Emmett Till

by Devery S. Anderson

  Newsmen arriving in Tallahatchie County also began seeking out the cast of characters in the case for pretrial stories. On Saturday, Milam and Bryant granted interviews from their cell. They spoke freely about themselves and how their incarceration had kept them from working during the cotton harvest, a time when people have money and can enjoy it. Neither posed for photographs, citing exhaustion and their unkempt appearances as their reasons. They were also leery of the television photographers, whose cars had Chicago license plates. “They’ve got a lot of nasty letters from Illinois,” explained one of their attorneys. As expected, neither of the defendants was willing to discuss the case.77

  Sheriff Strider was not available to reporters on Saturday. Expecting no incidents, he spent the weekend in Atlanta attending the Mississippi-Georgia football game. A county officer, who asked to remain anonymous, said he expected the trial to conclude by Tuesday night or Wednesday because the state did not really have a solid case.78

  On Saturday, Chicago Sun-Times reporter Ray Brennan spoke with defense attorney Carlton, who provided a glimpse into the defense team’s strategy, which fell in line with Sheriff Strider’s theory that Till was alive and that the murder was a fabrication of the NAACP. Because Till’s death had not been conclusively established, at least in the minds of the defense, Carlton believed that the killing had been staged by people trying to stir up racial trouble in Mississippi. When Brennan relayed this to special prosecutor Robert Smith, the lawyer simply smiled and said he would refute such theories.79 This exchange provided a glimpse into the arguments surely to come before the jury.

  Carlton would have more to say on Sunday after leading a group of reporters to the home of the prosecution’s star witness, Mose Wright, who had helplessly watched Till’s kidnapping and spoke at length with the abductors. Although it was unusual for the defense to seek out a prosecution witness in this manner, Carlton said he arranged the visit to get his first view of the site where the alleged kidnapping had occurred.80 Wright had said little publicly since shortly after the discovery of the body, and his reemergence was a reminder of the crucial role he would play in the trial beginning the next day. Understandably, the press paid him notice.

  When the group arrived, they found Wright napping on a porch swing, but he awoke and welcomed the men into his home, which one reporter described as having been “patched together by World War II clippings from the Progressive Farmer.” The newsmen and Carlton listened as Wright told details of the early morning hours of August 28, when Emmett Till was abducted, a story Wright planned to repeat in court. He also confirmed that sometime before the kidnapping, he had heard about the Bryant store incident from an outsider, but he could not remember who.81

  No one had given him any trouble since the kidnapping, Wright insisted. In fact, he said that he had never had any trouble with white people in the Delta. Taking no chances, however, he had sent his three boys to stay with relatives, and they came home only for short periods during the day. Even Mose did not sleep at home every night. “Some nights I stay and some nights I gets superstitious and gets out,” he told his visitors. All of the lightbulbs in the house were still either missing or burned out, as they were on the night of the kidnapping. Wright revealed that he slept with a loaded shotgun under his bed. “The sheriff [Sheriff George Smith of Leflore County] told me I could have it for my protection and could shoot at anybody that came in here without being invited.”

  Wright was not sure that he could identify Roy Bryant in court, although Bryant did introduce himself after Wright opened the door that fateful August morning. He was positive, however, that he would have no trouble identifying the other defendant.

  “That man was Milam,” said Wright to the assembled reporters. “I could see his bald head. I would know him again anywhere. I’d know him if I met him in Texas.”82

  Wright revealed that his wife and others had been urging him not to testify. Elizabeth left Money the night of the kidnapping and had since moved to Chicago. Wright told the reporters that as soon as he finished picking his twenty-five-acre cotton patch, he was going to join her up north and leave Mississippi behind. The income from that harvest would sustain the family throughout the year.

  “You can see why I can’t go now and leave that crop,” he said.83

  Carlton, standing on the porch with reporters, moved away from their host and predicted to the newsmen that Wright would not leave Mississippi in the end. He was also confident that the witness would not be so sure about the identity of the kidnappers once he was under cross-examination, despite what Wright had just told his visitors.84

  Carlton also revealed what would be the most damning part of his case—Carolyn Bryant would tell a different story about Till’s conduct at the store than the mere “wolf whistle” that had come to characterize the incident. In fact, she would testify that Till “mauled and attempted a physical attack while making indecent proposals.” Carlton said that this incident occurred while Bryant and Till were alone in the store.85

  Carlton’s revelation certainly begs several questions—namely, why were these allegations never mentioned earlier? Wright had told the press weeks before that Milam had only accused Till of some “talk” on the night of the kidnapping. Upon their arrests, Milam and Bryant told police that Till had made “ugly remarks” directed at Carolyn Bryant. If Till had attempted to assault her, why didn’t the Bryants or Milam accuse him of that early on? Why didn’t Carolyn Bryant call the police after the incident? And why was Carlton telling this to reporters now, on the eve of the trial? Clearly he knew that this story, true or not, would influence the court of public opinion, and if told on the stand in front of a jury, would erode the chances for a conviction. Did the defense team believe that their clients had actually kidnapped and murdered Emmett Till in response to Till’s alleged assault? Why else would Carolyn Bryant’s story be relevant at all?

  Carlton also predicted to the assembled group that the trial would last no more than three days, and that Judge Swango might even direct a “not guilty” verdict without sending the case to the jury if the prosecution failed to prove the identity of the body pulled from the river.86 Carlton, however, did not know that events unfolding elsewhere in the Delta at that very moment would add further drama to the trial and serve to boost the state’s case.

  Thirty miles away, Sumner was quiet. The only businesses open on this Sunday were a drugstore, an auto garage, and a black-catered café facing Cassidy Bayou. Even the sheriff’s office inside the courthouse was closed. Amid that calm, however, a church in town held funeral services for Kid Townsend, a black man who had died of a heart attack a few days earlier. He was well liked by locals of both races, and a dozen whites even attended the funeral in segregated pews. Rev. W. M. Smith of Memphis preached the service. Jay Milner of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, trying to counter the image of racial strife in the town hosting the trial, headlined a story about Townsend’s death and the charitable services rendered the family by Townsend’s white friends.87 Although Milner highlighted the funeral as a welcome distraction to the upcoming Till trial, in actual fact the service indirectly played a role in helping the prosecution.

  Forty-year-old James Hicks, a black reporter for the Baltimore Afro-American, went to town early and, after learning about the Townsend funeral, stopped by the church for the 2:00 P.M. service.88 Hicks was one of black journalism’s most prominent and able reporters, having started his career twenty years earlier with the Cleveland Call and Post. After World War II, he joined the Afro-American and also became the Washington bureau chief for the National Negro Press Association.

  Hicks heard that white mourners would attend the funeral and thought that fact would make a good pretrial story. As he listened to the service from outside, he was suddenly approached by a black man who assumed Hicks was a stranger and probably in town for the trial. The man told Hicks that there was a woman nearby who wanted to speak to him. Hicks approached the woman, who nervously told him she was risking her l
ife by talking. She said that a man known as “Too Tight” had been on the truck the night that Emmett Till was murdered, and that he had since disappeared. She did not know Too Tight’s real name but told Hicks that he could learn anything he needed about him if he went to a black dance hall called King’s in nearby Glendora.89

  Hicks wasted no time driving the twelve miles south to the little town in question. At King’s, he posed as a friend of Too Tight and learned that he had been in jail since Monday. He also learned from a woman there that Too Tight’s real name was Levi Collins, and that Collins lived with her and her common-law husband, Henry Lee Loggins. Loggins, she revealed, was in jail also. “Both of them worked for one of those white men who killed that boy from Chicago and they came and got both of them.” Hicks knew he was on to something big. He left Glendora and drove back to his hotel in Mound Bayou.90

  In Mound Bayou at around midnight that same night, a plantation worker identifying himself as Frank Young knocked on the door of Dr. T. R. M. Howard. Young also had a story to tell, and his matched well with what Hicks had learned in Glendora. Young told Howard that early on Sunday morning, August 28, at around six o’clock, witnesses saw a green pickup with a white top parked outside the headquarters shed on a plantation located three and a half miles west of Drew, in Sunflower County. The plantation happened to be managed by Leslie Milam, brother of J. W. Milam and half-brother to Roy Bryant. Before the truck pulled into the plantation, four white men were seen in the cab, and three blacks were riding in the back. Through photographs, witnesses identified Emmett Till as the one sitting in the middle. Young and others heard the sounds of a beating from inside the closed shed. The screams from the victim gradually decreased until they stopped altogether. Then, a tractor left the shed, and the truck pulled in. When the truck drove away, the back of the vehicle was covered with a tarpaulin.91 Young apparently did not know the names of the black men seen with Till because Howard was not able to identify them before Hicks returned to Mound Bayou.

  When Hicks and Howard compared notes, it was clear that their stories correlated. Howard now had the names of Levi “Too Tight” Collins and Henry Lee Loggins as the men who were allegedly on the back of the truck with Emmett Till the morning after the kidnapping.92 Because these revelations might place the murder in Sunflower County and not Tallahatchie, Howard had to come up with an effective strategy, and time was running out.

  That same weekend, residents in Money were put on alert when a break-in occurred at the Bryant store. The robber stole clothing, cigarettes, and firecrackers. Although no one was identified, neighbors saw one man running away from the scene. Because Roy Bryant was in jail and his wife and children were still in hiding, no one was in the store or living area when the robbery occurred. That same night, Greenwood teenagers driving through Money fired three shots from a gun. It was not clear whether this was related to the robbery, but it was obvious that tensions were high in the hours before the trial was to begin. Police reported four days later that they found the stolen merchandise in a hidden spot near Six Mile Lake, just a few miles east of the store.93

  Mamie Bradley was unaware of any of the developments unfolding in Mississippi. On Friday, September 16, she spoke to a crowd at St. Matthew’s Methodist Church in Chicago. The rally, sponsored by the North Side branch of the NAACP, drew over 1,500 people, hundreds of whom were forced to listen outside over a loudspeaker.94 From there, she flew to Cleveland, where on Sunday afternoon she spoke to 2,000 people at the Antioch Baptist Church. In three short weeks, her life had changed forever. She told her Ohio audience:

  Two months ago I had a nice six-room apartment in Chicago. I had a good job. I had a son. When something happened to Negroes in the South, I said, “That’s their business, not mine.” Now I know how wrong I was. The death of my son has shown me that what happen[s] to any of us, anywhere in the world, had better be the business of all of us. I am not bitter against anybody. But I will fight until the day I die to see that justice comes to all of the people who have been visited with a tragedy like mine.

  With that, Mamie was met with two minutes of thunderous applause.95 Her first two public appearances since Emmett’s death were before friendly crowds. Her next would be in front of curious onlookers in a Mississippi courtroom. She had spent the last few weeks dreading and fearing that trip to the Delta. Soon, she would sit down only a few feet from the men accused of murdering her son. Although she had no way of knowing just yet what to expect in Sumner, she could safely assume that her reception there would be nothing like this moment in the sun in Cleveland.

  5

  Tallahatchie Trial, Part 1

  Sumner, Mississippi, looked quintessentially quaint. On Monday, September 19, 1955, when first-time visitors arrived in town, they were struck by the dominance of the two-story courthouse. Built in 1902 and later gutted by fire and remodeled in 1910, it sat under a clock tower overlooking the town square. On the courthouse lawn, a statue of a Confederate soldier erected in 1913 stood as a tribute to “our heroes” from the United Daughters of the Confederacy.1 Looking beyond the cars, cameras, and crowds, it was clear that Sumner would always be a quiet town where everybody knew one another but that few outside of the Mississippi Delta would ever see. When Joseph Burton Sumner and his followers settled the area in 1872, they knew that cotton would always be king, but anticipated little else for the community.2 Yet for the next several days, cotton would take a backseat to the courthouse, and Sumner would be anything but sedate.

  As the Emmett Till murder trial was about to open, there was surprisingly little notable tension, either in the courtroom or outside, but it would soon be clear to astute observers that it was brewing. Tallahatchie County sheriff H. C. Strider had already deputized and armed sixteen men, who, together with eight regular deputies, were keeping their eyes on things inside the courthouse and around the square.3 White and black onlookers began gathering outside, fascinated by the dozens of journalists and others arriving in town. Now and then, some locals were seen simply going about their usual business. Out-of-towners had already noted the irony of the slogan posted on a sign near the city limits, “Sumner, a Good Place to Raise a Boy.”4

  To prepare for this deluge of reporters, newsmen oversaw the transformation of the courthouse lower lobby into an editorial office for calling in their stories to newspapers and wire services. This meant installing several teletype machines and long-distance phone lines. Western Union set up a booth overseen by representatives from Clarksdale and Greenville, while five men from Southern Bell Telephone Company maintained their own communications lines.5

  Upstairs, Strider gathered early arrivals among the press and held a brief conference on protocol. Limited space at the front of the courtroom allowed only twenty-two seats for white reporters. He gave the black press four seats at a card table on the right side of the room, behind the railing separating court officials from spectators. He was unapologetic as he explained that segregation laws applied in court as well as anywhere else in the state. “We haven’t mixed the races so far in Mississippi, and we don’t intend to,” he proclaimed. Yet he assured the black press that “we want you colored reporters to be able to cover this just like anybody else.”6 Alex Wilson, the only black newsman there for the briefing, complained that hearing the proceedings from their distant corner might prove difficult, but Strider told him to be sure to let him know. “We’ll have order in this court,” he promised.7

  Fifty-one-year-old Strider, wearing a sport coat and a shirt with an open collar, and chewing on an unlit cigar, was an imposing figure at 270 pounds. Reporter Murray Kempton noted that Strider resembled Hollywood actor Sidney Greenstreet. A wealthy plantation owner with 1,500 acres in nearby Charleston, Strider employed and housed thirty-five black families on his property. Seven cement sharecropper homes, nicely painted, lined the driveway to his house, each with one letter of his last name painted on the roof, spelling S-T-R-I-D-E-R.8

  Although one journalist described Strider’s demea
nor as “genial” and “easy going,” the sheriff was clearly determined to run the courtroom his way. He told reporters that with the exception of lawyers and other court officials, everyone entering the courtroom would be searched for concealed weapons. “We are nice people down here,” he assured them, but he had received over 150 threatening letters and was not going to take any chances. “I don’t know if they are just trying to scare me, but I don’t scare,” he said. “I don’t plan on having any Chicago or New York Negroes knocking me off.” He also cited recent shootings in Congress as part of his motive. This was certainly an allusion to a March 1, 1954, incident involving four Puerto Rican nationalists who fired thirty rounds from the Ladies Gallery in the US Capitol, wounding several congressmen. Strider was not going to chance something similar happening in Sumner. “If there is going to be any shooting, me and my deputies will do it,” he stated.9 Strider had only a few months left of his four-year stint as Tallahatchie County sheriff. Under Mississippi state law, sheriffs and governors were prohibited from serving consecutive terms.

  After everyone lined up single file, deputies began meticulously patting down everyone wanting to see the trial, and even went so far as to search camera cases. International News Service reporter James Kilgallen, father of What’s My Line? panelist Dorothy Kilgallen, noted that in his forty years of covering high-profile crime cases, this was only the third time that he had been frisked, the other two being the 1933 trial of George “Machine Gun” Kelly in Oklahoma City and the trial of Bruno Hauptmann two years later.10 After a while, the process became more casual, deputies scaled back their search for weapons, and they were even seen kidding around with friends who passed through the line. In the end, the search yielded nothing, and Deputy Ed Weber joked that the sharpest items he found were pens, pencils, and paper.11