Archibald Carey, a minister and former Chicago alderman, also spoke, reminding those gathered that “it is not for us to avenge. A mob in Chicago is not better than a mob in Mississippi.” Illinois state senator Marshall Korshak, expressing sympathy to the family on behalf of Mayor Daley, called Till “a martyr and inspiration to God-fearing people.” Others on the program included Maybelle Campbell, Till’s teacher at McCosh Elementary, who called her student a “fine upstanding pupil,” and evangelist Goldie Haynes, who sang “I Don’t Know Why I Have to Cry Sometimes.” A twenty-five-voice women’s choir provided the rest of the music. Throughout the funeral, Rev. Cornelius Adams, of Greater Harvest Baptist Church, sat near the casket, where he collected money for a special fund established by the NAACP. “Contribute your money so that this will not happen again,” he told the crowd.118
Mamie announced sometime on Saturday her decision to postpone burial of her son until Tuesday at 10:00 A.M. so that people could continue to view the body. After the funeral, a line formed and viewing resumed. Emmett Till would also remain on display Sunday and Monday from 6:00 A.M. until midnight. Thousands more came over the next few days, waiting in line for over an hour. People continued to react emotionally as they looked into the casket. Many cried, and others appeared to be in shock. Chicago resident Doris Colon went to the church with friends. “I wasn’t expecting the body to look like it did. It was horrifying,” she later said. “If I had known what it was going to be like I wouldn’t have gone. I had nightmares. I could see him in my sleep.”119
Things were still tense in the Mississippi Delta over the weekend. Sunday in Greenwood, Sheriff Smith received two calls from an unidentified black man, whom he described as “apparently friendly and just trying to give us a tip,” urging Smith to “make preparations for there was going to be serious trouble.” With rumors of a black invasion still in the back of his mind from the day before, Smith played it safe and secured authorization from Governor White to call out the National Guard. In all, sixty guardsmen of the 114th National Guard Field Artillery Battalion, under Major Shelton Wood, began patrolling the courthouse, weapons in hand, with a charge to protect the prisoners and head off any trouble. Most of them were Greenwood area youth with no combat experience; however, Major Hartley T. Sanford of Indianola, provided help, as did Major General W. P. Wilson of Jackson, who served as Mississippi’s adjunct general.
Sheriff Smith and his deputies remained armed and present throughout the night as well. Scores of Greenwood residents gathered and watched in amazement, wondering what was going to happen next. Unbeknownst to the public, however, Smith had secretly moved Milam and Bryant to Greenville, fifty-five miles away in Washington County. Although the watch was free of incident, the presence of the Guard was evidence of the tense climate in the Delta, which only served to fuel an already growing resentment.120
In that atmosphere, previously reluctant or uninterested attorneys now came to the aid of the defendants. Newspapers announced Sunday that the entire legal force in Sumner had been retained to represent Milam and Bryant. After first setting their fee at $5000, which was well out of reach of the defendants, partners Jesse J. Breland and Johnny Whitten lowered it to $2000, half of which the family was able to pay up front. The attorney’s came on board because they had become sensitive to how outsiders were constantly criticizing the state. Two other attorneys, partners C. Sidney Carlton and Harvey Henderson, also joined the team, as did thirty-four-year-old J. W. Kellum. The involvement of these well-known and respected lawyers helped further erode public sympathies for a conviction.121
Ed Cochran, president of the Greenwood chapter of the NAACP, aware of the sentiment developing among Mississippi’s white citizens, went out of his way to praise local law enforcement officials for doing their best to seek justice. He also countered some of the fallout caused by Roy Wilkins’s criticisms with an emphatic reminder that the murder of Till “is condoned by none of the people in Mississippi, white or colored.”122
Although it was the Labor Day holiday on Monday, an eighteen-man grand jury began meeting in Sumner, the county’s western seat, to consider cases for the upcoming term of court. That morning, prior to the jury hearing evidence against Milam and Bryant, District Attorney Chatham gathered everyone involved in the investigation for a conference and went over the evidence—a move prompted by Sheriff Strider’s public doubts about the identity of the body. Strider still was not letting down. “It just seems that evidence is getting slimmer and slimmer,” he said Monday. “I’m chasing down some evidence now that looks like the killing might have been planned and plotted by the NAACP.”123
At 2:10 P.M. the grand jury began listening to testimony in the Till case. Four witnesses testified, providing conflicting opinions about the body: Sheriff Strider and Deputy Sheriff Garland Melton of Tallahatchie County, and Sheriff George Smith and Deputy Sheriff John Cothran of Leflore County. At 4:00 P.M., testimony ended for the day.124
That same day, the interracial Urban League branded the Till slaying as a lynching at its forty-fifth annual conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The 150 delegates from sixty chapters passed a resolution stating that the Urban League found itself “confronted by the brutal kidnap-lynching in Mississippi, compounded by a tragically irresponsible attitude of substantial elements of the state and its leaders.” The lynching “hits all America between the eyes. It brings into focus a deterioration of civil liberties and an alarming growth of hate and contempt for human dignity, which we have come to associate not with America but with certain other parts of the world.”125
Edwin E. Dunaway, the white president of the Little Rock chapter, agreed with the resolution but took exception to some of its wording. “It seems to me that we could express our outrage without a blanket indictment of the people of Mississippi. The words ‘irresponsible attitude’ overlook the fact that every responsible newspaper in Mississippi had come out and demanded that whoever committed this crime be punished.”126 What Dunaway did not allude to was that those demands for justice were clearly fading away. Yet with the grand jury still in session and presumably still undecided about Milam and Bryant, Dunaway’s dissent may have been a politically wise counter to the Urban League’s sweeping denunciations.
Tuesday morning in Chicago, after tens of thousands of people had filed past Emmett Till’s casket since Friday, 200 family members and friends came together at the Roberts Temple for a brief service. A large crowd once again gathered outside, this time estimated to be between 1,000 and 2,000 people. Bishops Roberts and Ford both spoke briefly, and the mourners recited in unison, “The Lord hath given and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Mamie collapsed as she took one last look at her son’s remains, and demanded that the pictures displayed inside the casket be removed and given to her. Before proceeding to Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, six men recruited from among the spectators carried the casket out of the church and into a hearse, as six friends of Emmett’s acted as honorary pallbearers. Fifty cars and 100 policemen led by Captain Albert Anderson followed the hearse. After the procession arrived at the cemetery, the casket was carried to the gravesite. Emotions remained high. “We’ll meet you in the sky, Emmett!” his mother screamed. Five women, along with Rev. Luke Ward, the twenty-six-year-old white junior pastor at Roberts Temple, fainted at the gravesite. In this emotional setting, Emmett Till was buried.127
That morning, testimony before the grand jury resumed in Sumner at 10:00 and concluded an hour later. Dr. Luther B. Otken was the most worrisome witness from the prosecution’s standpoint. Otken, who viewed the body in Greenwood, told Chatham on Monday and the grand jury on Tuesday that he did not believe the body he examined could have decomposed so extensively in only three days. Besides Otken, Greenwood mortician Chester Miller also testified. The state had issued subpoenas for Mose Wright and his twelve-year-old son, Simeon, but neither was called before the jury.128
Once all testimonies had concluded, jury foreman Jerry Falls issued the final
report to Circuit Judge Curtis M. Swango. After hearing the testimonies of thirty-five witnesses for various cases, they returned nine indictments. At 11:00 A.M., four of those, two for each defendant, were handed down against J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant for the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till. As to the kidnapping, “Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam did willfully, unlawfully, feloniously, and forcibly, seize, kidnap and confine Emmett Till, a human being, against his will,” and did “willfully, unlawfully, and feloniously, injure the said Emmett Till of his liberty.” The murder charge read, “Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam did willfully, unlawfully, feloniously and of their malice aforethought kill and murder Emmett Till, a human being.”129
At 4:50 P.M., the defendants, clean-shaven and nicely dressed, were arraigned before Swango and pleaded “not guilty” to the charges. Gerald Chatham told the press that his team was confident about the identity of the body, based on the statements of Mose Wright and Leflore County law enforcement officials, and that there were no plans that he knew of to delay Till’s burial for any testing.130
Defense attorney Sidney Carlton told reporters that he was hoping for a “prompt trial,” and Sheriff Strider said he expected it to begin during the current term of court, which had just begun the day before. Because the trial itself would probably begin within the next few weeks, Milam and Bryant were transferred to the Tallahatchie County jail in Charleston, without asking for bond. In Mississippi, both murder and kidnapping convictions carried a maximum punishment of death in the gas chamber.131
Although the trial was yet to come, the indictments were enough for local officials to boast that Mississippi was capable of handling its own affairs and, more important, in seeking justice in this case. Sheriff Strider declared immediately after the indictments: “As far as any racial issue, this element does not enter into the picture. This case, as well as others presented to my office, receive due consideration regardless of race, color or creed involved.” He had words for Chicago observers and NAACP officials, however: “At no time has Tallahatchie [County] ever made any suggestion as to how Cook County, Illinois, or the NAACP should run their business, nor do we intend for them to tell us how we should run ours.”132 Implicit in these assurances by Strider was that his doubts about the identity of the body would not thwart his efforts at justice, nor were they based on racial prejudice. That, of course, would remain to be seen.
The same day that the indictments were issued, the Tuskegee Institute finally reached a decision in the Till murder, and like the Urban League, classified the death as a lynching. Jessie Guzman, director of the records and research division, explained that the institute defined lynching as a murder involving at least three individuals. In addition to the presence of J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, Guzman said that there was sufficient evidence of the involvement of Carolyn Bryant. This conclusion was based exclusively on statements by Mose Wright, but it was also contrary to what Leflore County officials now believed. “The woman might not have had a part in the actual slaying, but she was along when the boy was kidnapped,” Guzman explained.133
If Carolyn Bryant was present that night, it was the last time her whereabouts were known by anyone willing to talk about it. Finally, however, family members confirmed that she was in seclusion with her two boys. Her mother-in-law explained that Carolyn “went all to pieces after the incident. She has been unable to sleep and has had to take sedatives.”134 As her husband and brother-in-law sat in jail and indicted for murder, the eyes of the nation were watching, and all of Mississippi knew it. Accusations and rumors were heard everywhere, hurled at and from within the Magnolia State, and it was a week like no other in the Mississippi Delta. The Jackson Clarion-Ledger even noted that the murder of Emmett Till had “set off racial fireworks throughout the nation,” an assessment that was hardly an exaggeration.135 And it was only the beginning.
4
Countdown
Following Emmett Till’s burial in Chicago, all attention turned to Mississippi. The “not guilty” pleas of Till’s accused killers meant that prosecutors and defense attorneys had to prepare for what was sure to be the most sensational trial ever to hit the Delta. In fact, it was the biggest racial story anywhere since the Scottsboro, Alabama, trials over twenty years earlier. In that internationally known case, nine African American males between thirteen and nineteen years of age were tried and convicted of raping two white women while hoboing on a train between Chattanooga and Memphis, Tennessee. The eight oldest were sentenced to death.
The Scottsboro convictions were soon overturned by the US Supreme Court on procedural grounds, however, and after retrials held between 1932 and 1934, charges against five of the defendants were dropped. Even so, the lives of all involved, including the two young women, were forever altered, as was the legacy of Scottsboro itself.1 In the Till case, the charge was murder, the defendants were white, and the victim was black. Despite those differences, a crucial element remained the same. That was, of course, sex between the races or, more accurately, any hint of sexual impropriety between a black man and a white woman. In the eyes of most white southerners, that always meant something akin to rape.2
After the grand jury issued its indictments on September 6, 1955, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant were released from the custody of Leflore County, where they had been held on kidnapping charges, and taken to the jail in Charleston, one of the two county seats in neighboring Tallahatchie County. Two courthouses had once been a necessity because severe flooding often kept one of the two towns inaccessible.3 Because Till’s body had been discovered in the county’s western district, the trial would be held in Sumner. Although the men had been indicted for both kidnapping and murder, District Attorney Gerald Chatham announced a day later that Milam and Bryant would be tried on the murder charges first.4
Chatham also said that he would send a telegram to Mamie Bradley inviting her to Sumner to appear as a state’s witness, but would wait until after Judge Curtis Swango set a trial date. “In the telegram, I plan to express my personal regret and the regret of the state concerning the unfortunate death of her son,” he explained. “I will tell her that I think it is important to the state’s case that she appear and that certain evidence she can give would be very important.”5 Mamie had not witnessed the crime, nor had she been in Mississippi during any of the events that led to it. However, in an era before DNA testing, prosecutors hoped that Mamie could convince a jury that the mangled corpse she examined in Chicago was unquestionably that of her son. A mother’s testimony, countering Sheriff Strider’s public doubts about the body, just might pull some weight in a southern courtroom.
Even before the grand jury met, people began weighing in on this tragic case, but there was no consensus on just where the tragedy lay. Some voiced their views in the local press, like the editor of the Yazoo City Herald, who blamed Till’s death on the US Supreme Court for its decision in Brown v. Board of Education, rendered just sixteen months earlier. “Some of the young negro’s blood is on their . . . hands also,” because the Court dared to disrupt “the peace of the Southland.” Stated more succinctly, the Court had opened the door to interracial relationships by ruling against segregation in public schools. The editor of the Scott County Times, however, placed all accountability squarely on Milam and Bryant and called for “proper punishment for the ruthless men who snatched the negro from his bed and took him away.”6
Hodding Carter, the most liberal editor of any white newspaper in Mississippi and somewhat of a maverick, wrote a thoughtful piece in his Delta Democrat-Times on the day of the indictments. His analysis of Sheriff Strider’s doubts about the body’s identity was not earth-shattering, but that was his point. Most absurd to Carter was Strider’s theory that the corpse had been planted by the NAACP. For that to have happened, Carter explained, someone would have had to have taken Emmett Till’s ring and put it onto another body with no knowledge that Milam and Bryant would later kidnap Till. “Such a conspiracy defies even the most fantastic reality,” said Carter emphat
ically.7
Other observers, using less analysis and even less restraint, wrote to the judge, attorneys, and sheriff handling the trial. In such a polarizing case, it was not surprising that passions ran deep as people all along the spectrum began to speak out. “KILL THE RATS OR DIE YOURSELVES,” demanded one anonymous letter sent to Chatham. “KILL THEM! OR WE ARE BLOWING UP YOUR HOLE GODDAM TOWN—EVERY STINKIN ASS[.]” Another was just as direct: “KILL—THEM YOU DIRTY MISSISSIPPI MOTHER FUCKERS OR ALL DIE[.] WE ARE HERE[.]”8
After the indictments, letters continued to pour in to Tallahatchie County, and a sampling of just a few speaks to the racial tensions then coming to a head. Two southerners, writing independently, anguished over how the outcome of the trial might affect Mississippi. One who believed in the likelihood of guilt wrote: “It is not always the most popular thing for a man to advocate justice for the Negro. But I believe that it is right.” Trusting that justice would prevail, the writer continued: “If the men are not guilty then I would be among the first to free them. If they are guilty then I would like to see the law applied to the full. The good name of all of us Mississippians is on trial. However, our name is not as important as justice.”9
The other, also assuming guilt, worried more about what message would emanate from a conviction. Addressing Judge Swango, the writer pleaded, “Please Judge try to keep those Boys [Milam and Bryant], for if we loose [sic] this Round with the Negroes we are gone for sure.” Although the writer claimed to be “a mother and a Christian” who did not countenance murder, she was relieved, nevertheless, that “we have a few Red Blooded Americans left and Especially down South[.] I want to ask you and the Jury one question[:] what would you do if you were caught in the same condition these men found there [sic] selves?”10
It was not just in the South that emotions were high and words were acrimonious, as letters sent from Chicago spewed venom unmatched anywhere else. Race relations in that northern metropolis had long suffered from their own brand of conflict. The black population in Chicago had nearly doubled to half a million between 1940 and 1950.11 As a consequence, African Americans who could afford it began to leave their dangerously crowded and unsanitary slums and buy homes in traditionally white neighborhoods. To say they were not welcome is an understatement; between 1946 and 1953, six episodes of rioting involving 1,000 to 10,000 whites followed attempts by blacks to move into segregated communities. Violence against black families who moved into the Trumbull Park Homes between 1951 and 1955, for example, left blacks shaken, unprotected, and monitored by police as the aggressors.12
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