Emmett Till

by Devery S. Anderson

  In 1943, Mamie began working for the federal government, and for the next few years Louis sent money home regularly. In addition to his family support, he forwarded funds from his boxing and gambling winnings. Mamie turned it all over to Alma for safekeeping, and over time, it grew into a sizable savings account. Mamie’s stepfather, Tom Gaines, died in August 1944, and for a time, Mamie had Alma all to herself.38

  During the summer of 1945, however, Mamie learned that the money she had been receiving from Louis had come to an end. On July 13, she received a telegram from the Department of Defense informing her that her husband had been executed in Italy eleven days earlier for “willful misconduct.” Mamie, so overcome with shock when reading this news, fainted. There was no other explanation in the telegram, and none in the letter she received a few days later from a chaplain in Italy.39

  Louis’s untimely death meant that Emmett would never know his father, nor would he ever learn why Louis had been executed. For a time, Mamie knew few of the details either, and just when she learned them is unclear. In 1948, she hired lawyer and family friend Joseph Tobias to write the Department of the Army and inquire about her rights as a widow. The army told Tobias that in cases of willful misconduct, next of kin are not entitled to benefits. She did receive a Social Security stipend of $11 per month for herself, while Emmett received $16. Mamie said that she received this amount until she married again in 1950, at which time Emmett’s benefit increased to $38.40.40 Alma continued the mothering role she had played toward Emmett since his birth, and with Louis’s death, promised Mamie that she would help her support her grandson until he turned eighteen.41 Not long after Louis died, Alma’s sister, Elizabeth, came to visit from Mississippi, and when she returned to the South, Alma accompanied her, taking Emmett along. This was the boy’s second trip to the South.42 Perhaps Mamie needed time alone to contemplate her future as a widow.

  Mamie maintained that she never received a “satisfactory answer” pertaining to the charges against Louis until the story later went public in 1955. However, army records indicate that in 1948, officials did furnish Tobias with a copy of the court-martial record of trial.43 These documents would have told Tobias that Louis had been charged with raping two women and killing a third in June 1944 while stationed in Italy.44 Although it is possible that Tobias did not share the details with Mamie, that is highly unlikely. Therefore, she would have known the reasons for Louis’s execution directly from the army by 1948.

  It is almost certain that she knew even sooner than that, however. On August 19, 1946, just over a year after Louis’s death, Mamie, then twenty-four, married one of Louis’s army buddies, twenty-eight-year-old Lemorse Mallory.45 Very little is known about this marriage, which ended in divorce sometime between 1948 and 1951; Mamie never mentioned it publicly, nor has anyone else for that matter. It would have been odd that her Social Security benefits did not end until she married again in 1950 (this would have been her third marriage) because they should have ceased just after she married Mallory.46

  Mallory, like Mamie, was from Argo. He entered the army on the same day as Louis Till in 1942, and both men served in the 177th Port Company and were stationed in North Africa and Italy together. The company was made up primarily of Chicago blacks. Mallory was discharged on April 4, 1945, just two months after Louis’s trial.47 Mallory and others in the company may not have learned about the charges officially, but they did hear rumors. In fact, Mallory talked freely to Till family members about Louis’s case and told them that he believed there was another side to the story.48 Because Mallory knew of the allegations against Louis, it is inconceivable that he would not have told Mamie. Mamie’s silence is understandable, as nothing regarding Louis’s conduct was relevant after Mamie was later thrust into the public eye. However, her silence would only help make Louis’s story an embarrassing national headline once it finally leaked out. But that was still a decade away.

  Soon after Louis was executed, his personal belongings arrived at Mamie’s home in Argo. Among them was a ring, purchased in Casablanca, engraved with his initials, “LT,” and the date “MAY 1943.” It was the one item of Louis’s that Mamie could set aside and one day give to Emmett.

  In the fall of 1946, shortly after Mamie and Lemorse married, Emmett started kindergarten at Argo School (later renamed Wharton School), located just across the street from the Mallory home. Although he made friends there, it was the arrival of the Parker family from Money, Mississippi, in early 1947 that brought Emmett his greatest joy. Hallie Mae Parker (Alma’s niece); her husband, Wheeler; and their three children moved into the home next door. Alma’s brother, Crosby Smith, had vacated the house a few years earlier when he moved back to Mississippi after separating from his wife.49 Wheeler Jr. soon became Emmett’s best friend. Young Wheeler, who was two years older than Emmett, had attended a one-room schoolhouse in Money and now had to adjust to life in the big city. Part of that adjustment meant catching up scholastically. To do so, his mother required that he repeat the first grade.50

  The boys were inseparable and often at play with Wheeler’s two brothers or other children in the neighborhood. Alma sometimes walked with them two miles down the railroad tracks and took them fishing in the Des Plaines River. On one of those outings after Emmett caught a fish, he dipped it back into the water to clean it, only to have it wiggle out of his hands and swim away. Despite losing his hard-earned catch, Emmett simply laughed.51

  Shortly before Emmett began the first grade in 1947, he started exhibiting lethargic behavior, especially at night. Within a few days, after Mamie and Alma noticed his temperature rising, they began using home remedies in an attempt to nurse him out of the mysterious ailment. When that failed to work, they called a doctor, who made a house call and diagnosed Emmett with polio. Mamie felt sick inside after hearing the news, and Alma very nearly fainted. “Polio was the worst thing that could happen to you back then,” said Mamie. “It didn’t kill you, but it could take your life away from you just the same.”52

  The doctor advised Mamie to take Emmett to the hospital immediately. This proved nearly impossible because no one would lend her their car for fear of contracting the disease themselves. She was even turned down by an ambulance, but eventually got a ride to the Contagious Disease Center in a police car.53 Emmett spent the next two weeks there, and once released, was quarantined at home. No one else was allowed in the house, and Alma sat with him constantly while Mamie went to work. Lemorse was probably helpful during this trying time also. Alma was quite fond of her son-in-law, and referred to him proudly as “Sergeant Mallory.” He also won the affection of several of Emmett’s cousins, who still refer to him as their “favorite husband.”54

  Thankfully, Emmett showed no signs of brain damage or any major problems with his limbs. Finally, on one of his visits, the doctor released Emmett from quarantine and declared him well. The whole ordeal lasted about thirty days. “He had beaten it,” said Mamie, who, with Alma, had spent the month praying for Emmett’s recovery. “He was up and running again and practically tore a hole in the screen to get out.”55

  Although Emmett’s bout with polio could have been worse, it did have a lasting effect upon him in the form of a speech impediment. “When he got excited or nervous, it was particularly bad. Nobody could understand him but Mama and me,” explained Mamie.56 Emmett would later take speech therapy classes, which helped some, and the doctors said he would eventually outgrow the defect. His ankles remained weakened as well, and he began wearing a special shoe for support. The episode brought about a determination within Alma never to have to beg for a ride or face humiliation again should another emergency arise. She was so determined, in fact, that she bought a 1941 Oldsmobile.57

  Other childhood illnesses followed over the next several years. “He was sick a lot of the time,” Mamie recalled, “and he was always catching everything that came around. Measles, mumps, everything, keeping him out of school for days at a time.”58 Yet during his childhood in Argo, Emmett dev
eloped the personality for which family and friends would always remember him. Wheeler Parker described his cousin as “outgoing,” a “prankster,” and always “in the middle of everything” from the time they became neighbors when Emmett was only five years old. People still living in Argo refer to Emmett lovingly as the “bad boy.”59

  Around the time Emmett contracted polio, or shortly thereafter, Mamie began working at the Army Signal Corps but soon took a job with the Veteran’s Administration. She became focused on saving money for Emmett’s college education, but her work was interrupted for several weeks after she underwent surgery for appendicitis. In 1948, she started a new job as a typist for the Social Security Administration.60 Things changed for Mamie also in June 1949, when Alma married her third husband, Henry Spearman, and moved twelve miles away to his home in Chicago. Mamie, who may still have been married to Lemorse at this point, stayed behind at the house in Argo. There were other relatives nearby, but life would be different for the Mallorys, this being the first time Mamie had lived any distance from her mother.61

  Around 1950, Emmett took his third trip to Money, Mississippi, this time with a great aunt, Mamie Hall. At nine, Emmett had no idea that black boys in the South lived by a different set of rules than did those who lived in Chicago, as his actions on this trip demonstrated. When a white man on the plantation asked Emmett for the hammer he was using, Emmett simply told him to get a different one from a nearby shelf.62 Emmett also got into a fight on this trip, which happened after another boy held his head under water while they were playing in a river. Emmett developed an ear infection as a result, saw a doctor, and was prescribed medicine. Even today, his cousin Simeon Wright remembers vividly the pain Emmett endured.63

  Mamie and Lemorse separated sometime between 1948 and 1951, putting Emmett in need of a father figure once again. Mamie wanted romance as well, but she found no prospects in Argo. A cousin convinced her that Detroit would be her answer for love and that there she could probably find a man with a good job in the automobile industry. Mamie’s father, Nash Carthan—who now went by the name of John—also lived in Detroit, and the move became an opportunity to rebuild their relationship. Although they had recently established some contact, they had not seen each other in years, and John had never met his grandson. John was happy to have them come, and Mamie enthusiastically made arrangements to leave Argo.64 In 1957, several years after his divorce from Mamie, Lemorse married the woman who had occupied the flat downstairs in the house on Sixty-Fourth Street.65

  Mamie and Emmett moved in temporarily with John and his wife, Annie, or “A.D.” as she was known, and Mamie started working as a typist at the Ft. Wayne Induction Center. The job kept her working long hours, sometimes seven days a week, but John bonded with Emmett and became a caring father to Mamie, something Mamie had longed for. A.D. soon began to resent the inconveniences of having a full house, however, and to appease his wife, John arranged for his daughter and grandson to move in with a family he knew by the name of Harris. The Harrises welcomed them both and doted over Emmett, making the stay in Detroit more tolerable.66

  Mamie did not forget her mission of finding a man, and soon a cousin introduced her to a friend named Pink Bradley, a twenty-seven-year-old World War II veteran who hailed from Arkansas. He worked for Chrysler, was doing well, and he and Mamie soon began dating. He got along well with Emmett, but Emmett became increasingly unhappy in Detroit and began to miss his friends and family back home. Reluctantly, Mamie allowed him to move back to Argo, where he stayed with his uncle Kid and aunt Marie, next door to the old house on Sixty-Fourth Street. Mamie saw Emmett’s move as temporary, and planned to bring him back to Detroit as soon as she found a place of her own.67

  Meanwhile, her relationship with Pink became serious, and that longing for romance got the best of her. Indeed, she was so flattered by the attention that she easily overlooked all of the warning signs that should have been clear. They were married on May 5, 1951, after dating only a few months. Alma took Emmett to Detroit for the wedding, and he stayed behind briefly. It was not long, however, before he decided to return to Argo once again.68

  The honeymoon ended quickly with Mamie’s third marriage. Pink lost his job soon after the wedding and was in no hurry to find a new one. Mamie took a train back to Chicago to visit Emmett once a month, where she discovered that her son was getting used to a life without her. In November, Alma bought a two-flat home on South St. Lawrence Street in Chicago, and she offered the upstairs apartment to Mamie. She accepted, and the Bradleys left Detroit and moved to Chicago that same month. Mamie had just purchased her first car, a 1947 Plymouth, which the family drove to their new home 300 miles away. Once settled, Mamie found work at the Social Security Administration, and Pink was hired at Corn Products.69 Emmett, now in fifth grade, began attending James McCosh Elementary. The school, named after a nineteenth-century Princeton University president, had once been equally divided racially, but by 1951 consisted exclusively of 1,600 black pupils and a racially mixed faculty.70 Although Emmett was no longer in his old Argo neighborhood, the new house in Chicago was in closer proximity to Alma, something that both Mamie and Emmett were happy about.

  Pink’s relationship with Emmett was good, but they did not become close in the way Mamie had hoped. Although Pink settled in well in Chicago with his wife and stepson, he could barely wait for the weekends, when he would take Mamie’s car to visit his friends and family in Detroit. The Bradleys managed to stay together for about a year and a half after the move. Whatever problems they had, they escalated after Mamie overheard Pink making a date with another woman. When he left the house that night, Mamie threw his belongings on the front lawn and changed the locks.71 They separated permanently in August 1953. For Mamie, this quest to provide Emmett with a new father ended only in heartbreak. “After that it was Bo and me,” she said. “Disappointed in my marriage, I intently set myself to make Bo the kind of man every mother wants her son to be.”72

  Over the next few years, Emmett increasingly demonstrated his loyalty to his mother in return. One night that he did so was both dramatic and disturbing. Pink came by the house soon after separating from Mamie, and Emmett, sick with the flu, heard Pink’s voice as he approached his room. Emmett, holding a butcher knife, met Pink at the doorway and threatened to stab him unless he left. Mamie stepped in, escorted Pink out of the house, and scolded Emmett for the dangerous thing he had just done. She saw some significance to the episode, however, as she and Emmett grew closer as a result. They even developed a partnership in running the household.73 Despite this, they had their moments of conflict. When they fought, one of them would usually call Alma to intervene, and she would scold whomever she thought was to blame. “Mama kept us both in check,” admitted Mamie.74

  Mamie eventually left the Social Security Administration and took a better job with the US Air Force, where she had charge of confidential files.75 Also, love entered her life again, and this time she found what she had always longed for. In 1953, while getting a manicure in a South Side salon, she met a barber named Gene Mobley. Mamie returned to the shop each month for a nail appointment, and after a year or so, Gene finally asked her to dinner. She accepted, only because Emmett was away visiting family, and she did not feel like cooking. After this first date, they saw each other more frequently, and the relationship blossomed.76 Emmett, then twelve, also developed a close bond with Gene. If Gene asked him to do something or to run an errand, Emmett always came through and left a note for Gene to verify that the project had been completed. Gene had two daughters of his own, and, like Mamie, was separated from his spouse.77

  On July 25, 1954, Emmett turned thirteen. Five months later, Christmas proved to be the most memorable one the family had ever celebrated. Emmett received a new suit from Mamie and a hat, tie, and coat from Gene, and Mamie hosted a large Christmas dinner for her extended family.78 She did not own a camera, but a coworker came over to Mamie’s house two days later to take some family photos. Most of the im
ages of Emmett Till that the public has seen were taken on that occasion: Emmett in his new suit, a close-up of him in his new wide-brimmed hat, one of him leaning against the family television, and a portrait of him seated with Mamie.79 Added to all the festivities was the fact that Gene Mobley was now a serious love in Mamie’s life.

  Not long after the new year got under way, the Christmas bills started coming in. Mamie, whose job rarely provided her with the time or energy to run errands, reluctantly allowed Emmett to take the streetcar into the city, go to the stores, and pay the creditors himself. She returned home that night to see a stack of bills, each stamped “paid,” and the leftover change placed next to them. Emmett also left a note explaining that he had taken care of everything.80 Perhaps it was this side of Emmett that allowed Mamie to sum him up succinctly four decades later. No doubt speaking with a mother’s bias, but also after years of interaction with hundreds of children, she said that “to me, Emmett was very ordinary. But as I look at today’s youth, I realize that Emmett was very extraordinary.”81

  It would be natural for Mamie to promote and even exaggerate her son’s most admirable qualities as she later tried to memorialize him. Shortly after Emmett turned fourteen in July 1955, others who knew him described him in a variety of ways. He stood between five feet three inches and five feet four inches tall, and, at 150 pounds, was overweight.82 He had just finished eighth grade at McCosh School, and his friends saw him as a prankster—independent, mischievous, and always the center of attention. To his elders, he was helpful and well mannered. At school, Emmett showed talent in art, science, and spelling, but he enjoyed school mainly for social reasons.83 His principal, Curtis Melnick, one of several white faculty members at McCosh, said that Emmett was never in trouble and that academically he was “average.”84

  Emmett also loved baseball, and although he was a little too slow for his teammates’ liking, he could not resist the temptation to play, even when he knew better. On one occasion Mamie sent him to the store to buy bread, but when he passed a sandlot game on the way home, he set down the bread and started to play. When he failed to return home, Mamie went out looking for him. When she found him, “I whipped him all the way home, and he never said a word.”85 Eva Johnson, a neighbor, witnessed Emmett facing a similar temptation to play when he was supposed to be painting the garage. “He’d paint a while and then run over to [the playground] and play ball a while and then run back to painting. He surely wanted to be painting when his Mama showed up from work.”86