When asked in 2007 if he recalled this incident, Wright’s youngest son, Simeon, said that he remembered the version that two white men came to the house with flashlights, but that any claims saying the house had been ransacked were not true (Wheeler Parker Jr., Crosby Smith Jr., and Simeon Wright, author interview, February 7, 2007, Argo, Ill., comments by Wright). Grover Frederick, the Wrights’ landlord, dismissed the account of a break-in when questioned about it also, saying that was the first he had heard about it. The day Mose Wright left the state, he visited Leflore County sheriff George Smith, telling Smith he would be back for the kidnapping trial. Smith noted that Wright did not mention the alleged incident and appeared “calm and without a worry in the world” (“Till’s Uncle Says He Fled for Life after Trial,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, October 5, 1955, 28). It remains a mystery as to what really occurred the night in question, and it is even more puzzling why Wright gave conflicting accounts of the details. Yet something happened that scared him and prompted him to leave behind his cotton and his belongings and move to Chicago weeks before he had planned. Perhaps he thought he needed to convince skeptical Mississippians that he was afraid for his life, and having the trespassers go into the house and vandalize it accomplished that more than if people interpreted the incident to be a harmless visit by two men who did nothing more than shine their lights and leave.
90. Edleston, “Witnesses Called ‘Prisoners,’” 2.
91. “Bill Spell Answers the American,” Jackson Daily News, October 7, 1955, 1; Spell, author telephone interview.
92. “Bill Spell Answers the American,” 1.
93. “Ignore Doctor,” 1.
94. Spell, author telephone interview.
95. Spell, author telephone interview.
96. The actual article is “CRC ‘Festival’ Opens with Theme Centered on Till,” Jackson Daily News, October 10, 1955, 1.
97. Mamie E. Bradley to Roy Wilkins, October 10, 1955, Papers of the NAACP: Part 18, Series C, reel 15.
98. Gloster Current to Billy Jones, October 5, 1955, Papers of the NAACP: Part 18, Series C, reel 14.
99. Tarea H. Pittman to Gloster B. Current, October 14, 1955, Papers of the NAACP: Part 18, Series C, reel 14.
100. Jerry Gordon, “In Memoriam,” letter to the editor, Cleveland Call and Post, October 15, 1955, 8C.
101. Mort Edelstein, “Till Witness Decides Not to Testify,” Chicago American, October 10, 1955, 5; “Gov. White Tells Reed Boy’s Mother Her Fears Are Based on Propaganda,” Jackson Daily News, October 10, 1955, 1.
102. Roy Wilkins to Mamie Bradley, November 15, 1955; William Durham to Miley O. Williamson, October 8, 1955; “Agreement Between Rev. Moses Wright and the Columbus and Dayton Branches of the NAACP,” signed by Barbee William Durham and Moses Wright, October 8, 1955, all in Papers of the NAACP: Part 18, Series C, reel 14.
103. Durham to Williamson, October 8, 1955.
104. For more on Roosevelt and her outspoken stance on racial issues, see Pamela Tyler, “‘Blood on Your Hands’: White Southerners’ Criticisms of Eleanor Roosevelt during World War II,” in Before Brown: Civil Rights and White Backlash in the Modern South, ed. Glenn Feldman (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004), 96–115.
105. Eleanor Roosevelt, “I Think the Till Jury Will Have Uneasy Conscience,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, October 11, 1955, 6, reprinted in Metress, Lynching of Emmett Till, 136–37. Roosevelt’s “My Day” columns ran from 1936 to 1962. The entire run is available at http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/.
106. “Roosevelt Asks Law to Prevent Till Occurrences,” Jackson Daily News, October 12, 1955, 3; “2,000 in Frisco Hit Till Murder; Rep. Roosevelt Urges U.S. to Act,” Daily Worker (New York), October 19, 1955, 3.
107. “Press Release, Office of Honorable Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., 11 October 1955,” quoted in Metress, Lynching of Emmett Till, 133–36; Harry Raymond, “20,000 at Rally Cheer ‘March on Washington,’” Daily Worker (New York), October 12, 1955, 1.
108. American Jewish Committee, memorandum, October 7, 1955, reprinted in Metress, Lynching of Emmett Till, 138–43. See also “Lynching Acquittal Shocks All Europe,” Daily Worker (New York), October 11, 1955, 2, for several quotations from European papers.
109. “Minnesotan Is Using Till Case in Politics,” Jackson Daily News, October 12, 1955, 3.
110. Ethel L. Payne, “Tom [sic] Till Died for Democracy; Son Its Victim,” New York Age Defender, October 1, 1955, 2.
111. “Father of Young Till Died for His Country,” New York Amsterdam News, October 1, 1955, 7.
112. Roosevelt, “I Think the Till Jury,” 6.
113. “In Memoriam, Emmett Till,” Life, October 10, 1955, 48.
114. “Mississippi Solons Bare Hanging of Till’s Father,” Chicago Defender, October 22, 1955, 1.
115. Ethel L. Payne, “Army Gave Till Facts to Eastland,” Chicago Defender, October 22, 1955, 1; John Stennis to M. G. Vaiden, November 26, 1955, John C. Stennis Collection, Series 29, Civil Rights, box 5, fd. 24, Congressional and Political Research Center, Mitchell Memorial Library, Mississippi State University, Starkville.
116. “Till’s Father Had Been Billed ‘War Hero’” during Fund-Raising Drives,” Jackson Daily News, October 15, 1955, 1.
117. “About Till’s Father (an editorial),” Jackson Daily News, October 15, 1955, 1.
118. “Till’s Father Had Been Billed ‘War Hero,’” 1.
119. Lemorse Mallory and Mamie E. Till, marriage certificate, dated August 19, 1946, no. 1925866, filed August 20, 1946, Cook County Clerk’s Office, Chicago; National Archives and Records Administration, U.S. World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938–1946 [database online], Provo, Utah, USA: Ancestry.com, Operations Inc., 2005; photocopies of documents related to Mallory’s final payment and discharge were sent to author with a covering letter dated November 20, 2008, from Tina Hanson, archives technician, National Personnel Records Center.
120. Parker, Smith, and Wright, author interview, comments by Parker.
121. “GI Buddies Say Till’s Dad Was ‘Railroaded’ in Italy,” Jet 8, no. 26 (November 3, 1955): 4–5.
122. “Mamie Bradley’s Untold Story,” installment four, Daily Defender (Chicago), March 1, 1956, 5.
123. James G. Chesnutt to William Bradford Huie, October 18, 1945, Huie Papers, box 38, fd. 349.
124. Louis Till burial, disinterment, and reburial records, sent with a covering letter by Thomas M. Jones, Chief, Freedom of Information and Privacy Act Office, to author, March 16, 2009.
125. Ezra Pound, Pisan Cantos, edited and annotated with an introduction by Richard Sieburth (New York: New Directions Books, 2003), x–xii.
126. Pound, Pisan Cantos, lines 170–72, 269.
127. See, for example, Alice Kaplan, The Interpreter (New York: Free Press, 2005); J. Robert Lilly, Taken by Force: Rape and American GIs in Europe during World War II (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007).
128. United States v. Private Fred A. McMurray and Private Louis Till, trial transcript; Branch Office of the Judge Advocate General with the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, U.S. Army, Board of Review, United States v. Privates Fred A. McMurray and Louis Till (36 392 273), both of 177th Port Company, 379th Port Battalion, Transportation Corps, Peninsular Base Section, Trial by G.C.M., convened at Leghorn, Italy, February 17, 1945, copies in author’s possession.
129. H. S. J. Walker, M.D., to editor, Life, October 18, 1955, Coleman Papers, box 23, fd. 3.
130. Wade Milam to editor, Life, October 18, 1955, Coleman Papers, box 23, fd. 3; Wade Milam, “Writes a Letter to Life Editor,” Jackson Daily News, October 21, 1955, 6; Houck and Grindy, Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press, 138. See also Ruth Feldstein, “‘I Wanted the Whole World to See’: Race, Gender, and Constructions of Motherhood in the Death of Emmett Till,” in Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945–1960, ed. Joanne Meyerowitz (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), 275; Valerie Smith, “Emmett Till’s Ring,” Women Studies Quarterly 36, no
s. 1–2 (Spring/Summer 2008): 157.
Chapter 8
1. “Till’s Mother Stirs 9,500 in Washington,” Daily Worker (New York), October 20, 1955, 3; Larry Still, “Time Out for Crying,” Washington Afro-American, October 22, 1955, 1, 5; “Prayer Meets Planned for Six Cities,” Washington Afro-American, October 22, 1955, 5.
2. “Uncle of Lynched Boy Tells of Death Night,” Cleveland Call and Post, October 22, 1955, 2A; “Meetings Sponsored by NAACP Branches Featuring Speakers other than Mrs. Bradley,” n.d., Papers of the NAACP: Part 18: Special Subjects, 1940–1955: Series C, General Office files, microfilm reel 14 (Bethesda, Md.: University Publications of America, 1955). Reporter James Hicks noted that “every colored woman I talked to in Mississippi was critical of Mose Wright for permitting the two white men to come into his home and take the Till boy in the first place.” They praised Wright for being brave enough to come testify at the trial, but they were adamant that “he should have killed them both when they broke into his home” (James L. Hicks, “Hicks Says U.S. Ought to Act Now,” Baltimore Afro-American, November 19, 1955, 2; see also “What the People Say: Blast Till Pacifists,” letter to the editor, Chicago Defender, September 17, 1955, 9).
3. Ethel L. Payne, “Army Gave Till Facts to Eastland,” Chicago Defender, October 22, 1955, 2; “Senate May Hear Till Lynch Story,” Chicago Defender, October 29, 1955, 1, 2.
4. “Vatican Urges U.S. Catholics to Help Erase Stain of Till Murder,” Daily Worker (New York), October 18, 1955, 3.
5. “Abe Stark Asks Anti-Lynch Law,” Daily Worker (New York), October 19, 1955, 3.
6. “Rabb Says White House Is Concerned Over Till Case,” Chicago Defender, October 22, 1955, 12; E. Frederic Morrow, Black Man in the White House: A Diary of the Eisenhower Years by the Administration Officer for Special Projects, the White House, 1955–1961 (New York: Coward-McCann, 1963), 223.
7. William G. Nunn to Maxwell Rabb, October 28, 1955; Maxwell Rabb to William G. Nunn, October 31, 1955, both in Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, online documents, www.eisenhower.archives.gov/research/online_documents.html.
8. For contrasting views, see Robert Fredrick Burk, The Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984); David A. Nichols, A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007).
9. Still, “Time Out for Crying,” 5; “Prayer Meets Planned,” 5.
10. Memorandum from Mr. Price to [Alex] Rosen, October 13, 1955, FBI FOIA release to Devery S. Anderson, 2006, re Emmett Till (hereafter cited as FBI file on Emmett Till).
11. Edna F. Kelly to J. Edgar Hoover, October 18, 1955; J. Edgar Hoover to Edna F. Kelly, October 24, 1955, both in FBI file on Emmett Till.
12. “Chicago Negro Group Presses FBI on Till Case,” Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Miss.), October 25, 1955, 2; “Negroes Rebuffed in Asking Federal Intervention,” Greenwood (Miss.) Commonwealth, October 25, 1955, 1.
13. Memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover to Mr. Tolson, Mr. Nichols, Mr. Boardman, Mr. [Alex] Rosen, October 24, 1955, FBI file on Emmett Till. One author has documented that during his tenure as governor, Coleman’s “response to Till suggests that the struggle for racial equality also prompted a change in how Southern officials responded to racial violence. It pushed the South to centralize authority, rein in local officials, improve the administration of justice, and adopt a less violent stance towards blacks—at least publicly.” See Anders Walker, “The Violent Bear It Away: Emmett Till and the Modernization of Law Enforcement in Mississippi,” San Diego Law Review 46 (2009): 459–503.
14. Bryant store sale ad, Greenwood (Miss.) Morning Star, October 19, 1955, 6.
15. Joe Atkins and Tom Brennan, “Bryant Wants the Past to ‘Stay Dead,’” Jackson Clarion–Ledger/Jackson Daily News, August 25, 1985, 1H, 3H.
16. Atkins and Brennan, “Bryant Wants the Past,” 3H.
17. “Mrs. Bradley Wires Moms of 3 Slain Chicago Boys,” Chicago Defender, October 29, 1955, 7; James A. Jack, Three Boys Missing: The Tragedy That Exposed the Pedophilia Underworld (Chicago: HPH Publishing, 2006), 387. For more on this case, see Gene O’Shea, Unbridled Rage: A True Story of Organized Crime, Corruption, and Murder in Chicago (New York: Penguin, 2005); Richard C. Lindberg and Gloria Jean Sykes, Shattered Sense of Innocence: The 1955 Murders of Three Chicago Children (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2006).
18. William Henry Huff to B. T. George, December 2, 1955, Papers of the NAACP: Part 18, Series C, reel 15; Mamie Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson, Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (New York: Random House, 2003), 208. In her memoir, Till-Mobley did not recall the name of the attorney Mooty took her to see, but she wrote, “I was a little concerned when I arrived and saw a run-down building and had to climb those rickety steps.” She does not mention the firing of Mooty, but describes the terms of the contract he was pressuring her to sign. She also indicates that this occurred after her November 7 dispute with the NAACP (discussed later in this chapter). In recapping Bradley’s difficulties with Mooty, however, Roy Wilkins said in a letter to Bradley: “In telephone conversations with me October 20 and 21, you said you were disturbed by some development involving Mr. Mooty. . . . Later you telephoned me that you had taken care of the Mooty angle and wanted to take your father on tour as your companion” (Roy Wilkins to Mamie Bradley, November 15, 1955, Papers of the NAACP: Part 18, Series C, reel 14).
19. Roosevelt Ward, “Negro Youth Ready to Testify Again at Trial of Emmett Till’s Kidnapers,” Daily Worker (New York), October 25, 1955, 3.
20. “Report on Mamie Bradley Mass Meetings Sponsored by NAACP Branches,” Papers of the NAACP: Part 18, Series C, reel 14.
21. “Miss. Killing Brings New Members, Gifts to NAACP,” Louisville Defender, September 29, 1955, 1; “Till Protest Meetings,” Crisis, November 1955, 547.
22. “NAACP Leader Blasts Mississippi Law Enforcement,” Clarksdale (Miss.) Press Register, November 5, 1955, 1.
23. “Four Witnesses Called in Probe,” Chicago Defender, November 12, 1955, 2; Gloster Current to Ruby Hurley, November 4, 1955, Papers of the NAACP: Part 18, Series C, reel 15.
24. “Marshall Says Till Case ‘Horrible’ Terrorist Example,” Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Miss.), November 7, 1955, 1.
25. Caption accompanying photograph of Willie Reed and Mose Wright under the heading “Wait to Testify Before Grand Jury,” Greenwood (Miss.) Commonwealth, November 7, 1955, 8; Sam Johnson, “Grand Jury Not Examined Witnesses in Till Kidnapping,” Greenwood (Miss.) Commonwealth, November 8, 1955, 1; “Four Witnesses Called,” 1–2.
26. NAACP press release, November 7, 1955, Papers of the NAACP: Part 18, Series C, reel 14.
27. Wilkins to Bradley, November 15, 1955; “Conversation with Joseph Tobias via long distance from Chicago,” November 9, 1955, Papers of the NAACP: Part 18, Series C, reel 15.
28. Wilkins to Bradley, November 15, 1955; “Mrs. Bradley Says Fee NAACP Idea,” Chicago Defender, November 19, 1955, 2.
29. Franklin H. Williams to NAACP West Coast Leadership, November 8, 1955, Papers of the NAACP: Part 18, Series C, reel 14.
30. “Four Witnesses Called,” 2. Willie Reed’s memory of his grand jury appearance, as evidenced in his interview in Keith Beauchamp, prod., The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till (Till Freedom Come Productions, 2005), has caused some confusion. In that interview, Reed said that he and Wright went to the courthouse, but that Milam and Bryant were not there. After around twenty minutes, “we was out of there.” During my interview with Reed, he said essentially the same thing, but added that because Milam and Bryant failed to appear, the trial was called off. When I pointed out that this was not a trial but only a grand jury hearing (which the defendants would not have attended), he held to his recollection that it was, indeed, a trial, and that neither he nor Wright testified because it was canceled. Press footage, as seen in Untold Story, shows both Wright and Reed entering t
he chamber for the secret grand jury hearing. This footage is not to be confused with coverage of the murder trial in Sumner, because in Greenwood, both men wore suits; in Sumner, they did not. Again, press reports at the time are clear that these two men, as well as Sheriff George Smith and Deputy John Cothran, testified before the grand jury. Reed’s testimony alone lasted fifteen minutes.
31. Roy Wilkins to W. Robert Ming, November 10, 1955, Papers of the NAACP: Part 18, Series C, reel 15.
32. “Conversation with Joseph Tobias.”
33. Telegram from Roy Wilkins to Lester P. Bailey, November 9, 1955, Papers of the NAACP: Part 18, Series C, reel 14.
34. “NAACP Asks Who Did It as Bryant, Milam Freed,” Jackson Daily News, November 10, 1955, 4.
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