The verdict did not affect just minorities, according to New York black congressman Adam Clayton Powell, who weighed in on Monday from the SS United States. In an interview with Chicago Defender correspondent Ethel Payne, Powell said that the Till murder had disgraced the United States throughout Europe and North Africa.19 Nowhere was this more evident over the weekend than in Paris, where a headline in L’Aurore screamed “Shameful Verdict!” The story read with as much passion as any in the northern cities of the United States. “The two repugnant assassins of the young 14-year-old Negro have been acquitted. Acquitted to the enthusiastic cries of a racialist public and a racist jury.” Similarly, Le Monde said that the acquittal “proves, if that were needed, that racism is not dead in the United States,” even though the US Supreme Court seemed determined to do away with segregation. The France-Soir ran a photo of friends consoling Mamie Bradley after hearing the jury’s verdict. Figaro, often dubbed an “American paper,” gave detailed coverage of the trial. The French Communist Humanite carried an article on its back page.20
Outrage over the verdict did not fade after the weekend. On the contrary, it only escalated, both at home and abroad. New York Democratic congressman Victor L. Anfuso telegrammed Attorney General Brownell on Monday, September 26, promising that unless Brownell began an immediate investigation into the Till case, Anfuso would take it up with Congress when that body reconvened after the first of the year. In his wire, Anfuso said that “fair-minded Southerners and Northerners” needed all the facts related to the trial “if they are to retain their faith in the U.S. Constitution.”21
The mood in the South seemed almost subdued by comparison, but not everyone was keeping quiet. Reaction, for the most part, consisted of isolated, individual statements, usually in letters to newspaper editors. One in particular that received publicity came from George W. Hinant Jr. of St. Louis. On Sunday, the Memphis Commercial Appeal received a letter and fragments of a Confederate flag that Hinant, formerly of Memphis, had taken with him to battle in Germany during World War II. “I was once proud to be from the South,” he wrote, but added, “I’ve destroyed my beloved battle flag in rejecting the South.” To Hinant, the words “liberty and justice for all” now seemed a mockery. “As of today, I am no longer a Southerner. I’m just an American who loves his fellow man whether he be red, white or black.”22
Northerners also fired off animated letters to Governor White, among others. Grand Sheikh F. Turner, from the National Office of the Moroccan United Organizations, wrote White of the shock Turner felt at both the murder and the acquittal. He worried about the thousands of Muslims in the Magnolia State, telling White that he was “very much desirous of obtaining information as to their status as human beings.”23 Milwaukee mayor Frank Zeidler forwarded a telegram from the Wisconsin conference of the NAACP to Wisconsin governor Walter J. Kohler. Zeidler, concerned about reverberations over the Till case in Wisconsin, asked Kohler to send the telegram to Governor White. “You may reflect my opinion to the Governor of the State that the occurrences in his state, which are recited in this telegram, tend to cause a restiveness and reaction in the people of this community that no public official here wants or desires.”24
Not surprisingly, Milam’s and Bryant’s defense attorneys were also targets of both outrage and praise in the days following the acquittal. One unnamed southerner, then living in Los Altos, California, wrote to the law firm of Breland and Whitten: “How frantic your white supremacy must make your peanut minds—when a fourteen year-old boy’s prank send[s] you into hysteria! How far below Communists you must have sunk in Mississippi.”25
A letter directed at John Whitten from Mrs. Frank E. Moore of Littleton, New Hampshire, declared, “If I am ever on trial for murder I want you to be my lawyer. Imagine you saying the body of that little boy killed by Roy Bryant and J. Milam was probably the body of some one else ‘planted’ where it was found. You should be ashamed, suppose that boy was yours.” Moore was so outraged that she momentarily lost all sense of right and wrong herself. “If I was a negro and lived in Miss[issippi] I’d get a mob and kill their [Milam’s and Bryant’s] kids. Its an awful thing to say but their boys and yours (if you have any) will just grow up to be the same.”26
Certainly, the worldwide scorn aimed at Mississippi escalated the defense mode that whites had been in since Emmett Till’s body first surfaced in the Tallahatchie River. Dana Wier of Phoebus, Virginia, wrote Whitten that she was relieved that “the jury saved the great State of Mississippi from disgrace.”27 A. B. Nimitz of Cordesville, South Carolina, wrote similarly: “Every red-blooded White should sincerely commend you for your defense of Mr. Bryant and Mr. Milam in the Till case. The jury that exonerated Mr. Bryant and Mr. Milam deserve the unstinted praise and gratitude of every red-blooded White Southerner; for the verdict was exactly what it should have been: exactly what was needed. Other Tills will now think twice before insulting our women-folks.” Nimitz then blamed everyone but Milam and Bryant for the crime. “If Till was really killed, then the NAACP, it’s mongrel leaders, and the abominable excuse for a Supreme Court are solely responsible, due to the trouble inciting acts of the three above named.”28
The verdict rendered was the only way to strike back at the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, as indicated by Athens, Alabama, attorney W. W. Malone, who believed an acquittal would uphold “the southern tradition in the proper defense of our southern womanhood when insulted by a damn brute.” Malone, of course, had Emmett Till all figured out. “Encouraged by the recent decision of the nine old buzzards on the United States Supreme Court, I suppose this young savage from the African jungles of Chicago felt like he could do as he pleased in Mississippi and that the NAACP and other South haters would come to his rescue.” Writing only hours before the jury announced its verdict, Malone was “sure that a jury of good white men will prefer to believe the evidence of the two defendants . . . and acquit these two fine young men.”29
None of these loyal southerners demonstrated any belief in the innocence of the defendants. Breland’s response to Malone, written after the jury had reached its decision, made it clear that in the highly publicized trial, the preservation of Mississippi’s way of life was the real issue at stake, not necessarily the exoneration of Milam and Bryant. “It is unfortunate for us that we had to be the place where the NAACP selected in Mississippi to try to drive in an entering wedge in furtherance of their scheme for intergration [sic] and equalization in the State of Mississippi, but we did not hesitate to assume our full responsibility and stopped them cold.”30
Across the ocean, on Tuesday, September 27, Paris was still seething from the verdict and became the scene of a large protest rally organized by the International League Against Racialism and Anti-Semitism. Josephine Baker, an American dancer, actress, and French citizen since 1937, served as joint president of the organization. The meeting, held at the French Scientific Society, featured former French cabinet minister Daniel Meyer. Over 1,000 people attended and passed a resolution declaring the verdict in Sumner “scandalous” and “an assault to the conscience of the civilized world.” The decision of the jury, the resolution declared, “sanctions legal lynching in the United States.”31
A New York Post reporter interviewing residents of Greenwood, Mississippi, along Howard Street early that same week learned quickly that this approval of “legal lynching” was true in Leflore County. Most of the white people in the city of 18,000 seemed hopeful that Milam and Bryant “will get off scot-free” on the kidnapping charges, although they would not say so for the record. One young secretary at a printing plant told the newsman that the Till case is “all we ever talk about any more.” Her hopes for Milam and Bryant were quite matter-of-fact.
“Most everybody is glad they got off on the murder charge, and we all hope they get off on the kidnapping charge, but most of my friends don’t see how they can. They’ve admitted too much already.”
On Tuesday, Judge Charles Pollard announced that a bond hearin
g for the pair would be held that Friday morning.32
If guilt was indeed irrelevant, as many believed, there were reasons for that mindset. Perhaps a very small minority were happy about the first acquittal and anxious for another because they truly believed the defense theory that Emmett Till was still alive. Others, of course, still wanted to teach outsiders a lesson or two for interfering in their business, and hence defined justice accordingly. Yet there were those who believed emphatically that the kidnapping and murder were justified, that Milam and Bryant did what any responsible white citizen would do under similar circumstances. As long as supporters backed acquittals for any reason along that spectrum, protesters had every reason to continue raising their voices. One thing that was certain, even among Mississippi white folks, was that the myth characterizing the Till case as only a local matter was now indefensible.
That was quite clear on Wednesday, September 28, in Detroit, the next scene of passionate activism. Walter Reuther, president of the UAW, said that “the lynch slaying of the 14-year-old Emmett Louis Till in Mississippi was a shocking instance of race prejudice and naked lawlessness.” That night Mamie Bradley addressed a gathering sponsored by the National Association for Human Justice, held at the Greater St. Peter AME Zion Church. The crowd numbered over 2,000, and the meeting raised between $15,000 and $20,000.33
Mamie remained in Detroit to speak at a twenty-four-hour marathon rally held on Thursday and Friday at King Solomon Church. The purpose of the event, called “Operation Justice,” was to collect 25,000 signatures protesting the verdict and to send them to the Department of Justice. Twelve black clergymen each ran a one-hour program, with the remaining time taken up by musical numbers and other speakers. The host pastor for the event, Rev. T. S. Boone, assured the people that “we’re not rabble rousing. We’re merely asking for the rights and privileges of American citizens.”34
Thursday, things took a bizarre twist when rumors began to spread, claiming Emmett Till was not only still alive but had been spotted in cities such as Chicago and Detroit. When Sheriff Strider weighed in from his office in Charleston, he did not help to quell such stories. As he had before and during the trial, Strider remained adamant that Till was indeed among the living. “As far as knowing anything definite, I don’t know it,” he stated. “I definitely believe he’s somewhere, but I don’t know where.”35 Leflore County deputy sheriff John Cothran said he had been bombarded with telephone calls asking if Till had been located. “You couldn’t even investigate a cow killing without somebody telling you about a rumor they heard.” Cothran said that alleged sightings had also occurred near the Mississippi State Penitentiary (known as Parchman Farm) and as far away as New York.36
Mamie Bradley, still in Detroit, declared those sightings “a cruel hoax,” and even offered “to have my boy’s body exhumed from the vault for a thorough examination if that would dispel these wild rumors.”37
The stories, however, kept coming. At that moment, Mississippi authorities were investigating the most fantastic one of all, originating out of Washington County. In Alexandria, near Greenville, Mr. and Mrs. John Black reported that their maid, Mozella Brady, told them that Emmett Till visited her on Sunday, August 28, hours after he was reportedly kidnapped. Brady said that Till had come to her home in Greenville at 9:00 A.M., stayed most of the day, allegedly had lunch at her home, and then went to a movie with her fourteen-year-old daughter. Till then told Brady that he was going back to Mose Wright’s house in Money before returning home to Chicago the following morning. At first, Brady claimed to be a cousin of Till’s, but later denied a relationship.38
Stanny Sanders asked Greenville police chief C. A. Hollingsworth to look into the story. When he did, Brady denied everything. Her daughter also said that she had never met Till, and Si Brady, Mozella’s husband, insisted that the boy had never come to their house or that Mozella was a relative. In the end, Hollingsworth concluded that the entire story was “a fabrication.”39
Accompanying the rumors that Emmett Till was still alive were stories that missing black witnesses Levi Collins and Henry Lee Loggins were dead. Some reports permeating the black community in the Delta even claimed that they had been killed and castrated. Leflore County sheriff George Smith dismissed the rumors.
“They are probably just laying low somewhere. Both of them are devoted to Leslie Milam and probably will show up here again when things cool off,” predicted Smith. By that, he meant that their return would likely come after the conclusion of the kidnapping trial.40
Less dramatic, but at least factual, was a report on Thursday, out of Chicago, that both Mamie Bradley and Willie Reed had been assigned around-the-clock police protection. This was all overwhelming to Reed, who had never even seen a black policeman before. He had no desire to return to Mississippi, but admitted missing his cotton patch and his fifteen-year-old girlfriend, Ella Mae Stubbs. “I feel kind of lonely for Ella Mae,” he said, sadly.41 When this story hit Mississippi newspapers, the Jackson Daily News reported almost immediately that its readers were willing to put up the money to move Ella Mae and her family to Chicago, provided they wanted to go. Two anonymous donors seemed most anxious to help out. “Get the arrangements made and I’ll send you a blank check,” said one. The other told the reporter, Bill Spell, to “just consider the money available.”42 The next day, however, a follow-up story reported that Ella Mae’s father had turned down the offer. When contacted at his home on the Roy Clark plantation near Drew, he said that his daughter barely knew Reed and that the family was happy in Mississippi anyway. Reed never saw or heard from Ella Mae again.43
It is hard to avoid the plausibility that this southern act of compassion was simply contrived by the Jackson press for the benefit of northerners who might read about it. If the attempted reunion between Willie Reed and Ella Mae Stubbs was nothing more than a publicity stunt from the Daily News, it was probably meant to counter the one reporters with the paper believed Chicago police were pulling. If Reed and Mamie Bradley had really fled to safety after the trial, reporters wondered, why were they under police guard now? However, it was not just the fear of revengeful Mississippians that was a concern. Captain Thomas Lyons, chief of the uniformed division of the Chicago police department, said he had ordered the protection as “good policy,” due to numerous local racial incidents over the years and because both Mamie and her lawyer had received several crank letters themselves.44 Reed learned shortly after the trial that, indeed, Chicago had its share of white southern sympathizers. His police protection lasted about four months, during which time he received threatening phone calls. Most of them were from Chicagoans. “At the time, Chicago was just as bad as the South,” recalled Reed in 2007. “It didn’t take me long to find that out.” In fact, most of the callers promised Reed a fate similar to Emmett Till’s.45
Yet the Jackson Daily News still smelled propaganda. Congressman Diggs, the paper reported, was checking out a story that Alonzo Bradley, the husband of trial witness Mandy Bradley, was beaten up and forced off the Leslie Milam–managed plantation after Mandy fled to Chicago. The Daily News remained skeptical about that news, as it did with Diggs’s story that Mose Wright’s sudden departure from Mississippi came after Wright hid out in a cemetery to escape the wrath of “three carloads of white men” who made a late-night visit to his home. “No one has yet said what cemetery,” the Jackson paper pointed out. “What was the description of the autos? Where did the incident take place? Or did it take place?”46 These stories prompted reporter Bill Spell to begin an investigation of his own that would make headlines the following week.
Meanwhile, photographers and reporters gathered at the Leflore County courthouse on Friday, September 30, for the bond hearing scheduled for that morning. Milam and Bryant, accompanied by their attorney, Sidney Carlton, were escorted from their cells by Sheriff George Smith and two deputies. The brothers stood nervously against a wall, smoking during the brief, informal proceeding held in the office of Judge Charles Pollard. Pol
lard read the court order stating that the men, having entered pleas of “not guilty” to the kidnapping charges, “and the court having heard and considered the evidence and being duly advised in the premises, is of the opinion that said defendants should be and they are hereby bound over to await the action of the grand jury of this county.” They were then released on bonds of $10,000 each. Also present at the hearing were Stanny Sanders and John Frasier.47
Two Leflore County plantation owners, B. C. Walker and F. B Steinbeck, had put up the money. Deputy Ernest Stowers assured the press that not only had the money been guaranteed for “some time,” but Milam and Bryant could have gotten up to a million dollars if needed. A number of planters with means were committed to go all the way for the pair.48
The hearing took only fifteen minutes. As they left, the brothers received congratulations from Sheriff Smith and others who had crowded into the office. They left through a side door, Bryant carrying a paper sack with his belongings, while Milam walked out empty-handed. The hearing started and ended so suddenly that most of the newsmen were unaware that it was over, and only a few were able to snap pictures or get statements. Milam told inquiring reporters who spotted him that he was going back to Glendora: “There’s some cotton picking I’ve got to do.” Bryant told those gathered that “I plan to open up the store after I rest up a bit.” They then climbed into an Oldsmobile driven by a brother, Ed Milam, and headed home.49
Milam and Bryant would soon learn, if they had not already, that the Till case was still the biggest news story around. Besides the large and highly publicized rallies in the North and across the Atlantic, many smaller protests had also made waves that week. The National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs sent a telegram to President Eisenhower through its leader, Irene McCoy, asking for federal intervention. A small group in Buffalo, New York, did the same. A rally at the Friendship Baptist Church in Milwaukee drew 150 people, while one sponsored by the NAACP in San Jose, California, brought together 100. In Los Angeles, fifteen businessmen from the Westside Republican Club pledged $4,000 and hoped to double that amount in order to hire private investigators and a New York attorney to find “more positive evidence” in the Till case, said club chairman C. Ehrlich Davis.50 Nothing ever came of this effort, and just how long the group kept its resolve before it waned is unknown.
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