayner, obeying sheriff's order, refused to open the box containing Emmett's body. When he told Emmett's mother his decision, she demanded a hammer, because she said, "I need to see my son." The late, Mamie Till-Mobley, describes the corpse of her son she saw on September 2, 1955, in Chicago as follows:

I decided that I would start with his feet, gathering strength as I went up. I paused at his mid-section, because I knew that he would not want me looking at him. But I saw enough to know that he was in tact. I kept on up until I got to his chin. Then I was forced to deal with his face. I saw that his tongue was choked out. The right eye was lying midway of his chest. His nose had been broken like someone took a meat chopper and broke his nose in several places. I kept looking and I saw a hole, which I presumed was a bullet hole, and I could look through that hole and see daylight on the other side. I wondered, "Was it necessary to shoot him"?

Mr. Rayner, she says, asked me, "Do you want me to touch the body up?" I said, "No. Let the people see what I have seen. I think everybody needs to know what had happened to Emmett Till."

"To view the picture of the disfigured corpse of Emmett Till go to: http://images.google.com/images?q=emmett+till&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search

Against the advice of A.A. Rayner, Emmett's mother insisted on an open casket funeral. More than 50 thousand people passed the open coffin. When Jet Magazine published a picture of the disfigured corpse of Emmett Till, millions across the world read about the lynching of the fourteen-year-old Emmett Till. Newspapers across the world carried the story.

Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were acquitted for the murder of Emmett Till. An all white-male jury took less than an hour to find the two men not guilty. Had they not taken a soda break, their deliberations would not have taken an hour, said one of the jurors. In spite of the fact that the two admitted taking Emmett Till from his great-uncle's cabin, the two men were later acquitted of kidnapping charges.

The highlights of the trial were the testimonies given by Emmett's Great-Uncle, Mose Wright and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. Despite all odds and warnings, Mamie testified to the identity of her son and Mose went even further by defying white, southern ethical codes, by testifying against the two white men, who abducted and murdered his nephew. This act of courage was the first time a black man ever stood up in a court of law in the state of Mississippi, testified against white men and lived.

There were also other heroes that day. During the trial, NAACP Officials, from the likes of Medgar Evers and members of the Black Press led their own secret investigation to find eyewitnesses who could be brought forward to testify against Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam at the trial. Fortunately, they were successful in bringing a number of them forward. One that also proved to be critical at the trial was the second surprise witness for the prosecution, Willie Reed. Willie Reed, a 18-year old, black field hand testified that on the morning of the abduction, he witnessed J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant in a truck, with two other white men in the cab and three black men on the back, (one of them Emmett) racing down a dirt road of the Sheridan's Plantation managed by J. W. Milam's brother, Leslie Milam in Drew, Mississippi. After, returning back from the store that morning, he heard screams and hollering coming from the barn. Trying to go and get a closer look, he was then confronted by J. W. Milam who had a Colt 45 Pistol at his side and asked Willie did he hear or see anything. Fearing for his life, Willie Reed said, "No." Willie Reed and Mose Wright appeared to identify Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam in the court of law as the men who had abducted and murdered Emmett Louis Till. In my opinion, this is one of the greatest acts ever committed in the history of our being and should always be remembered for generations to come. Regardless of all the overwhelming evidence against the two men, they were still freed. It was said, that the reason why the men were acquitted of all the charges, was because the prosecution could not prove that the badly decomposed body that was pulled from the river was that of young, Emmett Louis Till.

Mose Wright, his family and Willie Reed left the state of Mississippi, to live productive lives in Chicago. Mrs. Mamie Till-Bradley went on with her life with a purpose to tell her son's story. " Until men's consciousness rise and finally justice prevails for Emmett Till."

The court transcripts of the trial had since been destroyed. In fact, the records were destroyed immediately after the trial, to erase the Till Case from history, making it another addition to the "Ghosts of Mississippi."

I'm going to make an example of you," J.W. Milam to Emmett Till

The late, Mrs. Mamie Till-Mobley called her son the "Sacrificial Lamb" of the American Civil Rights Movement. Before the trial, she led a crusade to get the Department of Justice to investigate his murder. President Eisenhower and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover refused to get involved. President Eisenhower did not help fearing that he would lose his southern votes. J. Edgar Hoover did not want to send his troops into Mississippi, saying, "Whatever happens in Mississippi, stays in Mississippi." For 7 years, I had the pleasure of working closely with Mrs. Mobley, joining her in the fight for justice for her son at the tender age of 24. Our relationship would soon blossom and sculpt me into the man that I have become today. Her charisma, wisdom and perseverance will always be a part of me. On January 6, 2003, Mrs. Mamie Till-Mobley passed away after fighting for 47-years to see that justice takes its rightful course in her son's case.

On May 10, 2004, our prayers were finally answered and the Department of Justice, reopened the investigation of the murder of Emmett Louis Till based on the 9-year research that I conducted during the production of my documentary, "The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till."

During my research, I found that up to 14 people were involved with the abduction and murder. 6 of the 14 are alive and can be charged today. I have collected interviews with eyewitnesses who never spoke publicly and collected indispensable information that I feel would be the foundation of such possible convictions. However, the information that I collected over the years did not come easy, by any means. I owe it to the NAACP officials, and members of the black press of 1955, for their courageous acts in documenting this case so that I would later use to unravel the conspiracy surrounding Emmett ‘s murder. I owe it to Jet Magazine, reporter Simeon Booker and my dear parents, Edgar and Ceola Beauchamp for first making me aware of this case, when I was just ten years old.

Although, the opening of the investigation overwhelms me, we must remember that we are still far from the courtroom and far from stopping the injustices that continues to plague our communities. It is important that our generation, the so called Hip-Hop generation, never forget those who paved the way for us to exist in this free society, "For if we forget our past, history will repeat itself." It's wonderful to know that one voice can move mountains.

J.W. Milam, in his interview with William Bradford Huie for Look magazine says to Emmett Till before he shot him, "God damn you, I'm going to make an example of you—just so everybody can know how me and my folks stand." The murder of Emmett Louis Till woke the "Sleeping Giant" of Black People and spurred many more courageous acts for years to come. One hundred days after the Till murder, on December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, December 5, 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott began, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his first civil rights speech. The Civil Rights Movement began.

The Chronology of Emmett Louis Till.

On August 20, 1955, Mamie E. Bradley, Emmett Till's mother, puts him on a train for a 16-hour ride to Clarksdale, Mississippi. To visit his great-uncle Mose Wright, a sharecropper, and his cousins living in the Mississippi Delta, near Money, Mississippi.

On August 23, 1955, about noon, Emmett "wolf-whistles" at Carolyn Bryant who works in her husband's Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market in Money, Mississippi.

On August 28, 1955, at 2 a.m., Roy Bryant, husband of Carolyn Bryant, J.W. Milam, his half-brother, Carolyn Bryant, and Johnnie B. Washington abduct Emmett from a cabin belonging to Mose Wright, Emmett's great-uncle.

On August 31, 1955, in the evening, Emmett Till's body is pulled from the Tallahatchie River. Its head barb-wired to a 75-pound cotton gin fan to weigh down its body, its left eye gouged out, its forehead crushed, and its head with a bullet hole through it.

On September 2, 1955, Emmett Till's mutilated body is returned to Chicago.

On September 3, 1955, Emmett Till's mother insists on an open-casket funeral for her son whose body is so disfigured that she does not recognize it as that of her son.

On September 3-6, 1955, an estimated 50,000 people file past the open casket of Emmett Till at A.A. Rayner Funeral Home and at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago.

On September 15, 1955 Jet Magazine publishes a photograph of Emmett's mutilated, horribly disfigured body.

On September 19, 1955, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam are tried for the murder of Emmett Till.

On September 23, 1955, after deliberating for 63 minutes, an all-white, male jury acquits Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam of the murder of Emmett Till.

On September 25, 1955, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam are acquitted of kidnapping Emmett Till.

In October 1955, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam sell their "confession" to William Bradford Huie, journalist for Look magazine, for $4,000. They admit killing Emmett Till.

The Civil Rights Events Sparked

On November 7, 1955, the U.S. Supreme Court rules segregation in public recreational facilities unconstitutional.

On November 25, 1955, The Interstate Commerce Commission bans segregation in interstate travel.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat to a white male on a bus in Montgomery, Al.

On December 5, 1955, the Montgomery Bus Boycott begins and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his first civil rights speech in Montgomery, AL.

On February 3, 1956 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. becomes president of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA).

In 1957 – The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was developed and inspired by the Emmett Till Murder.

On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington.

On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banning discrimination in places of public accommodation, barring unequal voter registration requirements, eliminating segregation in federally assisted programs, and setting up the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).