The release signing and cash payout occurred as planned in Sumner at the office of Breland and Whitten on October 28 at 7:00 P.M. At present, only the statements signed by Milam and Carolyn Bryant are available, which raises the question of whether Roy Bryant actually signed one. It is possible that Huie persuaded Mitch to go along with Whitten’s preference of only two signed releases. Or perhaps Bryant, who had grown hesitant to tell his story before being persuaded by Whitten, backed out at the last minute and left this part of the deal to Milam.
The attorney who joined Whitten as a witness was a man with the last name of Dean of the New York office of John Harding, legal counsel for Look. Dean had never been south of the Hudson River before flying to Memphis with the money and the papers, and was scared to death after he landed. Dean was so nervous over the prospect of meeting with two murderers that Huie was worried the entire deal might fall through. Everything went smoothly, however, and after the hour-long signing session, the group celebrated by drinking whiskey. Dean, finally at ease at his point, even chatted with Milam about army weapons, something that each of them apparently knew well.36
The releases do not contain admissions of any wrongdoing on the part of Milam or Carolyn Bryant, and there are significant differences between the two forms. For example, Milam confirmed by his signature that he “discussed at great length with William Bradford Huie the abduction and killing of the negro, Emmett Till, in Sumner, Miss,” and goes on to say that “I have also read and fully understand the general rough outline and notes which are to be the basis for the article or story which Mr. Huie proposes to write, which are attached hereto, initialed by me and hereby made a part of this Consent and Release.” Carolyn Bryant’s says nothing about previous discussions, only that she had read, understood, and initialed Huie’s notes. Carolyn was not present during the earlier meetings, thus the signing ceremony appears to be her only meeting with Huie. Her initials were needed to verify the accuracy of Huie’s version of the store incident and to satisfy Mitch in that regard.37
The signees agreed to a payment of $3,150, to be shared among Milam and the Bryants. Nothing was said about previous arrangements that they were to receive 20 percent of the profits in excess of the lump sum. Each also gave “my consent to William Bradford Huie, to write, (and to anyone else whom he may authorize to publish, produce, dramatize, adapt or otherwise present), an article, story, literary or dramatic work based in whole or in part upon my life and any incidents and episodes therein (hereinafter called ‘the work’) and, in particular, dealing with the death of Emmett Till in Sumner, Miss.” For Milam, this included “the extent of my participation therein.” For Carolyn Bryant, it meant “the extent of my connection therewith.” For both, “this includes the right to report any or all of the details of my private life and that of my family, and to describe me, my character and actions in such manner as Mr. Huie, in his sole judgment, believes to be accurate.” In the case of Milam, “This includes the right to portray me as one of those persons who abducted and killed the negro, Emmett Till, and to portray me, through the use of live actors, in any and all dramatic adaptations of the work.” Carolyn Bryant’s release differed only by agreeing to allow Huie to portray her “as one of those persons who was in some manner connected with the abduction and killing of the negro, Emmett Till.”38
As Huie explained it later, for him to publish as fact an account of Milam and Bryant as murderers “would be what we call ‘libel per se,’ meaning I am libeling these men when I say they murdered because they had already been tried and found not guilty of murder.” In other words, “I’ll in effect pay them for the right to libel them.”39 Lest anyone misunderstand, the document signed by Milam explained it clearly. “The foregoing consent is in no way to be regarded or considered as an admission by me, express or implied, that I am a killer or possessed of any other reprehensible characteristics, criminal or otherwise, which Mr. Huie may, in the work, attribute to me.” Milam also agreed, by his signature, to waive any right by him or his heirs to pursue legal action for this portrayal of him in whatever way Huie planned to use it, such as print media or film.40
The corresponding section in Carolyn Bryant’s release absents the phrase “that I am a killer.” The rest of the paragraph is identical to Milam’s. The documents close with the signee stating his or her understanding that the existence of his or her signed release is to remain secret unless a family member or heir decides to sue Huie or those connected with him. To safeguard against this possibility, the attorneys carefully worded the document to protect Huie of any such litigation.41
Huie put final touches to the article after taking a trip to Chicago, where he interviewed Mamie Bradley, Mose and Elizabeth Wright, and several of the teenagers who were with Till at the Bryant store in Money. The NAACP put Huie in touch with the Wrights, but because Mamie was on poor terms with Roy Wilkins and his organization by then, Huie talked with contacts at Ebony and Jet magazines, and they arranged Huie’s meeting with the slain boy’s mother.42
Soon after Huie sent in the completed article to Look, he received galley proofs for a chance to make any final corrections. He also passed a copy on to John Whitten for the attorney to look over. Whitten, fearing that town folk might learn of his secret dealings with Huie, sent the journalist some of the firm’s envelopes to use for future correspondence. He also asked Huie to avoid using his own return address, and instructed him to mark any correspondence as personal and confidential. “I have had a couple of inquiries about my important mail from Garden City, Alabama,” Whitten explained. “When the article appears they may be able to add two and two and reach some conclusions.”43
Kidnapping charges against Milam and Bryant were dropped on November 9. With the threat of a trial now out of the way, Huie could plan on a release date after the first of the year. After final corrections, the article went to press and appeared in print on January 10.
Nowhere in the four-page tell-all, titled “The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi,” does Huie mention that he held meetings with Milam and Bryant, nor does he reveal that he ever talked to them personally. Nothing is mentioned regarding a payout for the information contained in the story. All quotations detailing the crime, except one, come from Milam. The one attributed to Bryant centers on a conversation between Milam and Bryant that Milam could have provided himself. This further raises the question as to whether Roy Bryant ever signed a release. As promised, Huie left his readers guessing as to how he had obtained his information, including the direct quotations.
The article includes an original sketch by John Groth portraying Milam, with gun in hand, standing over a naked, nearly prostrate Emmett Till. Roy Bryant and the cotton gin fan are close by. The story starts with background information on the brothers as well as Carolyn Bryant. In addition to running his grocery store in Money, Roy earned income by occasionally driving a truck for a brother. On August 24, the day Emmett Till walked into the Bryant store, Roy was hauling a truckload of shrimp from New Orleans to San Antonio, Texas, and from there he went to Brownsville, Texas.
Huie told how Till, with six other boys and a girl, took a drive in Mose Wright’s 1946 Ford and ended up at the store, three miles west of the Wright home. Huie introduced the incident that occurred at Bryant’s with a conversation between Till and the other youths standing outside. Till boasts of escapades with white women and shows off a photo of one of them that he kept in his wallet. The others taunt and dare him. “There’s a pretty little white woman in the store,” one of them said. “Since you know how to handle white girls, let’s see you go in and get a date with her.”
Huie explained the encounter between Emmett Till and Carolyn Bryant from Carolyn’s point of view, most of which was clearly based on her courtroom testimony. Till bought two-cents worth of bubble gum, and when he paid for his purchase, he squeezed her hand and asked for a date. At a break in the counter, he jumped in front of her and told her not to be afraid, that he had been with white girls b
efore. Huie’s version adds, for the first time, that Carolyn Bryant and her sister-in-law, Juanita Milam, resolved not to tell Roy and J. W. about what happened. This decision between the women was not mentioned in court and was probably revealed to Huie by Milam or Roy. Another possibility is that Carolyn told it to Huie on the evening of the release signing ceremony.
Roy was still out of town and did not return from Texas until Friday morning at 4:00. However, “a Negro told him what ‘the talk’ was, and told him that the ‘Chicago boy’ was ‘visitin’ Preacher.’” Knowing now that Roy was aware, Carolyn reluctantly filled in the details. “Once Roy Bryant knew, in his environment, in the opinion of most white people around him, for him to have done nothing would have marked him for a coward and a fool.” That night, Milam drove by the store, and Roy asked him to come back early the following morning because “I need a little transportation.” At first, Milam objected because Sunday was his only day to sleep late. Once Roy explained what it was all about, however, the protests stopped. Milam promised to be there early.
The account of their arrival at Mose Wright’s house early Sunday morning, detailing that they knocked on the door, woke up the Wrights, and demanded the boy from Chicago, all agree with Mose Wright’s courtroom testimony. It was probably retold to Huie by Mose and Elizabeth Wright during his interview with them. Here Huie added another detail that was not part of the trial transcript, which he could have received either from Milam or the Wrights. When Milam spotted Till in bed, he woke him and ordered him to get dressed. Till started to put on his socks and shoes.
“Just the shoes,” snapped Milam.
“I don’t wear shoes without socks,” Till shot back, showing little fear. He kept the men waiting while he put on his thick, crepe-soled shoes.
Milam was careful not to indict others. He does not allude to anyone waiting outside who identified Till as the “right one,” as Wright had confidently done in court. Milam’s version maintains that they were already sure. “Milam and Bryant would have stopped at the store for Carolyn to identify him. But there had been no denial,” Huie explained. “So they didn’t stop at the store. At Money, they crossed the Tallahatchie River and drove west.”
The brothers were not set on killing Till at first. Their plan was simply to “whip him . . . and scare some sense into him.” To do that, they drove for three hours looking for a spot that Milam had discovered a year earlier while hunting geese. He called it “the scariest place in the Delta” with a 100-foot drop down to the water and another 100 feet to the bottom of the river after you hit. Milam wanted to teach the big talking black boy a lesson by standing him at the edge and forcing him to look down below. “Brother, if that won’t scare the Chicago __________, hell won’t.” They failed to find the place, however, and drove back to Milam’s house in Glendora instead. Till, alone in the back of the truck, never made an attempt to flee, and Huie explained why. “Bobo wasn’t afraid of them! He was tough as they were. He didn’t think they had the guts to kill him. According to Milam, ‘We were never able to scare him. They had just filled him so full of that poison that he was hopeless.’”
Their plans to spare Emmett Till of a brutal death changed, Milam said, after they took him to a toolshed behind Milam’s house and began taking turns pistol-whipping him. Even then, Till never cried out or gave in. “You bastards,” he screamed, defiantly, “I’m not afraid of you. I’m as good as you are. I’ve ‘had’ white women. My grandmother was a white woman.”
To Milam, those words signified a death wish. His next decision was rooted in a lifelong rage that he would now take out on a fourteen-year-old boy:
Well, what else could we do? He was hopeless. I’m no bully; I never hurt a nigger in my life. I like niggers—in their place—I know how to work ’em. But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, niggers are gonna stay in their place. Niggers ain’t gonna vote where I live. If they did, they’d control the government. They ain’t gonna go to school with my kids. And when a nigger gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he’s tired o’ livin’. I’m likely to kill him. Me and my folks fought for this country, and we’ve got some rights. I stood there in that shed and listened to that nigger throw that poison at me, and I just made up my mind. “Chicago boy,” I said, “I’m tired of ’em sending your kind down here to stir up trouble. Goddam you, I’m going to make an example of you—just so everybody can know how me and my folks stand.”
“So big Milam decided to act,” Huie wrote. Milam remembered that new equipment had recently been installed at a cotton gin and that there was an old, discarded fan nearby. “When we got to that gin, it was daylight, and I was worried for the first time. Somebody might see us and accuse us of stealing the fan.” So Milam made Emmett Till load it. Milam and Bryant then drove the boy out to a spot on the Tallahatchie River, about a mile and a half from the home of his friend L. W. Boyce. Huie did not remind his readers, but Boyce had been a character witness for Milam during the murder trial. Milam forced Till to pick up the gin fan and carry it to the riverbank. “Take off your clothes,” Milam ordered. It was now 7:00 A.M., and as Till stood there naked, Milam asked him two final questions.
“You still as good as I am?”
“Ya,” Till answered, defiantly.
“You still ‘had’ white women?”
“Yeah.”
Milam next fired a shot point-blank into Till’s head. Because the boy moved slightly to the left, the bullet hit him just above the right ear, and he fell to the ground. Next, the men took barbed wire, tied the fan to Till’s neck, and rolled him into twenty feet of water. Returning to Milam’s, they spent the next three hours holding a bonfire. It took that long to burn Till’s crepe-soled shoes.
Huie may have meant to prick the consciences of Mississippians; or, he simply believed he was stating a fact by closing his essay with a scathing assessment. “The majority—by no means all, but the majority—of the white people in Mississippi 1) either approve Big Milam’s action or else 2) they don’t disapprove enough to risk giving their ‘enemies’ the satisfaction of a conviction.”44
The impact of the story was both immediate and immeasurable. This was predicted even before its release. Roy Wilkins became aware of the article and its contents several days before promos began running, as Huie had obviously kept him in the loop. He urged NAACP branch officers to use the article to their advantage to further the association’s goals. He gave them a heads-up:
Next Tuesday, January 10, Look magazine will publish a startling article on the murder of Emmett Till in Mississippi. The magazine will be dated January 24, but will go on sale January 10.
This article will be certain to cause fresh nation-wide discussion of the brutal killing of the 14-year-old boy for which no one has been punished.
When the magazine appears and you have seen the article, please write without further delay to both Senators from your state and to the Congressman from your district, reminding them of the Till murder and asking that this session of Congress pass civil rights bills to give the Department of Justice authority to act in such cases as the Till killing.
Ask for an anti-lynching bill. Ask for a stronger civil rights division in the Department of Justice. Ask for laws to guarantee the security of the person.
Ask for the passage of civil rights bills to protect citizens in the right to vote.45
On Thursday, January 13, three days after “Shocking Story” went public, Michigan representative Charles Diggs Jr. stood before the House of Representatives. After receiving unanimous consent to speak, he read the piece into the Congressional Record. To him, there was no question as to the source of the details in the article. “The stunning revelations are so detailed and stated so positively, the magazine’s journalistic integrity and knowledge of libel law is so well established there is no doubt in my mind that the information came directly from the killers themselves, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant.” He theorized tha
t the men, safe from further prosecution, “apparently grasped at the opportunity of selling this exclusive story for an undoubtedly handsome financial reward.”46
Within days, two southern congressmen responded to Diggs by castigating Huie’s summation that the murder had the approval of white Mississippians. John Bell Williams, a four-term Democrat from Raymond, Mississippi, said the article “contains the most unfair, vicious, vindictive, baseless, scurrilous, scathing, and libelous indictment ever labeled against a State of this Union.” It was a “lie out of the whole cloth, embellished with the products of a depraved imagination and is an act of journalistic prostitution of the lowest form.” He read into the Record a January 11 editorial, published in the Jackson State Times, that blasted Huie.47 South Carolina representative L. Mendel Rivers, during a one-minute speech from the House floor, introduced an article by Davis Lee, black publisher of the Newark Telegraph. After a seven-week stay in Mississippi, Lee had become convinced that the Magnolia State “is no worse than any other state in the union,” and that the Till murder could have happened anywhere under similar circumstances. Lee’s observations convinced him that “white people in Mississippi love and respect their Negro employees.”48 Rivers did not mention that Lee had already become a poster boy for segregationists. After the announcement of the Brown decision twenty months earlier, Lee published an editorial criticizing integration, and thus clearly established himself as an appeaser of southern whites. The editor of the McComb (Miss.) Enterprise Journal happily reprinted Lee’s latest assessment and gave him a renewed voice in the South.49 Clearly, Lee, a northerner, was a godsend to Dixie whites, but he was hardly representative of its black population.
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