Emmett Till

by Devery S. Anderson

  80. Parker, Smith, and Wright, author interview, comments by Parker. Simeon Wright remembered this incident also. See Wright and Boyd, Simeon’s Story, 51.

  81. Murray, “‘Wolf Call’ Blamed by Argo Teen,” 1; “Negro Describes Boy’s Abduction,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, September 2, 1955, 1; Hudson-Weems, Emmett Till, 130; Wright and Boyd, Simeon’s Story, 53.

  82. “3rd Lynching of Year Shocks Nation,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 10, 1995, 2.

  83. Moses Wright, “I Saw Them Take Emmett Till,” Front Page Detective, February 1956, 29.

  84. A sampling of interviews with Mamie Till-Mobley, during which she maintained her son’s whistle was only an attempt to stop his stuttering, are “Time Heals Few Wounds for Emmett Till’s Mother,” Jet 66, no. 5 (April 9, 1984): 55; Stringfellow, “Memories Sketch Varied Portraits,” 1H; Evan Ramstad, “Youth’s Murder for Flirting Stimulated Civil Rights Drive,” Tupelo (Miss.) Daily Journal, September 2, 1995, 1F; Till-Mobley, interview, in Beauchamp, Untold Story, rough-cut version of film, copy in author’s possession. In her 2003 memoir, she not only puts forward this theory but also considers the account of Roosevelt Crawford (discussed later) that Emmett was only whistling at a bad move made by someone on the checkerboard (Till-Mobley and Benson, Death of Innocence, 122). However, in the early 1990s she provided a different possibility altogether: “As they [Emmett and another boy] came out of the store, according to the accounts I heard from some of the boys, someone asked Emmett, ‘How did you like the lady in the store?’ They said Emmett whistled his approval” (Studs Terkel, Race: How Blacks & Whites Think & Feel About the American Obsession [New York: New Press, 1992], 20). In her comments to the press in the days after the store incident, and in her recorded speeches and interviews granted in the months following the murder trial, she never argues for any of these scenarios in order to explain the whistle. In fact, she rarely mentioned the whistle at all. See Mamie Bradley, speech delivered October 28, 1955, South Bend, Ind., in Hudson-Weems, Emmett Till, 229–42; Mamie Bradley, “I Want You to Know What They Did to My Boy,” speech delivered October 29, 1955, Baltimore, Washington Afro-American, November 5, 1955, 20, and Baltimore Afro-American, November 12, 1955, 6, reprinted in Davis W. Houck and David E. Dixon, eds., Rhetoric, Religion, and the Civil Rights Movement (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2006), 132–45.

  85. Ted Poston, “‘My Son Didn’t Die in Vain,’ Till’s Mother Tells Rally,” New York Post, September 26, 1955, 22.

  86. Beauchamp, Untold Story, rough cut. See also Crawford’s testimony (although his name is redacted) in Prosecutive Report, 43–44. Crawford also espoused his view in a conversation with the author on August 28, 2005, in New York City, and in a telephone interview with the author on October 21, 2006. Crawford abruptly stopped our telephone interview after having previously agreed to it because he wanted money for all future interviews.

  87. Parker, Smith, and Wright, author interview, comments by Parker and Wright.

  88. Rutha Mae Crawford Jackson and Willie Hill Jackson, interview, conducted by Blackside, Inc., August 29, 1979, for Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years (1954–1965), Henry Hampton Collection, Washington University, St. Louis, http://digital.wustl.edu/eyesontheprize/.

  89. Rutha Mae Crawford Jackson, interview, in Beauchamp, Untold Story. Jackson did not respond to my request for an interview.

  90. Huie, Wolf Whistle, 20; Parker, Smith, and Wright, author interview, comments by Wright; Trial Transcript, 269; Defense notes from interview with Carolyn Bryant.

  91. Harry Raymond, “Cousin Tells How Negro Youth Was Kidnapped,” Daily Worker (New York), September 2, 1955, 1; Till-Mobley and Benson, Death of Innocence, 114 (Till’s letter is reproduced in photograph inset between pages 136 and 137). Till’s letter and Elizabeth Wright’s letter to Alma Spearman are both at American Experience, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/filmmore/ps_letters.html. Till-Mobley said in her 2003 memoir that she placed a call to Mose Wright’s neighbors and talked to Emmett while he was in Mississippi (Till-Mobley and Benson, Death of Innocence, 114). However, during a joint interview with Mamie Bradley and Elizabeth Wright in October 1955, Bradley asked Wright how Emmett reacted to Bradley’s letter telling him she had retrieved his dog from the pound. There would have been no reason to ask this had she spoken to him herself. Therefore, I conclude that Bradley’s memory is incorrect, and that she wrote to her son, but did not call him (Strafford, “When I Find Time I’ll Cry,” 2).

  92. “Nation Horrified,” 8; Porteous, “Grand Jury to Get Case,” 4; Trial Transcript, 39; Huie, Wolf Whistle, 41. Simeon Wright insists that his parents never found out about the incident, because if they had, they would have sent Till back to Chicago or made him apologize to Carolyn Bryant. “Either way, perhaps Bobo would be alive today” (Wright and Boyd, Simeon’s Story, 52). It is clear, however, based on repeated testimony, that Mose Wright learned about the store encounter prior to Till’s kidnapping. During his courtroom testimony, Wright said he heard about the trouble at the store and talked with Emmett about it. However, notes taken by the defense during a deposition given by Wright before the trial state that “sometime between Wednesday and Saturday night someone told Mose about Till’s getting into trouble in Money, but he did not talk to Till about it at anytime” (“Resume of Interview with Mose Wright”). Whether or not he talked to Till, Wright was aware of the incident prior to the kidnapping.

  93. Wheeler Parker, interview, in Nelson, Murder of Emmett Till; “Events Night of Kidnaping Told by Slain Boy’s Cousin,” Jackson Daily News, September 1, 1955, 12; Porteous, “Grand Jury to Get Case,” 5; Parker, Smith, and Wright, author interview, comments by Parker and Wright.

  94. In a separate interview, published in August 1985 in the Jackson Clarion–Ledger/Jackson Daily News, Jones admitted that he was not yet in Mississippi the night Emmett went into the Bryant store, but he reaffirmed the details as he would have heard them from the others: “The boys had dared him. He was trying to show them that he wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t the type that scared easily.” Jones also told these papers that Emmett had pictures of two white girls in his wallet. See Stringfellow, “Memories Sketch Varied Portraits,” 1H. Because Jones’s story came thirty years after the incident and he was not a witness to it in the first place, he may be recalling the photo incident not from memory but from reading the Huie account, which had become the most commonly told and accepted version of the events at the Bryant store.

  95. Curtis Jones, interview, conducted by Blackside, Inc., November 12, 1985, for Eyes on the Prize. Even though he is deceptive about the store incident, Jones may be trusted for other details, such as his arrival date in Mississippi and how he got there. Simeon Wright says that Jones had been staying with an aunt in Greenwood the week previous, and that they met up with him there that Saturday night. It was then, according to Wright, that Jones came to stay in Money (see Wright and Boyd, Simeon’s Story, 59; Parker, Smith, and Wright, author interview, comments by Wright). However, if Jones is correct that he was fishing with Till Saturday, he would have been in Money sometime during the day.

  96. Till-Mobley and Benson, Death of Innocence, 113–14.

  97. Trial Transcript, 10; Wright, “I Saw Them Take Emmett Till,” 29; Parker, Smith, and Wright, author interview, comments by Wright. Simeon Wright said his brother, Robert, stayed home that night, opting to listen to the radio broadcast of Gunsmoke. An episode of the popular western did run on Saturday, August 27, 1955, and was titled “Doc Quits.” Mose Wright testified in court, however, that only his wife, Elizabeth, remained at home that night. Wright and Boyd, Simeon’s Story, 54. For the radio broadcast history of Gunsmoke, see http://comp.uark.edu/~tsnyder/gunsmoke/gun-radio1.html.

  98. Crawford, interview, in Beauchamp, Untold Story; Parker, Smith, and Wright, author interview, comments by Parker and Wright; Wright and Boyd, Simeon’s Story, 54–55. Simeon Wright believes he spent part of his evening in Greenwood at a movie.

  99. John
Crawford, interview, in Beauchamp, Untold Story; Trial Transcript, 10.

  100. Till-Mobley and Benson, Death of Innocence, 115; Parker, Smith, and Wright, author interview, comments by Parker.

  101. Trial Transcript, 10.

  102. Holmes, “Uncle Tells How 3 Kidnapers,” 2; Trial Transcript, 32–33. Wheeler Parker and Simeon Wright said that Parker was in the bed with Maurice Wright, not Curtis Jones, and that Jones and Robert Wright shared a bed in a different room altogether. However, because Mose Wright testified to the sleeping scenario, first to reporters and then at the murder trial a few days later, I assume that his testimony is more accurate than the later recollections of Parker and Simeon Wright. Their account is in Hudson-Weems, Emmett Till, 208; Beauchamp, Untold Story; and Parker, Smith, and Wright, author interview, comments by Parker and Wright. However, the fact that Mose Wright had to go from room to room in order to find Till when the kidnappers came to the house to take him away is an indication that the sleeping arrangements were spontaneous and changed from night to night. If so, this may account for the discrepancy between Mose Wright’s testimony and how Parker and Simeon Wright have come to recollect the night decades later.

  103. Porteous, “Grand Jury to Get Case,” 5; “Details Told of Lynching of Emmett,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 17, 1955, 14.

  104. Porteous, “Grand Jury to Get Case,” 5; Holmes, “Uncle Tells How 3 Kidnapers,” 2; Wright, “I Saw Them Take Emmett Till,” 28; Trial Transcript, 38; “Resume of Interview with Mose Wright.”

  105. Holmes, “Uncle Tells How 3 Kidnapers,” 2.

  106. “Resume of Interview with Mose Wright”; “Uncle Tells How 3 Kidnapers,” 2; “Slain Boy’s Uncle Recalls Fatal Night,” Chicago American, September 19, 1955, 4; Trial Transcript, 18, 19, 39; Wright, “I Saw Them Take Emmett Till,” 29; Jones, interview, for Eyes on the Prize; Hudson-Weems, Emmett Till, 133; Porteous, “Grand Jury to Get Case,” 5.

  107. Trial Transcript 19; Porteous, “Grand Jury to Get Case,” 5. Simeon Wright told defense attorneys shortly after the kidnapping that he thought he recognized one of the men present as Roy Bryant, having seen him before at the store. Upon further questioning, however, “He said he really couldn’t tell who anybody was that night.” Later in life, however, Wright said that he saw and recognized Bryant but not Milam. See “Resume of Interview with Simmy Wright,” Huie Papers, box 85, fd. 346; Simeon Wright, interview, in Beauchamp, Untold Story.

  108. Holmes, “Uncle Tells How 3 Kidnapers,” 2; Porteous, “Grand Jury to Get Case,” 5; Hudson-Weems, Emmett Till, 132.

  109. “Resume of Interview with George Smith,” Huie Papers, box 85, fd. 346; “Resume of Interview with Mose Wright”; Everett, “Till Nearly Missed His Fatal Journey,” 12; Huie, Wolf Whistle, 24–25; Holmes, “Uncle Tells How 3 Kidnapers,” 2; Ray Brennan, “Till’s Uncle Sticks to Guns, Says He’ll Relate Kidnapping,” Chicago Sun-Times, September 19, 1955, 3; Porteous, “Grand Jury to Get Case,” 5; Trial Transcript, 18–21; Wright, “I Saw Them Take Emmett Till,” 29.

  110. James Kilgallen, “Wright Tells Story of Negro’s Kidnapping,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 22, 1955, 11; Wright, “I Saw Them Take Emmett Till,” 29.

  111. Wright, “I Saw Them Take Emmett Till,” 29; Till-Mobley and Benson, Death of Innocence, 125; “Resume of Interview with Mose Wright”; Brennan, “Till’s Uncle Sticks to Guns,” 3; Holmes, “Uncle Tells How 3 Kidnapers,” 2 (Holmes erroneously refers to William Chamblee as William Chandler); Hudson-Weems, Emmett Till, 131; Parker, Smith, and Wright, author interview, comments by Wright; Huie, Wolf Whistle, 25; Wright, author interview, October 2, 2007.

  112. Parker, Smith, and Wright, author interview, comments by Parker.

  Chapter 3

  1. Paul Holmes, “Uncle Tells How 3 Kidnapers Invaded Home and Seized Till,” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 19, 1955, part 1, 2; Joe Atkins, “Slain Chicago Youth Was a ‘Sacrificial Lamb,’” Jackson Clarion–Ledger/Jackson Daily News, August 25, 1985, 20A.

  2. Moses Wright, “I Saw Them Take Emmett Till,” Front Page Detective, February 1956, 29, 69; Holmes, “Uncle Tells How 3 Kidnapers,” 2.

  3. David A. Shostak, “Crosby Smith: Forgotten Witness to a Mississippi Nightmare,” Negro History Bulletin 38 (December 1974–January 1975): 322.

  4. Curtis Jones, interview, conducted by Blackside, Inc., November 12, 1985, for Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years (1954–1965), Henry Hampton Collection, Washington University, St. Louis, http://digital.wustl.edu/eyesontheprize/. Just after Till’s murder, reporters in Chicago also interviewed Jones, who said that he heard Mose Wright trying to plead with the kidnappers not to take Till. He said that Elizabeth Wright even identified the men as Milam and Bryant (see “Kin Tell How Murdered Boy Was Abducted,” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 3, 1955, 11). Jones’s later retelling of the events of the night, although it came thirty years later, appears to be the most accurate. In the 1955 interview, he inserted himself into the story as an eyewitness but in actuality he learned what had happened from his grandparents because he stayed asleep most of the time while the kidnappers were present.

  5. Clark Porteous, “Grand Jury to Get Case of Slain Negro Boy Monday,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, September 1, 1955, 4; Wright, “I Saw Them Take Emmett Till, 69.”

  6. Mamie Bradley, “Mamie Bradley’s Untold Story,” installment one, Daily Defender (Chicago), February 27, 1956, 8; Mamie Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson, Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (New York: Random House, 2003), 117.

  7. “Mamie Bradley’s Untold Story,” installment six, Daily Defender (Chicago), March 6, 1956, 8; Till-Mobley and Benson, Death of Innocence, 118; Clenora Hudson-Weems, Emmett Till: The Sacrificial Lamb of the Civil Rights Movement, 4th ed. (Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, 2006), 231.

  8. Mamie Bradley, “I Want You to Know What They Did to My Boy,” speech delivered October 29, 1955, Baltimore, Washington Afro-American, November 5, 1955, 20, and Baltimore Afro-American, November 12, 1955, 6, reprinted in Davis W. Houck and David E. Dixon, eds., Rhetoric, Religion, and the Civil Rights Movement, 1954–1965 (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2006), 133 (hereafter, references to this speech will cite Houck and Dixon only); “Chicago Boy, 14, Kidnaped by Miss. Whites,” Jet 8, no. 18 (September 8, 1955): 4.

  9. “Mamie Bradley’s Untold Story,” installment seven, Daily Defender (Chicago), March 7, 1956, 8; Hudson-Weems, Emmett Till, 232; Till-Mobley and Benson, Death of Innocence, 118, 120.

  10. Till-Mobley and Benson, Death of Innocence, 118.

  11. “Mamie Bradley’s Untold Story,” installment seven, 8; Hudson-Weems, Emmett Till, 232.

  12. Wright, “I Saw Them Take Emmett Till,” 69. Deputy John Cothran indicated in an interview with defense attorneys that Mose Wright had reported the kidnapping by eight o’clock Sunday morning (“Resume of Interview with John Ed Cothran, Deputy Sheriff of Leflore County, Mississippi,” William Bradford Huie Papers, Cms 84, box 85, fd. 346, Ohio State University Library, Columbus [hereafter cited as Huie Papers]).

  13. Till-Mobley and Benson, Death of Innocence, 120; William Bradford Huie, Wolf Whistle, and Other Stories (New York: Signet Books, 1959), 25; Shostak, “Crosby Smith,” 322. If Crosby Smith’s recollection of Sheriff Smith’s comments is correct, it remains unknown just what crime Bryant and Milam had previously committed. However, in an article in the Chicago Defender, a news story on the abduction reports that “Bryant was implicated in the death of a Negro who was beaten and left in a ditch last year.” Attributing this revelation to Sheriff George Smith of Leflore County, the article also quotes Smith in a telephone conversation with Alma Spearman as saying “Bryant is a mean, cruel man.” By reputation, this more accurately describes Milam, and this may be who Smith had in mind. See Mattie Smith Colin and Robert Elliott, “Mother Waits in Vain for Her ‘Bo,’” Chicago Defender, September 10, 1955, 2.

  14. Confidential source C, author interview, August 19, 2014; “Milam Is Pictured
a War Hero Who Also Snatched Negro Girl from Drowning,” Jackson Daily News, September 20, 1955, 6; William Bradford Huie, “The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi,” Look, January 24, 1956, 46–47; Huie, Wolf Whistle, 16–23.

  15. Wheeler Parker Jr., Crosby Smith Jr., and Simeon Wright, author interview, February 7, 2007, Argo, Ill., comments by Wright; Hudson-Weems, Emmett Till, 135; Simeon Wright, with Herb Boyd, Simeon’s Story: An Eyewitness Account of the Kidnapping of Emmett Till (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2010), 83.

  16. “Resume of Interview with George Smith, Sheriff of Leflore County, Mississippi,” Huie Papers, box 85, fd. 346; Federal Bureau of Investigation, Prosecutive Report of Investigation Concerning . . . Emmett Till, Deceased, Appendix A—Trial Transcript, February 9, 2006, 131 (hereafter cited as Trial Transcript).

  17. “Chicago Negro Youth Abducted by Three White Men at Money,” Greenwood (Miss.) Commonwealth, August 29, 1955, 1.

  18. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Prosecutive Report of Investigation Concerning . . . Emmett Till, Deceased, Victim, February 9, 2006, 68 (hereafter cited as Prosecutive Report).

  19. Prosecutive Report, 91; Bonnie Blue, Emmett Till’s Secret Witness: FBI Confidential Source Speaks (Park Forest, Ill.: B. L. Richey Publishing, 2013), 252–56, 290–94. Blue served as a confidential source for the FBI during its 2004–5 investigation into the Till case. She claimed to have interviewed Milam over the phone several times shortly before his death in 1980, during which she extracted a candid admission of his role in the killing as well as several details about the murder. This is discussed in more detail in later chapters.

  20. Trial Transcript, 137–49; Porteous, “Grand Jury to Get Case,” 4; F. L. Price to Mr. [Alex] Rosen, September 2, 1955, FBI FOIA release to Devery S. Anderson, 2006, re Emmett Till (hereafter cited as FBI file on Emmett Till).