Emmett Till

by Devery S. Anderson

  38. Milner, “Bryant Didn’t Mind,” 12; “Milam Is Pictured a War Hero Who Also Snatched Negro from Drowning,” Jackson Daily News, September 20, 1955, 6; James Gunter, “Wives Serious, Children Romp as Trial Begins,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 20, 1955, 14.

  39. Gunter, “Wives Serious, Children Romp,” 14.

  40. For a good discussion, see John Arthur, Race, Equality, and the Burdens of History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 8–51.

  41. “Newsmen and Photographers Are Frisked,” 17.

  42. “Sidelights of Till Trial,” Tri-State Defender (Memphis, Tenn.), October 1, 1955, 5; see also Till-Mobley and Benson, Death of Innocence, 162.

  43. Skelton and Johnson, “Prosecution Says Case,” 1; Sorrels, “10 Jurymen Are Selected,” 1, 15; Rob Hall, “Lynched Boy’s Mother Sees Jurymen Picked,” Daily Worker (New York), September 21, 1955, 8; Porteous, “New Angle in Till Case,” 5.

  44. Hugh Stephen Whitaker, “A Case Study in Southern Justice: The Emmett Till Case” (Master’s thesis, Florida State University, 1963), 142–44, 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): 205–6; Hugh Stephen Whitaker, email to author, June 22, 2005; Sorrels, “10 Jurymen Are Selected,” 1, 15; Arthur Everett, “Hint New Witnesses May Shed More Light on Killing,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, September 21, 1955, 5.

  45. Sorrels, “10 Jurymen Are Selected,” 1; Marsh, “Unanswered Questions,” 2; “Ten Accepted on Till Jury,” Jackson State Times, September 20, 1955, 8A.

  46. Holmes, “2 Go on Trial,” 1.

  47. Holmes, “2 Go on Trial,” 1; Skelton, “Testimony at Bryant-Milam Trial,” 7; Kempton, “Baby Sitter,” 32.

  48. Henry Lee Moon to Mrs. Ruby Hurley, September 19, 1955, Papers of the NAACP, Part 18: Special Projects, 1940–1955, Series C: General Office Files, microfilm reel 15 (Bethesda, Md.: University Publications of America, 1995). According to reporter Steve Duncan, “some individual or organization capitalizing on the Till tragedy, used the name of the NAACP to raise funds for personal gain” (Steve Duncan, “NAACP Disavows Support of Till Fund Raising,” St. Louis Argus, September 23, 1955, 1).

  49. Porteous, “Jury Being Chosen,” 4. This article may have been the source for later accounts that incorrectly report Bradley’s arrival date. See Till-Mobley and Benson, Death of Innocence, 152; Houck and Grindy, Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press, 76.

  50. “Mother of Till Due Here Today on Way to Trial,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 20, 1955, 15.

  51. “Mother of Till Due Here,” 15.

  52. Everett, “10 Tentative Jurors Chosen,” 12; “Mother of Till Boy Goes to Mississippi for Trial,” Chicago American, September 20, 1955, 4.

  53. Dan Wakefield, author telephone interview, November 20, 2006.

  54. Christopher Metress, ed., The Lynching of Emmett Till: A Documentary Narrative (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2002), 162–64; Beito and Beito, Black Maverick, 122.

  55. Metress, Lynching of Emmett Till, 164; Simeon Booker, “A Negro Reporter at the Till Trial,” Neiman Reports, January 1956, 14; Beito and Beito, Black Maverick, 122.

  56. Metress, Lynching of Emmett Till, 164; Booker, “Negro Reporter at the Till Trial” 14; Beito and Beito, Black Maverick, 122; Roberts and Klibanoff, Race Beat, 93.

  57. Metress, Lynching of Emmett Till, 166; Booker, “Negro Reporter at the Till Trial,” 14; Beito and Beito, Black Maverick, 123; L. Alex Wilson and Moses Newson, “Story of the Search for New Witnesses,” Chicago Defender, September 24, 1955, 1, 2; Shoemaker, author interview.

  58. Metress, Lynching of Emmett Till, 163.

  59. Harry Marsh, “Anonymous Telephone Calls Kept Sheriff Strider Awake at Night,” Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Miss.), September 20, 1955, 1; Whitaker, “Case Study in Southern Justice,” 137, reprint, 203.

  60. John Spence, “Till’s Mother Pauses in Memphis on Way to Trial,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, September 20, 1955, 15; “Huff Tells Why He Didn’t Attend Trial,” Chicago Defender, September 24, 1955, 2. Bradley said years later that Huff stayed home due to a foot ailment. See Till-Mobley and Benson, Death of Innocence, 151.

  61. “Mother of Till Boy Arrives in Courtroom,” Chicago American, September 20, 1955, 4.

  62. William Sorrels, “New Trial Evidence Disclosed by State in a Dramatic Turn,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 21, 1955, 1; Spence, “Till’s Mother Pauses,” 15. For more on the Cotton Makers’ Jubilee, see Dr. R. Q. and Ethyl H. Venson Cotton Makers’ Jubilee Collection, Memphis and Shelby County Room, Memphis Public Library and Information Center, Memphis, Tenn., http://memphislibrary.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p13039coll1/id/39.

  In her 2003 memoir, Till-Mobley mistakenly says she flew in to Memphis on Friday, September 16. She does recall going to the home of a Memphis dentist upon her arrival, but does not mention his name. She also says, erroneously, that she went on to Clarksdale, Mississippi, the following day, September 17. She apparently forgot that she had been a speaker at a Cleveland rally on Sunday, September 18, and also fails to mention that she sent Chatham the telegram (quoted above) while still in Chicago on Monday, September 19 (Till-Mobley and Benson, Death of Innocence, 152).

  63. Spence, “Till’s Mother Pauses,” 15.

  64. B. J. Skelton and Sam Johnson, “Court Completes Jury for Bryant-Milam Trial,” Clarksdale (Miss.) Press Register, September 20, 1955, 5; Arthur Everett, “Hint New Witnesses May Shed More Light on Till Killing,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, September 21, 1955, 5; James Featherston, “Negro Congressman Eyes Trial—His Role Not Clear,” Jackson Daily News, September 20, 1955, 1; Herbers, “Testimony Opens Today,” 2.

  65. James Gunter, “Jokes, Threats Are Blended at Tension-Packed Sumner,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 21, 1955, 8.

  66. Herrick, author telephone interview; Hutto, “Sheriff Won’t Call Guard,” 8A.

  67. Herrick, author telephone interview; “Defendant Carried Gun—Witness,” Chicago American, September 22, 1955, 4; Skelton and Johnson, “Court Completes Jury,” 5; Featherstone, “Negro Congressman Eyes Trial,” 1, 7; Herbers, “Testimony Opens Today,” 2; “Arrival of Victim’s Mother Causes Stir,” Jackson State Times, September 20, 1955, 1; Marsh, “Anonymous Telephone Calls,” 1; Hutto, “Sheriff Won’t Call Guard,” 8A.

  68. Herbers, “Testimony Opens Today,” 1.

  69. Jay Milner, “Sumner Folk Already Plenty Bored with All This Ruckus,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, September 21, 1955, 5; “Arrival of Victim’s Mother,” 1; “Judge’s Skilled Handling Draws General Praise,” Jackson State Times, September 21, 1955, 8A.

  70. “Unbelievable!,” excerpts of an address delivered to the Richmond, Virginia, branch of the NAACP on Monday, November 7, by James L. Hicks, published in the Baltimore Afro-American, November 12, 1955, 2; James L. Hicks, interview, conducted by Blackside, Inc., for Eyes on the Prize.

  71. Herbers, “Testimony Opens Today,” 1.

  72. Featherston, “Negro Congressman Eyes Trial,” 7; “Arrival of Victim’s Mother,” 1.

  73. Hall, “Lynched Boy’s Mother,” 8; Hutto, “Sheriff Won’t Call Guard,” 8A; William Sorrels, “New Trial Evidence Disclosed by State in a Dramatic Turn,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 21, 1955, 1, 8.

  74. Paul Holmes, “Hunt Shadow Witnesses in Till Slaying,” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 21, 1955, 1.

  75. Everett, “Hint New Witnesses,” 1, 5; Hutto, “Sheriff Won’t Call Guard,” 8A.

  76. Clark Porteous, “Instead of Lunch, Surprises,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, September 21, 1955, 2; W. C. Shoemaker, “Sumner Citizens Turn Public Relations Experts While Spotlight Beams at Them,” Jackson Daily News, September 20, 1955, 6.

  77. Shoemaker, “Sumner Citizens Turn Public Relations Experts,” 6.

  78. Dan Wakefield, Between the Lines: A Reporter’s Personal Journey through Public Events (New York: New American Library, 196
6), 161.

  79. Harry Marsh, “Judge Swango Is Good Promoter for South,” Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Miss.), September 21, 1955, 1, 2; Hutto, “Sheriff Won’t Call Guard,” 8A.

  80. “Milam Is Pictured a War Hero,” 6.

  81. Porteous, “New Angle in Till Case,” 1, 4; Virgil Adams, “State Granted Recess to Produce New Witnesses in Till Case,” Greenwood (Miss.) Morning Star, September 21, 1955, 1.

  82. Clark Porteous, “Officers Work All Night on Searches,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, September 21, 1955, 1, 7; Louis E. Lomax, “Leslie Milam Quits Farm Home,” Daily Defender (Chicago), March 5, 1956, 5.

  83. See “Sturdivants and Stepson Held for Trial,” Mississippi Sun (Sumner, Miss.), August 20, 1942, 1; “Sturdivant Trial Postponed Till March,” Mississippi Sun (Sumner, Miss.), September 17, 1942, 5; “Sturdivants Now on Trial at Sumner,” Mississippi Sun (Sumner, Miss.), March 11, 1943, 1; “Sumner Jury Acquits Sturdivants in Alexander Slaying,” Mississippi Sun (Sumner, Miss.), March 19, 1943, 1.

  84. Porteous, “Officers Work All Night,” 1, 7.

  85. Porteous, “Officers Work All Night,” 7; “Sunflower County Sheriff Is Dead,” Greenwood (Miss.) Commonwealth, September 19, 1955, 1.

  86. Everett, “Hint New Witnesses,” 1, 5.

  87. Till-Mobley and Benson, Death of Innocence, 152. Till-Mobley wrote that she arrived in Clarksdale on Saturday, September 17, and that this was when Fulton Ford drove her to Mound Bayou and left her in the care of Dr. Howard. However, this could not have happened before Tuesday, September 20, that being the morning she arrived in Mississippi.

  88. Beito and Beito, Black Maverick, 120, 123.

  89. Myrlie Evers, with William Peters, For Us, the Living (New York: Doubleday, 1967), 172; Metress, Lynching of Emmett Till, 167; Wilson and Newson, “Story of the Search,” 1, 2; “A Journalist’s Perspective of the Civil Rights Movement,” E. Artz, interview of Moses J. Newson, http://collections.digitalmaryland.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/saac/id/20059/rec/1; Moses Newson Oral History, interview by Marshland Boone, http://knightpoliticalreporting.syr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Moses_Newson_oral_essay.pdf; Myrlie Evers-Williams, author telephone interview, April 23, 2014.

  90. Beito and Beito, Black Maverick, 123; Wilson and Newson, “Story of the Search,” 2.

  91. “Rumors Send Newsmen on ‘Wild Goose’ Chase,” Jackson State Times, September 21, 1955, 8A.

  92. Wakefield, author telephone interview.

  93. Porteous, “Officers Work All Night,” 7; Ralph Hutto, “NAACP Leader Says Two Witnesses Disappeared,” Jackson State Times, September 23, 1955, 6A.

  94. Clark Porteous, “Mrs. Bryant on Stand,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, September 22, 1955, 4; Porteous, “Officers Work All Night,” 7; Booker, “Negro Reporter at the Till Trial,” 14; Metress, Lynching of Emmett Till, 168; Beito and Beito, Black Maverick, 123–24.

  95. Booker, “Negro Reporter at the Till Trial,” 14; Metress, Lynching of Emmett Till, 169.

  96. Booker, “Negro Reporter at the Till Trial,” 14–15; Metress, Lynching of Emmett Till, 169–70; Porteous, “Officers Work All Night,” 1; Wilson and Newson, “Story of the Search,” 2; “Whistle Killing May Go to Jury Today,” New York Post, September 23, 1955, 3; Clark Porteous, “Kidnap Trial Delay Sure,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, September 23, 1955, 1.

  97. Porteous, “Kidnap Trial Delay Sure,” 1; Beito and Beito, Black Maverick, 125.

  98. James Gunter, “Judge Raps Gavel as Witness Provokes Laughter at Trial,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 22, 1955, 33; John Herbers, “Wright Tells of Kidnaping of Till Boy,” Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Miss.), September 21, 1955, 1.

  99. Arthur Everett, “Defendants Admit Kidnaping Till Boy but Deny Murder,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, September 22, 1955, 18; John Herbers, “Cross-Burning at Sumner Went Almost Unnoticed Yesterday,” Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Miss.), September 22, 1955, 1; Gunter, “Judge Raps Gavel,” 33; Porteous, “Instead of Lunch, Surprises,” 2; John Herbers, “Uncle Identifies Boy’s Abductors,” Jackson State Times, September 21, 1955, 8A.

  100. James Kilgallen, “Uncle Tells Story of Negro’s Kidnaping,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 22, 1955, 11; Herbers, “Uncle Identifies Boy’s Abductors,” 1; Hutto, “Sheriff Won’t Call on Guard,” 8A; Everett, “Defendants Admit Kidnaping Boy,” 18.

  101. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Prosecutive Report of Investigation Concerning . . . Emmett Till, Deceased, Appendix A—Trial Transcript, February 9, 2006, 7–23 (hereafter cited as Trial Transcript); John Popham, “Slain Boy’s Uncle on Stand at Trial,” New York Times, September 22, 1955, 64; Everett, “Defendants Admit Kidnaping Till Boy,” 18.

  102. Trial Transcript, 12. Mose Wright’s exact words on the stand have been a source of controversy since 1987, thanks to reporter James Hicks. In his Eyes on the Prize interview, recorded in 1985, Hicks said that when Wright stood and pointed out Milam in court, he said, in broken English, “Dar he” (meaning “There he is”). This portrayal of Wright has offended his son, Simeon, who insists that his father would never use such an expression. He believes that Hicks perpetuated this story because “it was more colorful and stereotypical to make him sound like an illiterate country farmer. But that wasn’t the case. My father was a preacher and very articulate” (Roberts and Klibanoff, Race Beat, 424n40). Most of the newspaper coverage of the trial—even that written by Hicks—report Wright saying “There he is,” as does the official trial transcript. None report the words “Dar he,” “Thar he,” or similar expressions. Hicks appears to have originated this story in the mid-1980s, and since then, a few others have echoed him. Reporter John Herbers said in 2006 that he definitely recalled Wright saying, “Thar he,” as does trial spectator Betty Pearson (John Herbers, author telephone interview, December 15, 2006; Betty Pearson, author interview, February 6, 2006, Sumner, Miss.). Because all sources contemporary to the event report Wright saying “There he is,” Herbers’s and Pearson’s memories were likely shaped by Hicks’s recollection after Eyes on the Prize aired, and is evidence of how malleable memory can be. The Eyes on the Prize series, originally televised over thirty years after the Till murder, was the first source to give the case national attention in the years after the trial and, as such, is considered authoritative, which explains why the Hicks recollection has been accepted uncritically. For more of Simeon Wright’s criticisms of Hicks, see Simeon Wright, with Herb Boyd, Simeon’s Story: An Eye Witness Account of the Kidnapping of Emmett Till (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2010), 130–32.

  103. Herbers, author telephone interview; Wakefield, author telephone interview; Pearson, author interview.

  104. “How I Escaped from Mississippi,” by Rev. Moses Wright (as told to Jet), Jet 8, no. 23 (October 13, 1955): 7.

  105. Ernest C. Withers, author interview, at the Ned R. McWherter Library, University of Memphis, February 8, 2006.

  106. Herbers, author telephone interview; Wakefield, author telephone interview; Pearson, author interview.

  107. Trial Transcript, 89; Gunter, “Judge Raps Gavel,” 33.

  108. Trial Transcript, 24–32.

  109. Trial Transcript, 41–43.

  110. Trial Transcript, 44–45.

  111. Trial Transcript, 55–56.

  112. Trial Transcript, 56–57. Wright was not able to hear Carlton’s questioning at all times. One reporter noticed that when the defense attorney asked Wright if it was “true that the only reason you could be sure that the body taken from the river was that of Emmett Till was that he was smoothfaced didn’t have whiskers and that Emmett was missing?,” Wright, “in a voice audible only to a few newsmen replied, ‘I never made whiskey in my life.’” See James Featherston, “Slain Boy’s Uncle Points Finger at Bryant, Milam but Admits Light Was Dim,” Jackson Daily News, September 21, 1955, 14.

  113. Kempton, “He Went All the Way,” 5; Dan Wakefield, “Justice in Sumner, Land of the Free,” Nation, 181, no. 14 (October 1, 1955): 284; Everett, “Defendants Ad
mit Kidnaping,” 18; Popham, “Slain Boy’s Uncle,” 64; James Desmond, “Old Negro Points to White Pair, Says ‘That’s the Men,’” New York Daily News, September 22, 1955, C3.

  114. Trial Transcript, 64. Rutha Mae Crawford Jackson, then an eighteen-year-old neighbor, was interviewed for Keith Beauchamp’s film, The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till. She said that she was home the night of Till’s kidnapping, saw multiple cars going to the Wright home, and even saw the white men go to the front of the house while a black man went around to the back. By Mose Wright’s estimate, the Crawford home was at least 100 yards to the east. If it was too dark for Wright to see anyone, or even make out the vehicle in his yard as it drove away, it would have been impossible for Jackson to have seen what she claimed, making her sensational recollections suspect and certainly inaccurate. This discrepancy is also discussed in Terry Wagner, “America’s Civil Rights Revolution: Three Documentaries About Emmett Till’s Murder in Mississippi (1955),” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 30, no. 2 (June 2010): 197. If Crawford is intimating that Milam and Bryant may have visited the Wright home earlier, on Saturday, perhaps while the Wrights and Till were in Greenwood, she does not make that clear. This theory is discussed in a later chapter.

  115. Trial Transcript, 53–55.

  116. Kempton, “He Went All the Way,” 5; Everett, “Defendants Admit Kidnaping,” 18; Desmond, “Old Negro Points to White Pair,” C3.

  117. Trial Transcript, 65–66.

  118. Trial Transcript, 68–75.

  119. Trial Transcript, 75.

  120. Trial Transcript, 75–78.

  121. Trial Transcript, 78–79.

  122. Trial Transcript, 81–82.

  123. Trial Transcript, 82–83.

  124. Trial Transcript, 83–87.

  125. Katherine Malone-France, email to author, March 1, 2006. Malone-France is the granddaughter of Strickland. Her mother, Millicent A. Malone, still living in 2006, is Strickland’s daughter.

  126. Trial Transcript, 88–89.

  127. Trial Transcript, 89–90.