Beauchamp and Sykes planned to be in Mississippi showing Untold Story, and wanted the meeting with federal and Mississippi officials to coincide with one of those dates. Sykes telephoned Chiles to let her know. Previous to this, she had known nothing about him, but Sykes was direct as he told her about two meetings he had set up in Oxford and Jackson and wanted to know which one she’d like to attend. “Out of curiosity, I chose the Oxford site to see who this person was who was so brazen that he would give me a choice of meeting in two places.”96
Chiles, forty-nine, had just been elected to office in November and had been serving only one month when Sykes contacted her. The first black district attorney to serve in this section of the Delta, she was elected with 70 percent of the vote after running against a white male opponent. Born just twenty miles from Money in Itta Bena, Chiles was raised on a cotton plantation near Belzoni. She was only a toddler when Emmett Till was murdered in 1955 and grew up hearing very little about the case. She joined the army after graduating from Mississippi Valley State University with a degree in history. She returned to Mississippi after her discharge to work as a counselor at the state prison, and then became an undercover narcotics agent before going on to law school. After earning her degree from the Mississippi College School of Law in 1988, she joined the district attorney’s office a year later, eventually serving as assistant district attorney before being elected in 2003 to head the office. Her jurisdiction included Leflore, Washington, and Sunflower Counties.97
On Friday, February 6, 2004, Sykes and Beauchamp met with Greenlee, Hailman, Nielsen, Chiles, and others at Greenlee’s conference room in Oxford. For over an hour the gathered officials listened first to Sykes and then to Beauchamp, who each explained their reasons for wanting to reopen an investigation. Sykes talked about the need to establish the facts of the case, and of his vision of a joint state and FBI investigation, basing his justification for federal help on the Scalia opinion. “We all listened very attentively to him as he spoke,” said Chiles. Sykes convinced Chiles that his priority was learning the truth, but “if justice can be served then it should be.” Greenlee remembered Sykes as “organized and logical” in his presentation. “He was meticulous and motivated by facts, not emotion. He almost appeared ‘emotionless.’” Hailman recalled Sykes as “focused and very good.”98
Beauchamp presented the evidence he had uncovered through his numerous interviews with people in the Mississippi Delta and elsewhere. To those listening, Beauchamp’s findings, coming forth so many years after the crime, appeared weak from a prosecutorial standpoint. That made it difficult for officials in the room to get on board. Hailman said that at this point, the meeting began “drifting,” but Sykes then brought in sixty-one-year-old Simeon Wright, who had been waiting patiently outside. Wright’s presentation made all the difference. It was heartfelt and personal, and everyone present was touched. He detailed what he had witnessed at the store in Money, Mississippi, and of witnessing the kidnapping of his fourteen-year-old cousin. After Wright finished, wrote Hailman, “we agreed unanimously, investigators and prosecutors alike, both federal and state, that we had to reopen the case and investigate it as thoroughly as humanly possible.”99
That being said, Chiles still worried whether they really had a case. With no physical evidence or trial transcript, and Beauchamp’s findings problematic for her, she told Sykes bluntly, “I don’t know what my office can do with this.”100 Yet she wanted to do the right thing. She turned to Hailman out in the hallway.
“John, I will do what is right. If we have a case, I’ll prosecute it, but I won’t do it just to satisfy people’s feelings.”
Chiles knew that should there be an investigation, she would need the Department of Justice to work with her, as she and her staff were not equipped to handle it on their own. She also wanted Hailman to work directly with her office as a specially appointed district attorney. If indictments followed and the case went to trial, she would insist that Hailman be the one to present it in court.101
Following the meeting, Greenlee sent a report to the deputy attorney general indicating that the state and federal officials who listened to the evidence wanted an investigation. For Greenlee, the Till case was an open wound and a stain on Mississippi to that day.102 In order for the federal government to agree to take it on, the state of Mississippi would need to formally request its assistance. Sykes assured Chiles from his past experience that if the Justice Department received a request for help, a joint investigation would be a done deal.103
The Oxford meeting was a turning point, and the momentum continued to build. The following day, Beauchamp, Sykes, and Donald Burger held a public screening of Untold Story at the Jackson State University campus, where over 200 people attended. Sykes urged those present to call their representatives in Congress to urge them to support an investigation.104 While in Jackson, the three men learned that Chicago alderman Ed Smith was going to propose a resolution at a meeting of the Chicago City Council Health Committee, urging that the case be reopened. Beauchamp could not attend, but Sykes and Don Burger left Mississippi and drove all night in order to appear before the committee on Monday, February 9.
“We believe that the federal government has a responsibility to investigate and prosecute any individuals who are still alive, who were involved in this case,” Sykes told the council.
Burger reminded those present that Mamie Till-Mobley “spent her whole life trying to get justice for her son’s untimely death.” Alderman Smith made his own plea. “We should bring this case to justice because killers should not be out there walking around after committing such a horrendous crime.”
For Smith, who was raised in Mississippi, the Till case was personal. He spoke of his cousin Eddie, and a friend, Henry, the latter whom years earlier had been accused of staring at a white woman. “And when they found them walking down the road, they took both of ’em because they couldn’t kill Henry and leave Eddie.” The vigilantes “took the two of them. Took these kids and beat them all night. Tied them to a barn and went to work. The next day, they came back and continued to beat them and kill them. And then they cut them up with a chain saw and dropped them in the Mississippi River.” The resolution passed.105
The message was clearly sinking in. The following day, February 10, Illinois congressman Bobby Rush submitted a resolution in the House of Representatives that stated the facts of the Till case and called on the Department of Justice to investigate the murder as well as the acquittal of J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant. He also asked that the department report the results of its findings to Congress.106
In response to Rush, a spokesman at the Justice Department informed reporters from the Chicago Tribune that “the statute of limitations . . . barred the department from investigating the case further.” This was the argument that Sykes, Beauchamp, and Burger refuted when they met with Assistant Attorney General Ralph Boyd ten months earlier. Rush continued to conduct research through the Legislative Counsel for the House of Representatives and the Congressional Research Service, and on February 27 he sent a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft with his own refutation, pointing out that federal law USC 3282 stated that “an indictment for any offense punishable by death may be found at any time without limitation.” The federal government was looking into or had helped out in numerous cases that were over thirty years old, Rush said, including the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing and the Medgar Evers case.107
Such passionate support was crucial, and, fortunately, it kept building in both the House and Senate. In early 2004, Keith Beauchamp met author and history professor Blanche Wiesen Cook through a mutual friend, civil rights activist Connie Curry. Cook then acquainted Beauchamp with attorney Kenneth P. Thompson, who had friends in high places. Thompson introduced the filmmaker to New York senator Charles Schumer and Representative Charles Rangel.108 Thompson was a former federal prosecutor who had handled the 1997 case of Abner Louima, a thirty-year-old Haitian who had been beaten and sexually assa
ulted by New York City police officers after they arrested him outside of a nightclub.109 Schumer, who had already learned much about Beauchamp prior to their meeting, took an immediate liking to the young filmmaker.110
By early April, the Department of Justice was already considering the requests out of Mississippi for a joint investigation, but Schumer and Rangel began making public appeals that it act. “The murder of Emmett Till was one of the seminal moments in our nation’s civil rights movement,” explained Schumer, passionately, “and the failure to bring his murderers to justice remains a stain on America’s record for reconciliation.” Schumer, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called upon Attorney General John Ashcroft to keep the promises Ashcroft made during his 2001 confirmation hearings to enforce the country’s civil rights laws. “In this rare instance, justice delayed may not be justice denied.”111
On April 6, following the lead of Chicago two months earlier, the New York City Council took up the Till case. Three congressmen joined several city council members and stood outside city hall in support of a resolution calling for a federal investigation. During a press conference arranged by Council-woman Letitia James, Thompson announced that he had set up a meeting for May 4 with Alexander Acosta, the new assistant attorney general for civil rights. “We intend to present evidence to show that there are people who are still living who may have been involved in the murder of this innocent child,” explained Thompson.112
The date of the meeting had never actually been finalized, however, and Thompson’s announcement was premature. Sykes had arranged for officials at the Department of Justice to meet with Wheeler Parker on behalf of the Till family and was given two possible dates, May 4 being one of them. Neither Sykes nor Parker wanted the date announced publicly, as a safety precaution for Parker. Thompson’s announcement forced Sykes to issue an apology to the Justice Department. The meeting was put on hold.113
On April 20, Representative Rush sent a second letter to Ashcroft pointing out that “Emmett Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, similarly made numerous requests to the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate her son’s murder. Unfortunately, she received only indifference and silence as a rather telling response. I would hope that the Justice Department would not treat a member of Congress the same way it treated Mrs. Till-Mobley 50 years ago—with indifference and silence.”114
The planned meeting never came about, but Acosta sent his staff to Mississippi to meet with District Attorney Chiles to discuss the possibilities of partnering in an investigation.115 From there, the Justice Department decided to act, and the announcement it made was historic. On May 10, Sykes was at home in Kansas City but, believing that an announcement about an investigation was probably forthcoming, tried to get to Washington, DC. He called Don Burger to catch a ride with him, but Burger was already packed and about to leave for Washington with someone else to deal with another issue.
“I can feel it is going to happen—maybe today or tomorrow,” Sykes told him.116
He was right. Acosta announced that day on behalf of the attorney general’s office that the Department of Justice, in partnership with the state of Mississippi, was opening an investigation into the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till. “If indeed others are implicated and they can be identified, they can still be prosecuted,” Acosta explained. “While the five-year federal statute of limitations in effect in 1955 has since expired, prosecution can still be brought in state court.” He justified the decision by explaining, “Emmett Till’s brutal murder and grotesque miscarriage of justice moved this nation. We owe it to Emmett Till, we owe it to his mother and to his family, and we owe it to ourselves to see if, after all these years, any additional measure of justice is still possible.” A 1994 statute provided authorization to the FBI to assist both state and local authorities in this type of investigation under certain circumstances.117
Beauchamp was at his girlfriend’s home when he learned the news he had been waiting to hear for years. Even though Thompson had told Beauchamp a week earlier that the federal government was beginning to move on the investigation, the news still came as a surprise. The announcement was especially welcome because Beauchamp was then in the midst of a crisis. His girlfriend, Ronnique Hawkins, who had been entrusted with the master copies of Untold Story, had accidentally left them on a train. With so many screenings scheduled for the film, Beauchamp sat wondering what he would do next. Just then he received a call from a producer at CNN that did not resolve his dilemma but lifted his spirits nonetheless. He told Beauchamp he was sending a car over to pick him up. Beauchamp wanted to know why.
“Haven’t you heard? Keith, we got the Till case reopened. Turn it on CNN.”
Beauchamp turned on the television and watched as the network made the announcement.118 And, as luck would have it, a day before a scheduled screening hosted by Senator Schumer, Ken Thompson, and attorney Doug Wigdor, UPS delivered the master copies of Untold Story to Hawkins’s house. They had been retrieved from the train and sent to the address left by Beauchamp when filling out the shipping label.119
Others’ reactions to the news were overwhelmingly positive. Stanley Nelson, whose film had been reviewed for its inclusion of new witnesses, was thrilled. “It’s a great feeling, it’s an incredible feeling, to be a bit part of this.”120 Till family members were especially happy. “I’m elated,” said Simeon Wright. “It’s a great decision. Something had to be done.” Airickca Gordon, a cousin whom Mamie Till-Mobley helped raise, thought of the woman who had dreamed of this day for so long. “I can see her sitting in the chair with a tissue, and her cheeks rosy red and her eyes full of tears. It would be a happy, relief, burden-lifted type of cry.”121
Mississippi’s highest official as well as prominent black leaders also weighed in. Governor Haley Barbour threw his support behind the decision, stating that the Justice Department would not have acted had it not had good reasons to do so. “It reopens some old wounds,” he admitted, “but that’s not always counterproductive to reconciliation.”122 The Reverend Jesse Jackson noted the historical significance of the case by affirming, “Emmett Till’s death changed the hearts and minds of millions. It was the wake-up call.” NAACP president Kweisi Mfume applauded the news but noted that “it is sad that it has taken so long.”123
To be sure, the news that this forty-nine-year-old case would be investigated by the Justice Department was welcomed in many quarters, yet the decision was only a first step. Federal officials were cognizant of the fact that decades had passed since the murder had been committed. “At the end of the day, there may not be a prosecutable crime, but it’s a case of such importance that it’s worth taking a chance to see what’s there,” said one official, speaking to the New York Times on condition of anonymity. Beauchamp planned to aid the FBI investigation by providing them over eighty hours of film and stacks of documents that he had accumulated.124
For a variety of reasons, not everyone was happy about a new probe into a decades-old racially motivated murder case. Bonnie Cheshier, who had never even heard of the case when Mississippi reporters asked her about it twenty years earlier, was disappointed by the decision. “You’re kidding,” she said with surprise upon hearing the news. Unlike Governor Barbour, Cheshier, who had served as town clerk for over two decades, believed that opening old wounds was counterproductive. “I do not think it’s a good idea. It seems like we have a better community here now between blacks and whites. I feel [the decision] focuses on the bad and we need to focus on the good. I’ve worked real hard to let everyone know we treat all people the same here.”125 A letter to the editor of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger no doubt reflected the opinion of other concerned Mississippians. “I can’t understand why our tax dollars are being used to investigate this case,” wrote Jackson resident Nita Martin. “This happened [forty-nine] years ago and there has already been a trial and the men involved are dead now. So what can be accomplished?”126
Martin obviously failed
to understand that a probe would not only seek to uncover the facts as they related to Milam and Bryant, but it would also try to determine who else was involved and whether they could be punished. Although Cheshier was correct in her belief that moving forward was an essential step for Mississippi to heal from its tortured past, that would be futile without an attempt toward justice in the case that had haunted the Delta for so long. The fact that there is no statute of limitations on murder said as much. Even if no one could, in the end, be prosecuted, learning the truth would be essential to long-term healthy race relations. Only then could the dark fog be lifted from Tallahatchie County and Cheshier’s vision be fully realized. With the decision made and the FBI gearing up to do its work, critics of the decision, supporters, Till family members, and any guilty parties still at large would now pass the time with two things in common—watching and waiting.
12
Seeking Justice in a New Era
Soon after the Justice Department announced its decision to investigate the Emmett Till murder, officials turned the case over to the FBI. Robert J. Garrity Jr., who had been with the Bureau since 1976, transferred to Mississippi in June 2005 as special agent in charge, replacing Ed Worthington, who had retired in March. As special agent in charge, Garrity would lead the field office in Jackson as well as the nine resident agencies scattered throughout the state. Garrity believed strongly that investigating the case was the right thing to do, and a supervisor at the Oxford office assigned the job to an agent there named Dale Killinger.1 Twenty-four counties made up the territory covered by the Oxford Resident Agency, including those most relevant to the Till case—Leflore, Sunflower, and Tallahatchie.
Emmett Till Page 47