107. “Mourners, Curious Mingle at Till Rites,” Clarksdale (Miss.) Press Register, September 3, 1955, 1; Houck and Dixon, Rhetoric, Religion, and the Civil Rights Movement, 138; Harold and DeLuca, “Behold the Corpse,” 273. For more on the role black mortuaries played in the civil rights movement, see Suzanne E. Smith, To Serve the Living: Funeral Directors and the African American Way of Life (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010). For how this relates specifically to the Till case, see 124–29. In summarizing, Smith notes that “by the mid-1960s, the civil rights funeral, a tradition that had begun with Emmett Till’s ceremony in 1955, became a central stage on which the dramas and internal tensions of the movement played themselves out” (166–67).
108. “Negro Mass March Call Rumor,” Jackson State Times, September 4, 1955, 1.
109. “Grand Jury Considers Charge in Till Case as Suspects Guarded in Greenwood Jail,” Clarksdale (Miss.) Press Register, September 5, 1955, 1; Marshall and McBroom, “White Men Face Double Indictment,” 1.
110. William Middlebrooks, “Sheriff Says Body Thousands Viewed May Not Be Till’s,” Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Miss.), September 4, 1955, 1–2; “Mississippi Sheriff Voices Doubt Body Was That of Till,” Greenwood (Miss.) Morning Star, September 4, 1955, 1; “Sheriff Believes Body Not Till’s,” 4.
111. “2500 at Rites Here for Boy, 14, Slain in South,” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 4, 1955, 2.
112. “Sheriff Believes Body Not Till’s,” 4; “Charleston Sheriff Says Body in River Wasn’t Young Till,” 1.
113. “Sheriff Believes Body Not Till’s,” 1, 4.
114. “Officer Fears Actions,” 1, 8; “Mourners, Curious Mingle at Till Rites,” 1; “Officers Press Hunt in Slaying of Negro,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 4, 1955, 1.
115. “Urge Tolerance at Boy’s Funeral,” Chicago Sun-Times, September 4, 1955, 3.
116. “Urge Tolerance,” 3; Parker, Smith, and Wright, author interview, comments by Smith.
117. “100,000 at Last Rites on S. Side for Kidnapped Boy,” Chicago American, September 3, 1955, 3; Glen Bludeau, “10,000 View Casket of Slain Negro Boy,” Jackson State Times, September 4, 1955, 1.
118. “2500 at Rites Here for Boy,” 2; “100,000 at Last Rites,” 3; “Urge Tolerance,” 3.
119. “2500 at Rites Here for Boy,” 2; Doris Colon, author telephone interview, January 5, 2007. In her interview with me, Colon said that several of her friends refused to let their children travel to Mississippi to visit relatives after the Till murder. This was not uncommon, although Harold and DeLuca note (“Behold the Corpse,” 276) that this was not limited to the South. “African American communities have added the story to their folklore tradition in order to pass along an important lesson: ‘never forget what can happen to a black person in America.’”
120. George Harmon, “‘Jail Raid’ Has Area Tense,” Jackson State Times, September 5, 1955, 1, 10A; “Troops Posted in Delta as Mob Violence Feared in Aftermath to Slaying,” Jackson Daily News, September 5, 1955, 1.
121. Whitaker, “Case Study,” 126–27, reprint, 197–99; J. J. Breland to Thomas L. Miller, September 15, 1955, Huie Papers, box 85, fd. 347; William M. Simpson, “Reflections on a Murder: The Emmett Till Case,” in Southern Miscellany: Essays in History in Honor of Glover Moore, ed. Frank Allen Dennis (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1981), 181.
122. Whitaker, “Case Study,” 126–27, reprint, 197–99; Jay Milner, “Doctor’s Testimony May Alter Inquiry,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, September 6, 1955, 12.
123. “Grand Jury Calls Several Witnesses in Till Murder Case,” Greenwood (Miss.) Morning Star, September 6, 1955, 1.
124. William Sorrels, “Grand Jury Weighs Officers’ Reports in Death of Youth,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 6, 1955, 1.
125. Clay Gowran, “Urban League Asks Action in Till Case,” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 6, 1955, 8.
126. Gowran, “Urban League Asks Action,” 8.
127. “Mother Hysterical at Victim’s Rites,” Chicago American, September 7, 1955, 4.
128. “Accused White Men Plead Innocent of Murder and Kidnap,” Greenwood (Miss.) Morning Star, September 7, 1955, 1; Milner, “Doctor’s Testimony,” 1; “Wolf Whistle Kidnap Pair Indicted on Murder Count,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, September 6, 1955, 7; Parker, Smith, and Wright, author interview, comments by Wright. One newspaper says that Otken was summoned but did not testify, and that Mose and Simeon Wright did; see William Sorrels, “Defendants Enter Pleas of Innocence in Slaying of Youth,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 7, 1955, 3. I conclude, based on Simeon Wright’s recollections, that he did not testify, and that Sorrels is incorrect.
129. “Wolf Whistle Pair Indicted on Murder Count,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, September 6, 1955, 7.
130. “Wolf Whistle Pair Indicted,” 7.
131. “Grand Jury Makes Report and Adjourns,” Sumner (Miss.) Sentinel, September 8, 1955, 1; “J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant Indicted Sept. 6,” Sumner (Miss.) Sentinel, September 8, 1955, 1; Marshall and McBroom, “White Men Face Double Indictment,” 1; “Body of Negro Found in River,” 1.
132. Sorrels, “Defendants Enter Pleas,” 3.
133. “Killing of Till Listed as Lynch in Records,” Greenwood (Miss.) Morning Star, September 7, 1955, 1.
134. Sorrels, “Grand Jury Weighs Officers’ Reports,” 8.
135. Milner, “Doctor’s Testimony,” 1.
Chapter 4
1. For more on the Scottsboro case, see Dan T. Carter, Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South, rev. ed. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007); James Goodman, Stories of Scottsboro (New York: Random House, 1994).
2. James Fairfield, “Deadly Discourses: Examining the Roles of Language and Silence in the Lynching of Emmett Till and Wright’s Native Son,” Arizona Quarterly 63, no. 4 (Winter 2007): 64.
3. William Street, “Emmett Till Case Suddenly Thrusts Little Sumner into Limelight,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 18, 1955, 10.
4. “Till Slaying Trial May Be Set Thursday,” Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Miss.), September 7, 1955, 1.
5. “Slain Boy’s Mother Will Get Invitation to Trial of Deltans,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, September 8, 1955, 1; “Mother of Slain Negro Is Asked to Aid in Prosecution,” Jackson Daily News, September 8, 1955, 6; “Slain Boy’s Mother Invited to Trial,” New York Post, September 8, 1955, 3; “Mother of Slain Chicagoan Urged to Attend Trial,” Chicago American, September 8, 1955, 4.
6. “Random Thoughts by the Editor,” Yazoo City (Miss.) Herald, September 8, 1955, 1; “An Even Bigger Crime,” Scott County Times (Forest, Miss.), September 8, 1955, 4, as quoted in Davis W. Houck and Matthew A. Grindy, Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2008), 48, 50.
7. “Lynching Post-Facto,” Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Miss.), September 6, 1955, 4.
8. Letter to Gerald Chatham, unsigned, postmarked Cleveland, Ohio, September 2, 1955; undated, unsigned letter, both in Gerald Chatham Papers, Charles W. Capps Jr. Archives and Museum, Delta State University, Cleveland, Miss. (hereafter cited as Chatham Papers).
9. J. Noel Hinson to Gerald Chatham, September 6, 1955, Chatham Papers.
10. Mrs. G. Lee to Judge Curtis Swango, September 6, 1955, Chatham Papers.
11. Otis Dudley Duncan and Beverly Duncan, The Negro Population of Chicago: A Study of Residential Succession (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 97.
12. Adam Green, Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940–1955 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 181–84.
13. Green, Selling the Race, 182.
14. Unsigned letter sent to Gerald Chatham, September 7, 1955, Chatham Papers; “Sex Slayer Confesses,” Jet 8, no. 14 (August 11, 1955): 48; Richard C. Lindberg and Gloria Jean Sykes, Shattered Sense of Innocence: The 1955 Murders of Three Chicago Children (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2006), 347n4; “Deaf Mute Convicted
of Rape-Slaying,” Spencer (Iowa) Daily Reporter, December 13, 1955, 2.
15. Unsigned, undated letter, sent from New York, to Gerald Chatham, Chatham Papers.
16. Hugh White to Armis Hawkins, September 14, 1955, James P. Coleman Papers, Accn. no. 21877, box 23, fd. 3, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archives and Library Division, Special Collections Section, Manuscript Collection, Jackson (hereafter cited as Coleman Papers).
17. Houck and Grindy, Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press, 46.
18. “Speedy Trial Planned in Kidnap-Slaying Case,” Greenwood (Miss.) Commonwealth, September 7, 1955, 1; “Plan Suit If 2 Escape Death in Boy Lynching,” New York Post, September 7, 1955, 5.
19. “Marshall Blames Citizens Council for Till Slaying,” Jackson Daily News, September 12, 1955, 1. The other two murders were those of the Reverend George Lee, on May 7, 1955, and Lamar Smith, on August 13, 1955, just two weeks before the murder of Emmett Till.
20. “Speedy Trial Planned,” 1.
21. A. B. Ainsworth, “To All White Mississippians,” Greenwood (Miss.) Commonwealth, September 8, 1955, 8; see also Houck and Grindy, Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press, 53.
22. Citizens of Humphreys County to Breland and Whitten, attorneys, September 9, 1955, three separate letters with multiple signatures sent on this date; Thomas R. Miller to Gerald Chatham, September 12, 1955, all in William Bradford Huie Papers, Cms 84, box 85, fd. 347, Ohio State University Library, Columbus (hereafter cited as Huie Papers).
23. “Backer Says Bryant-Milam Fund Is Growing Rapidly,” Clarksdale (Miss.) Press Register, September 13, 1955, 1; Dan Wakefield, author telephone interview, November 20, 2006; Ralph Hutto, “Sheriff Won’t Call Guard to Preserve Order,” Jackson State Times, September 21, 1955, 8A.
24. “Slain Boy’s Mother Will Get Invitation to Trial of Deltans,” 1; “Slain Youth’s Mother to Testify at Trial,” Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Miss.), September 8, 1955, 1.
25. “Slain Youth’s Mother to Testify,” 1.
26. “Collins Editor Asks U.S. Law on Dead Bodies,” Jackson Daily News, September 8, 1955, 1.
27. “Negro Leader Hails Officers for Handling of Till Slaying,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 9, 1955, 1. Jackson’s praise of Mississippi law enforcement officials was certainly not aimed at Sheriff Strider, whose allegations of an NAACP conspiracy, together with his belief that Emmett Till was still alive, placed him in the corner of the defense. If Jackson was not simply trying to appease white Mississippians in his remarks, then he likely had Leflore County sheriff George Smith and his deputies in mind. It was those officers who had quickly arrested Milam and Bryant after Till’s uncle, Mose Wright, reported the kidnapping.
28. “‘Not Bitter,’ Says Mother of Till,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, September 12, 1955, 27; “Wolf Whistle Trial Date Set Sept. 19,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, September 9, 1955, 34.
29. Houck and Grindy, Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press, 59–60.
30. William Henry Huff to Gerald Chatham, September 9, 1955, Coleman Papers, box 23, fd. 3; FBI FOIA release to Devery S. Anderson, 2006, re Emmett Till (hereafter cited as FBI file on Emmett Till).
31. William Henry Huff to Honorable Herbert Brownell, September 9, 1955, FBI file on Emmett Till.
32. “Judge Curtis Swango Draws Jury List,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, September 13, 1955, 1; “Delta White Men to Go on Trial September 19,” Jackson Daily News, September 9, 1955, 1.
33. “Faulkner Pictures Till Case as Test of Survival of White Man, America,” Jackson Daily News, September 10, 1955, 1; “Hypocrisy Is Attacked by Writer,” Jackson State Times, September 10, 1955, 1, 12A.
34. “Coleman Names Assistant to Aid Delta Prosecution,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, September 10, 1955, 1; “Till Prosecutor Will Have Help,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, September 10, 1955, 11; “Special Prosecutor Named in Till Case,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 10, 1955, 1; “Prominent Local Attorney Dies,” Southern Sentinel (Ripley, Miss.), December 7, 1967, 1.
35. Jak and Bruce Smith Oral History Interview (OH289), May 17, 2005, Charles W. Capps Jr. Archives and Museum, Delta State University, Cleveland, Miss.; Danny McKenzie, “Ripley Attorney Played Major Role in Till Case,” Tupelo (Miss.) Daily Journal, September 21, 2003, 6A.
36. Gerald Chatham Sr., Oral History Interview (OH293), January 19, 2005, Charles W. Capps Jr. Archives and Museum, Delta State University.
37. Armis E. Hawkins to Honorable Latham Castle, September 10, 1955, Coleman Papers, box 23, fd. 3.
38. “Here’s Cast for Sumner, Miss. Trial,” Tri-State Defender (Memphis, Tenn.), September 24, 1955, 2.
39. “Here’s Cast for Sumner,” 2; Hugh Stephen Whitaker, “A Case Study in Southern Justice: The Emmett Till Case” (Master’s thesis, Florida State University, 1963), 130, reprinted as Hugh Stephen Whitaker, “A Case Study in Southern Justice: The Murder and Trial of Emmett Till,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 8, no. 2 (Summer 2005): 200.
40. David Binder, “Jamie Whitten, Who Served 53 Years in House, Dies at 85,” New York Times, September 11, 1995, D13. On June 7, 2013, Whitten’s time in the House was surpassed by John Dingell, Democratic representative from Michigan.
41. Eula Lee Morgan Bryant v. Henry E. Bryant, case no. 2875, Tallahatchie County, Mississippi.
42. “Prosecution Doesn’t Say If Death Penalty Sought in Trial of White Men,” Jackson Daily News, September 12, 1955, 1.
43. Eula Lee Morgan Bryant v. Henry E. Bryant.
44. “Why Didn’t They Get the Same Publicity?,” Greenwood (Miss.) Morning Star, September 7, 1955, 4.
45. “Girl Honored for Saving Negro Nurse,” Clarksdale (Miss.) Press Register, September 10, 1955, 1.
46. J. Edgar Hoover to William Henry Huff, September 20, 1955, FBI file on Emmett Till. Huff may have received an earlier response, perhaps from Brownell, denying the requested protection, as he announced to the press on September 16 that his request had been denied. See “Mother of Till Has a Secret,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, September 16, 1955, 3.
47. “State Calls Special Counsel to Assist with Prosecution,” Clarksdale (Miss.) Press Register, September 10, 1955, 1.
48. See also Mamie Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson, Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (New York: Random House, 2003), 149.
49. Fraser M. Ottanelli, The Communist Party of the United States: From the Depression to World War II (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1991), 36–37.
50. FBI letter to Herbert Brownell and J. Edgar Hoover on Communist Party, USA, the Negro question, and internal security, September 9, 1955, FBI file on Emmett Till.
51. FBI letter to Brownell and Hoover, September 9, 1955; “Councilman Brown Urges Picketing of White House to Protest Lynching,” Daily Worker (New York), September 9, 1955, 1.
52. Office memorandum to Mr. A. H. Belmont, September 14, 1955; Letter to Honorable Dillon Anderson, September 13, 1955; John Edgar Hoover to Assistant Chief of Staff, Department of the Army, n.d., but sent September 14, 1955, all in FBI file on Emmett Till.
53. Whitaker, “Case Study,” 137, reprint, 203. Whitaker examined the letters himself and even retained possession of them until they were destroyed in a basement flood.
54. “Threats Are Voiced as Trial Date Nears,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 11, 1955, 13.
55. “Strategy of Defense Attorneys Violates Every Rule in Books,” Jackson State Times, September 19, 1955.
56. “Prosecution Doesn’t Say If Death Penalty Sought,” 1; “Wolf Whistle Jury Panel Will Be Selected Today,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, September 12, 1955, 13.
57. J. J. Breland to Westbrook Pegler, September 15, 1955, Huie Papers, box 85, fd. 347.
58. “Till’s Mother Unsure on Attending Trial,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, September 14, 1955, 1; “Asks FBI Guard Mother of Slain Boy,” New York Post, September 13, 1955, 8.
59. “Mother of Negro Boy Advised to Stay in Chicago,” Delta Democrat
-Times (Greenville, Miss.), September 12, 1955, 1; “Till’s Mother Is Being Urged Not to Testify,” Jackson Daily News, September 12, 1955, 1.
60. “Lynch Victim’s Mom Asked to Avoid Miss. Trial,” Jet 8, no. 20 (September 22, 1955): 4.
61. 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), 140–41 (hereafter, references to this speech will cite Houck and Dixon only).
62. Mamie Till-Mobley, author telephone interview, December 3, 1996; Till-Mobley and Benson, Death of Innocence, 149.
63. “Mother of Till Finally Agrees to Testify,” Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Miss.), September 13, 1955, 1; “Mother of Till Will Attend Trial as State Witness,” Jackson Daily News, September 13, 1955, 3; “Mother to Testify in Kidnap Trial,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, September 13, 1955, 1; “Mother of Till to Testify in Murder Trial,” Greenwood (Miss.) Morning Star, September 13, 1955, 1.
64. “Till’s Mother to Testify, She Says; To Come Quietly,” Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Miss.), September 16, 1955, 1; “Till’s Mother, ‘Wary of Foes,’ Keeping Her Route to Trial Secret,” Jackson Daily News, September 16, 1955, 1; “Mother of Till Has a Secret,” 3.
65. “Till Youth’s Mom to Delay Appearing at Murder Trial,” Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Miss.), September 18, 1955, 1.
66. Marty Richardson, “Mother of Lynched Boy Here to Open 1955 NAACP Drive,” Cleveland Call and Post, September 17, 1955, A1.
67. “Delta Veniremen Called; Mother to Attend Trial,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, September 16, 1955, 1. For the complete list, see “State v. Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam List of Special Venire,” Huie Papers, box 85, fd. 347.
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