Mose Wright was gathering wood when Cothran and Tallahatchie deputy sheriff Ed Weber brought him news of the discovery. Wright accompanied them back to the river to perform the dreaded task of identification. The deputies also picked up a boy in Philipp whom they did not know but who was able to guide them to the right location at the riverbank.
When they arrived, they saw Melton; Strider; Strider’s twenty-three-year-old son, Clarence; and another Tallahatchie County deputy named A. K. Smith all waiting. Wright approached the scene solemnly. Walking toward the body, he told Cothran even at a distance of around fifteen to twenty yards that it “show looks like him,” but as he got closer, with the corpse positioned face-down, he could not be sure.42 Someone there turned it over so that Wright could get a better look.
“That’s him,” Wright said immediately. He elaborated several weeks later as he reflected back on that moment that “I never saw anything like that in my life.” He thought about the fun-loving boy who had just spent a week at his home. “There was Bobo who used to have such a good appetite and who never sassed in my house, not once. There he was dead with his head looking like he had been hit with a sledge hammer.”43
Wright watched as Miller’s assistant, Simon Garrett, removed a silver ring from the middle finger of the right hand and gave it to his boss. Miller then placed it on the floor of the ambulance. Two black men took the heavy gin fan and put it into Cothran’s car, soiling the car with mud and water. When Miller learned that there was a relative of the victim present, he asked Wright if he would identify the body for him, as he had for the sheriff. Wright told Miller that the body was indeed that of Emmett Till.44
Miller and Garrett began the process of removing the body, first by wrapping it in brown paper and placing it in a casket. Because the body was so swollen, they were unable to fully close the lid. They then placed the coffin in a metal container and loaded it onto the ambulance.45 Before leaving, Wright asked Miller for the ring, and Miller obliged. When Wright returned home, he held it up and asked his sons Simeon and Robert if they recognized it.
“Yes, that’s Bobo’s ring,” said twelve-year-old Simeon. “He promised to give it to me.”
Wright then turned it over to Cothran as evidence.46
It was not long before the Chicago Daily Tribune learned of the discovery through its wire service. Unsure if Mamie had been told, someone from the paper called her and casually asked if she had learned anything new about her son. She replied that she had not heard a thing. Rather than tell her over the phone that her son had been found dead, the reporter called Mamie’s best friend, Ollie Williams, gave her the news, and asked her to break it to Mamie. Williams put it off as long as she could but finally called from her job at Inland Steel and got Mamie on the phone. Williams was nervous and hesitated, which alerted Mamie that something was wrong.
“For God’s sake, whatever it is, let me have it, because I can probably take it better than anybody around here anyway,” she demanded.
Williams then carefully and sensitively told Mamie what she had just learned. Emmett had been found dead in the Tallahatchie River. He had been beaten and weighed down with a cotton gin fan tied around his neck.47
Mamie calmly wrote down these details, and then read them to her mother and an aunt, Marie Carthan, who were waiting nearby. Carthan immediately became hysterical.
“Take her out of here,” yelled Mamie. “Don’t let her start.”
Indeed, a mother’s worst nightmare had begun. “As I sat there, I suddenly divided into two different people,” Mamie said as she described that moment when she heard the news. “One was handling the telephone. The other was standing off telling the other what to do. Or helping me to keep myself under control. And this second person told me [‘]you don’t have time to cry now—you might not have time to cry tomorrow.[’]”48
Indeed, tears—even mourning—would have to wait. With her son still in the Deep South, Mamie had work to do, and it would be no easy task to get the body home. The family had a connection with the A. A. Rayner & Sons Funeral Home in Chicago, and Marie Carthan called immediately to begin arrangements for shipping the body north. Alma called Crosby Smith in Sumner and told him that Emmett had been found dead.49
In Mississippi, an inquest into the brutal death was scheduled for the afternoon. “We’re just waiting until the inquest determines that he died in our county, as we are sure he did,” Sheriff Strider told the New York Post. “As soon as that’s official, we’re going to charge those men with murder.”50 After Miller and Garrett laid the body out at their funeral home, police photographer Charles A. Strickland arrived and snapped some pictures. Greenwood pathologist Luther Otken also came by and gave the body a brief examination.51 Overall, the investigation was informal and hurried. A Leflore County justice of the peace explained a few days later that “it was not exactly an inquest,” instead calling it “more of a postmortem. We decided he was dead, killed by a bullet.”52 There was no attempt to perform an autopsy. If the idea was discussed at all, Mississippi officials likely rejected it, believing that the heavy state of decomposition made such an examination impossible.
With their so-called inquest over, law enforcement officials released the body to Emmett Till’s Mississippi relatives. Unaware of Mamie’s intent to ship it home, Chester Miller, with Till’s remains in his hearse, was soon on his way to the East Money Church of God in Christ, with instructions to bury the body immediately.53 With little time to prepare, Mose Wright summoned men from the church to help dig a grave while he prepared for a brief funeral service. This was all happening within three hours of the discovery of the body, and no one in Chicago knew anything about it.54
Curtis Jones was picking cotton at a relative’s field when Maurice Wright pulled up in the family Ford to tell him that Emmett was dead. Jones got into the car, and the boys drove out to the church. While the crew was digging, Jones convinced his grandfather that Alma would be opposed to the local burial. Wright agreed to halt the digging and called Chicago.55 A series of calls got the news to Mamie, who became outraged at this attempt to bury her son in Mississippi without her permission or even her knowledge, and she became all the more determined to get him home. Alma called Crosby Smith again, alerting him to the situation. Smith agreed to intervene and promised to get the body to Chicago if he had to pack it with ice, put it into his truck, and drive it there himself.56 He then drove to Money. “I got there and had the deputy sheriff with me. He told them that whatever I said, went.” And it was just in time—the coffin was still in the churchyard, and the grave was partly dug. “They were getting ready to spill the body into that two-foot hole. He hadn’t even been embalmed.”57
With the local burial thwarted, Smith asked Miller to prepare the body for shipment. Feeling terrified over the situation and fearing the possibility of repercussion, Miller refused to keep it overnight. “They gave me strict orders not to bring this body back to town, and I’m not going to take it back to town,” he declared adamantly.58
It is not entirely clear why officials in Mississippi were so anxious for such a speedy burial. Over the years Mamie Bradley accused Sheriff Strider of ordering an immediate interment in order to spare Mississippi from the embarrassment of the brutality of the murder. Although there is little reason to doubt such a motive, Strider justified his actions by citing more practical concerns. An attendant at the Century Burial Association said the body “was in such bad shape [meaning embalming was an impossibility] it couldn’t be shipped.”59 This seemed to be Mose Wright’s understanding as well. Miller told him that they would have to hurry things up because “the body was in such shape it wouldn’t keep.”60
Miller did reluctantly take Till’s corpse back to Greenwood, but soon an attendant from a funeral home in Tutwiler came by prearrangement to retrieve it. Chick Nelson, the white mayor of Tutwiler and manager of the mortuary, agreed to prepare the body and also made shipping arrangements with A. A. Rayner in Chicago. Crosby Smith contacted the railroad
.61 Unaware of this intervention, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger erroneously reported the next day that Emmett Till had been buried in Money.62
The discovery of the body set off a storm of protest, anger, and sympathy, and the kidnapping-turned-murder became a national story. Dr. T. R. M. Howard, civil rights leader and founder of the Regional Councils of Negro Leadership, talked to reporters while on business in Chicago. “There will be hell to pay in Mississippi. Decent citizens are not going to continue to be treated like this.”63 Howard himself was a Mississippian living in the all-black town of Mound Bayou. The NAACP field secretary in Mississippi, Medgar Evers, simply cried. Each murder he dealt with affected him, but because Till was so young, Evers actually shed tears.64 Shortly before 4:00 P.M., Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP, sent a telegram to Mississippi governor Hugh White, stating that his organization, “together with all decent citizens throughout the Nation call upon you to use all the powers of your office to see that the lynchers of 14-year-old Emmett Louis Till are brought to justice.” He added that “we cannot believe that responsible officials of the state of Mississippi condone the murdering of children on any provocation.”65
That same day, Wilkins used less restraint in a public statement. “It would appear from this lynching that the State of Mississippi has decided to maintain white supremacy by murdering children.” If that was not enough to get the southern blood boiling, he tried a little harder. “The killers of the boy felt free to lynch him because there is in the entire state no restraining influence of decency, not in the state capital, among the daily newspapers, the clergy nor any segment of the so-called better citizens.” Unable to resist a further jab at White, Wilkins continued: “We have protested to Governor White, but judging by past actions of the state Chief Executive, little action can be expected.”66
White did not comment on the murder Wednesday because, as he explained it, he had not been officially notified.67 The following day, however, he sounded determined to act. Although he usually ignored communications from the NAACP, he responded to Wilkins’s telegram with one of his own. “Message received. Parties charged with murder are in jail and I have every reason to believe the courts will do their duty in prosecution,” he said, assuring Wilkins that “Mississippi does not condone such conduct.”68
Wilkins was not the only voice demanding justice, and Mississippi officials were not the only ones under pressure. Chicago mayor Richard Daley telegraphed President Dwight Eisenhower, urging him to utilize the federal government in seeking justice.69 William Henry Huff also wrote Governor White, asking him to act. “If those in the upper class or in authority will have the courage to speak out against these brutal conditions, such conditions will cease to exist.”70
The grieving mother also talked to the press, which had understandably sought her out. She did not hold back. “The State of Mississippi will have to pay for this. I would expect that down there if the boy did something wrong he might come back beaten up. But they didn’t even give me that.” Some reports also included Mamie’s assessment of Mississippi as a “den of snakes,” whose citizens “will do these things with hardly any provocation—they don’t even need provocation.”71
The US Justice Department soon announced that it had no jurisdiction in the matter, thus placing the investigation strictly in the hands of the state of Mississippi. There were a few reasons for this. First, there was no evidence that the abductors had crossed state lines while committing their crime.72 Also, as FBI director J. Edgar Hoover explained on September 2 to the editor of the black newspaper, the Chicago Defender, the “facts pertaining to the murder of Emmett Louis Till have been submitted to the Civil Rights section of the Department which has ruled that they do not constitute a violation within the investigative jurisdiction of the FBI.” Hoover and his colleagues would repeat these explanations numerous times over the next several months.73
Statements Thursday from Mississippi officials sounded optimistic that justice would prevail under their authority anyway. Governor White held a press conference to reiterate what he had privately telegrammed to Wilkins, saying, “Mississippi deplores such conduct on the part of any of its citizens and certainly cannot condone it.” He also rejected the notion that the killing was a lynching, which would certainly have been an unwelcome label recalling Mississippi’s dark, but not too distant, past. Instead, he called it “straight out murder.”74 Tallahatchie County sheriff Strider said that he would “seek speedy prosecution” of Milam and Bryant.75 Leflore County deputy sheriff Cothran told the New York Post: “None of them are getting any sympathy around here. Everybody’s upset about this. They don’t understand how anybody could be so lowdown as to do such a thing—and for such a little cause, too.” However, there was irony in his attempt to clear up northern misconceptions about southern race relations. “Northerners always think that we don’t care what white folks do to the niggers down here, but that’s not true. The people around here are decent, and they won’t stand for this. We’re going to get to the bottom of this. And we’re going to get a conviction, too.”76
The Tuskegee Institute, which had not recorded a lynching since 1951, announced that it was probing the Till case to determine whether it would be so classified (it was also investigating the recent murders of Rev. George Lee and Lamar Smith).77 The last thing Mississippi needed, while in the national spotlight, was new lynching statistics, as Governor White knew very well. It is not surprising, then, that Robert Patterson, executive secretary of the prosegregationist Citizens’ Council, sought to distance his group from any perceived involvement. He stated publicly: “This is a very regrettable incident. One of the primary reasons for our organization is to prevent acts of violence.” He denied that the murder was connected to his or any similar group. Luckily for Patterson, neither Milam nor Bryant was a member of the Citizens’ Council.78
Not sure yet under whose jurisdiction the investigation would fall, Governor White separately wired District Attorneys Gerald W. Chatham, of Tallahatchie County, and Stanny Sanders, of Leflore County. White was, he said, “very much distressed over reported murder of Till Negro. If in your district, I urge complete investigation and prosecution of guilty parties.”79 Sanders told the press that a thorough investigation would continue until they could determine where the murder occurred. However, jurisdiction was transferred to Chatham almost immediately because the body had been discovered within Tallahatchie County borders. Because it was found ten miles into the county, Sheriff Strider reasoned, it was probably dumped there. “It couldn’t have floated up the river.”80 Chatham, of the Seventeenth Judicial District, was already planning to present the case to a grand jury early the following week. He responded immediately to White: “I am in constant touch with officials of Tallahatchie and Leflore Counties and am confident that we have sufficient evidence to justify indictments against accused in Till murder when grand jury convenes in Sumner Monday.”81
Chatham announced publicly that the grand jury would hear the evidence and make its decision no later than Tuesday. Because the fall court would begin in early September, he believed that a trial in the Till case would likely not take place until the spring term of court, which would not start until March 1956. Chatham, who did not run for reelection, would by then be out of office.82
Reporters descended upon the Leflore jail Thursday to get a look at the suspects in the case now making waves throughout the nation. Neither Bryant nor Milam would speak to them, however, and even refused to allow photos. “I haven’t a thing to say,” said Bryant, who added, politely, “I’m glad to have met you all.” Milam, nearly naked in his sweltering cell, responded similarly, telling reporters, “It’s hot in here,” and referring them to Greenwood defense attorney Hardy Lott. When questioned, Lott said that he had not been retained, but had consulted with the two men. It was probably on Lott’s advice that the suspects refused to speak to the press. In fact, they were not speaking to anyone. Although they admitted to the kidnapping at the time of their ar
rests, once a body surfaced they went silent. “We don’t know what Till is supposed to have said to Mrs. Bryant, as we can’t find her, and the two men won’t tell us a thing,” said Cothran to reporters.83
Emmett Till’s corpse still lay in a mortuary in Tutwiler. When it arrived the day before, Chick Nelson saw that it was in much worse shape than he had anticipated. Had he known, he insisted, he would never have agreed to prepare it. His embalmer, Harry D. Malone, had to use twenty times the standard amount of embalming fluid in an attempt to preserve the body.84 Malone later explained that because the normal intravenous procedure was impossible, he instead immersed the corpse in formaldehyde for thirty-six hours and cut several incisions in the flesh in order to release the gases and allow the preservative to enter. Once that process was completed, the body was placed in a plastic bag and enclosed in a casket that Malone described as the “finest” that they had.85 It was then covered with padding, and placed into a large redwood box for shipping. Chester Miller drove to Tutwiler and helped load the box tagged “Emmett Till” on the train. By late evening Thursday, it was on its journey home, accompanied by Crosby Smith, Elizabeth Wright, and Curtis Jones. It was scheduled to arrive in Chicago the following morning.86
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