When Mamie left Cleveland on Sunday, she quietly returned home instead of heading directly south, despite telling the press that she would be arriving in Clarksdale on Monday.49 Her return to Chicago was either an attempt to mislead the press as to her whereabouts or an indication that, once again, she had second thoughts about going to the trial. Either way, her actions showed she was still worried about her safety, but it was clear that attending the trial was still on her mind. Just after 2:00 P.M. on Monday, she sent Chatham a telegram from Chicago, which he received two hours later. “I am willing to attend the trial of Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam to be held in Sumner, Miss., beginning Sept. 19 for the kidnap lynching of my son, Emmett Louis Till,” she affirmed. “Would like to know what protection your office will provide for my protection and safety. Will stay departure pending your instruction.”50
Chatham, who had not heard from Mamie since publicly inviting her to the trial, was shocked that she had not already arrived in the Delta. Later that evening, he and Robert Smith responded with a telegram of their own, and their frustration was clear:
Press reports indicated you would be in Clarksdale, Miss. today, available as a witness in the case of the State vs. J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant now in progress at Sumner for murder of your son, Emmett Till.
Your failure to make yourself available as a witness for the state is not understandable. No evidence of ill feeling exists here, no incidents have occurred. Sheriff H. C. Strider has ample assistance to give you any needed protection.
Please reply immediately whether you will be available tomorrow.51
When contacted by the press that evening, Mamie Bradley learned of Chatham’s response but said that she had not yet received it. However, she confirmed that she was going to the trial and also revealed her true itinerary. She would board a plane for Memphis later that night and then travel to Sumner Tuesday morning by car. When asked if she had followed the first day of the trial, she said she had but, without elaborating, added that she was “not so pleased.”52
Others were more amazed and, perhaps amused, by the day’s proceedings. The informalities in the courtroom, the segregated press and spectators, curious gazes from townspeople, or any number of oddities did not go unnoticed by visitors. After New York Post reporter Murray Kempton and the Nation’s Dan Wakefield walked out of the courthouse Monday, Kempton looked around, observed the setting, and said, “Faulkner was just a reporter.” William Faulkner’s novels, set in fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, often centered on white abuses of blacks, strange and often violent events, and the decay of the South in the years following the Civil War. “I had always thought of Faulkner as kind of an exaggerator—that he made things more dramatic by his descriptions and his writing about Mississippi,” explained Wakefield about his observations in Sumner. “But I saw that no, it was really like that. It was certainly like going into another world and another time.”53
If the scene in Sumner mirrored something out of Faulkner, events unfolding thirty miles west in the all-black town of Mound Bayou seemed as if they were out of a bizarre suspense novel. Dr. T. R. M. Howard and others were busy deciding how to move with the bombshell dropped into their laps the day before—reports that eye-witnesses could place Emmett Till, and possibly his murder, in Sunflower County on the morning of his abduction.
Howard met with members of the NAACP and the black press to discuss the claim of Frank Young, who had gone to Howard Sunday night with the story that black sharecroppers on plantations near Drew either saw Emmett Till on a truck, heard screams coming from a barn, or noted other suspicious behavior. Although Howard asked those present to keep the information confidential until the witnesses could be identified and taken to safety, reporter James Hicks wanted to run the story immediately. Howard tried to persuade Hicks that any premature publicity would put the witnesses’ lives in jeopardy, but Hicks still argued for breaking the story. Ruby Hurley, southeastern director of the NAACP, believed that they already had enough evidence to stop the trial and move it to Sunflower County and that the information they had should be publicized immediately. If testimony began, then wrapped up quickly, forcing the jury to begin deliberations, she argued, it would be too late for any new evidence. Yet Hicks, against his journalistic impulses, yielded to Howard and held off.54
Howard and the others met again late Monday to discuss the safest way to relay their story to law officials. After considering how they could best move the rumored witnesses off the plantations, the group, consisting of Howard, Simeon Booker, Hicks, Hurley, and Alex Wilson, decided to trust some reliable white reporters, who in turn would notify authorities. The black reporters would then produce the witnesses.55
The group nominated a substantial list of the top journalists gathered in Sumner, but Howard rejected many of them outright. Booker suggested Clark Porteous, of the Memphis Press-Scimitar, and Hicks recommended John Popham, of the New York Times. Howard called Porteous and asked him to come to Mound Bayou, but neglected to emphasize the secret nature of their meeting. Consequently, Porteous failed to bring Popham but instead brought along two other white reporters—James Featherston and W. C. “Dub” Shoemaker of the staunchly segregationist Jackson Daily News, a publication Hicks described as “one of the most inflammatory papers in the state!” To their credit, neither Featherston nor Shoemaker, unlike their editor, Frederick Sullens, was considered hostile, yet their presence put them in the know and could easily jeopardize the investigation.56
That became apparent right away. Howard, meeting with the group around a conference table in the Mound Bayou office of the Magnolia Mutual Insurance Company, told Porteous, Featherston, and Shoemaker the incredible tale of Frank Young’s visit to his home the night before. The most important witness, he learned, was known as “Chicken Willie,” actually an eighteen-year-old sharecropper named Willie Reed. Howard had also heard that since talking to Young, someone at the plantation had tried to clean bloodstains out of the shed. Howard did not bother to obtain promises of secrecy from the white reporters until after he had told them the entire story. Consequently, Featherston brushed aside Howard’s plea for confidentiality and vowed to run an article the following day. Porteous, however, intervened and convinced Featherston to hold back, as long as the story was kept from any other reporters. After gaining Featherston’s agreement, the group made plans to have law officers in town at 8:00 the following evening. The black reporters would then bring out the witnesses.57
In their discussion of law officers, the Mound Bayou group had no intention of involving Tallahatchie County sheriff Strider, however. Although he had been slated as a state witness, his announcement two weeks earlier that the body pulled from the river could not have been Emmett Till, and his accusations against the NAACP of setting up the murder, meant he was not in their camp at all (in the end, he was only called to testify for the defense). Trust in Strider would disintegrate further as the trial wore on, but his actions so far made him suspect, especially to the black press.58
At home in Charleston, Strider got very little sleep that night, but it had nothing to do with the investigation in Mound Bayou. During the night, he was awakened several times by anonymous callers threatening him or the defendants should they be acquitted. One call, at 1:15 A.M., came from Oakland, California; another, at 3:00 A.M., was from Flint, Michigan. Several other calls also came from locals. Strider later said that these threatening calls came every night during the trial. Those who knew Strider said later that the sheriff was scared, despite what he had told reporters Monday morning.59 Already upset with outsiders, any threats he received would only strengthen his resolve to teach troublemakers a valuable lesson. And he could do that best on the witness stand.
In Chicago, Mamie Bradley also stayed awake as she prepared for her late-night flight to Memphis. She, along with her mother and stepfather, Alma and Henry Spearman; her boyfriend, Gene Mobley; her father, John Carthan; and her cousin Rayfield Mooty, drove together to Midway Airport, followed by Wood
lawn Station patrolman Sylvester Rollins. Bradley, Carthan, and Mooty said good-bye to the others and boarded the Delta Airlines plane scheduled to depart at 11:35 P.M. Mamie’s attorney, William Henry Huff, remaining in Chicago, explained that prosecution of the defendants was under the jurisdiction of Mississippi officials alone and that his presence was not needed.60
Before leaving Chicago, Mamie told the local press that earlier in the evening she had received two threatening telephone calls. One of the callers, a woman, told her, “Don’t you dare to come back to Chicago if you go to Mississippi. We’ve got a bomb ready for you and for Mayor Daley if you do. You’ve got no business going down there.” Mamie said she was not afraid, however, and no longer worried about what awaited her in the South, either. “The state of Mississippi has promised me full protection. Now we’ll see what happens.” She also revealed that she had tried to hire a private detective agency to provide her with an escort to Sumner, but was assured by the firm that it was not necessary.61
The flight landed in Memphis at around 6:30 Tuesday morning. The Reverend Bob Mason and newsman L. O. Swingler, both of Memphis, drove Mamie and her party, by prearrangement, to the home of Dr. Ransom “R.Q.” Venson, a Memphis dentist and founder of the Cotton Makers’ Jubilee, a celebration started in 1936 as a means of bringing dignity and respect to Memphis blacks. Mooty talked to the reporters who followed them to Venson’s, providing background on Mamie and himself. Mooty, a cousin to Mamie by marriage, told newsmen he was president of a steelworkers’ union local and worked for Reynolds Metals in Chicago.62
Mamie and her company ate breakfast prepared by Dr. and Ethyl Venson, and then Mamie changed clothes and readied herself for the drive to Sumner. She had left home the night before without having received Chatham’s telegram, but Mooty called Chicago from the Venson home and learned that it had been received. After breakfast, Mamie, her father, and Mooty began the 100-mile drive south, chauffeured by Taylor Hayes, owner of T. H. Hayes & Sons Funeral Home in Memphis.63
The trial resumed that morning at 9:00. When Mamie arrived at the courthouse, reporters flooded her with questions before she even got inside. Pausing to answer them, she said she was not fearful for her life, and so far, no one had bothered her in the South. She was positive that the body she identified in Chicago was her son.
“If I thought it wasn’t my boy, I would be down here looking for him now.” She spoke of Emmett’s childhood bout with polio and the resulting speech impediment.
She also talked about Emmett’s father, Louis Till, revealing that he had been killed in World War II, but she carefully eluded the fact that he was executed three months after the war ended. She mentioned that she had been born in Webb, just two miles south of Sumner, and that this was her first time back to Mississippi since 1949. She had received over 2,000 letters since Emmett’s death, only fifty of which were mean-spirited.64
When Mamie entered the courtroom, deputies let her in unchallenged, but did search her father and cousin. The frisking of spectators was heightened by Strider Tuesday after he claimed that two suspicious-looking black men were spotted leaving the courthouse Monday, presumably to avoid being searched. They were next seen putting a gun into their car, a new Pontiac with Illinois plates, before driving away. The men were already gone before deputies could rush downstairs to investigate.65
Mamie took her seat at the black press table around 9:15, sitting only twenty feet away from the defendants and their wives. She probably got a glimpse of their children, but at some point during Tuesday’s proceedings, the young boys became so hot and restless that they were taken out of the courtroom. Mamie’s entry caused such a commotion among the journalists that some were nearly trampled as they ran to talk to her. AP photographer Gene Herrick, reflecting in 2012 back on this scene, described it as “pandemonium.” The crowd around Mamie became so thick that photographers could hardly position themselves. “When her face would appear through a gap in the jammed-up reporters, decks of photo flashbulbs would go off in unison,” one of the reporters observed. Mamie smiled, seemed at ease, and answered their questions.
“I don’t have any vengeance in my heart,” she assured them.
As the newsmen took down every word she said, spectators and jury members stared in amazement. Northern reporters addressed her as “Mrs. Bradley,” while those from the South avoided addressing her at all, thus dodging their suddenly awkward tradition of calling blacks by their first name.66
After querying Mamie for several minutes, the gathered press corps stood back and allowed Strider, who was waiting, to serve Mamie her subpoena. Herrick had already asked Strider not to serve her until Herrick gave him a sign so that he could capture the moment with his camera. As the sheriff handed Mamie the document calling her as a state witness, he addressed her formally.
“You are now in the state of Mississippi. You will come under all rules of the state of Mississippi.”
Afterward, Herrick and other photographers captured the moment, and Strider stood quietly and patiently as numerous flashbulbs popped. Swango, who was about to pound his gavel and start the proceedings as Mamie arrived, sat back for twenty minutes and let members of the press have their way. Herrick had encouraged Swango to hold off, knowing that photographers and journalists would swarm the mother of the victim once her presence in the courtroom was known.67
It became clear that competition between members of the press contributed to tension, because they, like everyone else inside, were forced to endure what their colleague John Herbers called “an oven-hot, smoke-filled courtroom jammed to the walls with spectators.”68 Tempers began to flare after a photographer took the seat of another newsman who had gone to Mamie’s table. Strider ordered the one who stole the seat to vacate it, and a heated argument began. Angered reporters even told Strider that the cameraman had sneaked a picture on Monday while court was in session. Although they promised to take matters into their own hands if the man acted up again, Judge Swango offered a stern warning that any further rule-breaking would result in “proper penalties.” Later that afternoon, the white press presented Swango with a petition signed by forty among their number, praising the judge and Strider for their cooperation.69
An hour or so after Mamie’s arrival, black congressman Charles Diggs Jr., a Democrat from Detroit, entered the courtroom. Diggs, elected ten months earlier to the US House of Representatives, had wired Swango the day before to let him know he was coming to observe the trial, not as a congressman, but as a private citizen. When he got to the courtroom, however, a deputy refused to let him in. Photographer Ernest Withers, standing nearby, noticed the trouble and returned to the black press table to tell reporter James Hicks what was happening. Hicks got up, left the room, and found Diggs, who asked him to take his card to the judge. Hicks went back inside, gave the card to the bailiff, and explained what the deputy had done. He then asked the bailiff to take the card to the judge.
“What did you say his name was?” asked the bailiff, even though the card clearly identified Diggs as the US congressman from Michigan’s Fourth Congressional District.
“He is Congressman Diggs, and he is one of three colored congressmen of the United States.”
The bailiff then turned to a court attendant standing close by.
“This Nigger here says that there is a Nigger outside who says that he is a congressman and he wants to get in.”
“A Nigger congressman?” asked the surprised attendant.
“That’s what this Nigger says,” replied the bewildered bailiff.
The attendant, more confused than before, wondered out loud, “Is that legal?”70
Once word got to Swango, however, Strider escorted Diggs to a seat at a newly constructed black press table just put in place. This one, over twice the size of the card table used Monday, had room for ten.71
Diggs had arrived in Sumner with James Del Rio, a Detroit business executive, and Basil Brown, a Detroit attorney, and briefly spoke with reporters, who asked if his pres
ence signaled skepticism of a fair trial. To that, Diggs simply shrugged his shoulders and reiterated that he was there for “general interest,” but planned to hold a press conference in Mound Bayou that evening at 9:00. Spectators were flabbergasted to see white reporters shake hands with Diggs and address him as “Mr. Congressman.”72
The business of completing jury selection lasted about an hour. Several men in the pool were eliminated before thirty-seven-year-old Jim Pennington of Webb and forty-eight-year-old Gus Ramsey of Enid were chosen to complete the jury. The makeup of the twelve-member panel included ten farmers, a carpenter, and an insurance salesman. Swango dismissed six from the pool himself because they had either contributed to the defense fund or said they had fixed opinions about the case. The state used its twelfth peremptory challenge to disqualify A. G. Thomas, whose brother was town marshal of Tutwiler. Communist reporter Hall noted that the prosecution routinely dismissed relatives of law officers, an indication that it had “little faith in the capacity of such persons to render fair and impartial verdicts in this case.” Four more men were called and sifted through before the state agreed on fifty-one-year-old Willie Havens of Charleston as the alternate juror. After the process was finally completed, and the jury sworn in, Judge Swango instructed the thirteen men not to talk to anyone but the bailiffs until the trial was over; all messages to outsiders were to be transmitted secondhand.73
Chatham next asked a clerk to call the prosecution witnesses. Of the thirteen subpoenaed, eleven were on hand, called to the front, and sworn in. Most were then taken to a room where they remained quarantined until it was their turn to testify, the law officers running the court being the exception. Those subpoenaed were Mamie Bradley, Mose Wright, and Wright’s twelve-year-old son, Simeon; Leflore County sheriff George Smith and his deputy, John Cothran; Tallahatchie County sheriff Strider along with his deputy, Garland Melton; B. L. Mims, W. E. Hodges, and Robert Hodges, the three who helped retrieve the body from the river; L. B. Otken, Greenwood pathologist; funeral home managers Chester F. Nelson of Tutwiler and Chester Miller of Greenwood. The defense said they would subpoena all of the state witnesses, plus call three others—Carolyn Bryant, Juanita Milam, and Eula Bryant, mother of the defendants.74 This list would change substantially through the course of the trial. Garland Melton, W. E. Hodges, Simeon Wright, and Eula Bryant never testified at all, and Strider and Otken were called by the defense. Several additional witnesses for both sides were later subpoenaed as well.
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