66. Sykes, author telephone interviews, August 17, 2013, and June 17, 2014; Beauchamp, author telephone interview, November 10, 2013.
67. Sykes, author telephone interviews, August 17, 2013, and March 8, 2014; Segall and Holmberg, “Who Killed Emmett Till?,” 38.
68. Bob Longino, “The Unfinished Story of Emmett Till,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 5, 2003, A1; Bob Longino, “Ceremony Today for Till’s Mother,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 8, 2003, B1.
69. Beauchamp, author telephone interview, November 10, 2013.
70. Sykes, author telephone interview, August 17, 2013.
71. Bob Longino, “Lynching Victim Mom Dies on Eve of Atlanta Visit,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 7, 2003, A1.
72. Benson, author telephone interview, August 23, 2014.
73. Beauchamp, author telephone interview, November 10, 2013.
74. Longino, “Lynching Victim Mom Dies,” A1; Beauchamp, author telephone interview, November 10, 2013.
75. Beauchamp, author telephone interview, November 10, 2013; Alvin Sykes, author telephone interview, March 8, 2014.
76. Bob Longino, “Emmett Till Documentary Previewed at King Center,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 26, 2003, C2; Bob Longino, “Telling Till’s ‘Untold Story,’” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 24, 2003, E5.
77. Beauchamp, author telephone interview, November 10, 2013; Longino, “Telling Till’s ‘Untold Story,’” E5.
78. Timothy R. Brown, “Till Film Up for Emmy Tonight,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, September 13, 2003, 2B; “Documentary on Till Murder Wins Emmy,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, September 15, 2003, 1A.
79. Beauchamp, author telephone interview, November 10, 2013.
80. Sykes, author telephone interview, March 8, 2014.
81. Alvin Sykes, email to author, May 8, 2014.
82. Alvin Sykes, email to Mehmet Yaşar İşcan, n.d., copy in author’s possession.
83. Mehmet Yaşar İşcan to Alvin Sykes, April 25, 2003, copy in author’s possession.
84. Sykes, email to author.
85. Beauchamp, author telephone interview, February 2, 2014; Sykes, author telephone interview, March 8, 2014; William Bradford Huie, “The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi,” Look, January 24, 1956, 47.
86. Sykes, author telephone interview, August 17, 2013; Janovy, “Justice at Last,” 13, 15; Dodd, Pursuit of Truth, 17.
87. Dylan Grayson, “Sykes: It’s Not too Late for Truth,” Guilfordian, February 16, 2007, http://www.guilfordian.com/archives/2007/02/16/sykes-its-not-too-late-for-truth; Janovy, “Justice at Last,” 13, 15; Sykes, author telephone interview, August 17, 2013. For the Scalia opinion and how it applied both in 1976 and 1998, go to http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/1998/04/31/op-olc-v022-p0061.pdf.
88. Sykes, author telephone interviews, August 17, 2013, and March 8, 2014.
89. Beauchamp, author telephone interview, November 10, 2013; Jerry Walker, “Emmett Till Murder Case Presented to Delegates of the United Nations,” Kansas City Call, June 6–12, 2003, 3.
90. Mary Sanchez, “Activist Enlists Evers Family to Solve Emmett Till Case,” Charleston (W.Va.) Sunday Gazette-Mail, June 22, 2003, 9A; Sykes, author telephone interview, March 8, 2014.
91. Vernon Jarrett, “Emmett Till’s Mom Speaks Again,” Chicago Defender, October 15, 2003, 2; Benson, author telephone interview, August 23, 2014.
92. Beauchamp, author telephone interview, November 10, 2013.
93. Sykes, author telephone interview, August 17, 2013.
94. John Hailman, From Midnight to Guntown: True Crime Stories from a Federal Prosecutor in Mississippi (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2013), 222–23; John Hailman, author telephone interview, June 21, 2014; John Hailman, email to author, July 2, 2014; Sykes, author telephone interviews, August 17, 2013, and June 12, 2014. Hailman incorrectly wrote that Sykes’s meeting with the Civil Rights Division occurred in August 2003.
95. Hailman, From Midnight to Guntown, 223–24; Hailman, author telephone interview.
96. Janovy, “Justice at Last?,” 15.
97. Drew Jubera, “Duty Outweighs Emotion for DA in Till Case,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 5, 2006, A1; Laura Parker, “DA Has Tough, Final Call in Till Case,” USA Today, March 22, 2006, A3.
98. Janovy, “Justice at Last?,” 15; Jim Greenlee, author telephone interview, March 11, 2014; Hailman, author telephone interview; Dodd, Pursuit of Truth, 17.
99. Greenlee, author telephone interviews, March 11 and July 28, 2014; Hailman, author telephone interview; Hailman, From Midnight to Guntown, 226.
100. Sykes, author telephone interview, June 12, 2014; Hailman, author telephone interview.
101. Hailman, From Midnight to Guntown, 224; Hailman, author telephone interview; Laura Parker, “Justice Pursued for Emmett Till,” USA Today, March 11, 2004, A3.
102. Jerry Mitchell, “Filmmaker to Show Movie on Emmett Till,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, February 7, 2004, 1B; Bob Longino, “Group Seeks to Reopen Emmett Till Case,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 6, 2004, E2; Clarence Page, “A New Thaw Comes to a Very Old Case,” Newsday, March 31, 2004, A42; Greenlee, author telephone interviews, March 11 and July 28, 2014.
103. Sykes, author telephone interviews, August 17, 2013, and June 12, 2014.
104. Mitchell, “Filmmaker to Show Movie,” 1B; Jerry Mitchell, “Support Sought to Reopen Till Case,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, February 8, 2004, 5B.
105. Chinta Strausberg, “Smith’s Witnesses Tell Why U.S. Should Probe Till Case,” Chicago Defender, February 10, 2004, 3; Sykes, author telephone interview, June 12, 2014; Cate Plys, “The City Council Hears Alarms,” March 18, 2004, www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-city-council-hears-alarms/Content?oid=914872.
106. House Congressional Resolution 360, 108th Congress, 2nd Session, February 10, 2004, https://www.congress.gov/108/bills/hconres360/BILLS-108hconres360ih.pdf.
107. George E. Curry, “Justice Department Will Investigate Emmett Till Case,” Frost (Fort Wayne, Ind.), May 19–25, 2004, 3.
108. Beauchamp, author telephone interview, November 10, 2013. Schumer later said that he met Beauchamp through Rev. A. R. Bernard of the Christian Cultural Center in New York City. See “Senators Schumer & Talent & Representative Rangel Hold a News Conference on the Investigation into the Murder of Emmett Till,” Political Transcript Wire, November 19, 2004, http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-743021641.html.
109. For more on the Louima case, see Lynette Holloway, “Sharpton Says Brutality Issue Will Propel Him to a Victory,” New York Times, August 31, 1997, 27; Peter Noel, “The Battle for Abner Louima,” Village Voice, September 2, 1997, 35, 42; Fred Kaplan, “Ex-Officer Guilty of Lying in Louima Case,” Boston Globe, July 17, 2002, A2; William H. Rashbaum, “Police Officers Later Cleared in Louima Case Seek Jobs Back,” New York Times, December 12, 2002, B3; “Justice at Last,” New York Amsterdam News, April 6, 2006, 1; “Two Officers in Louima Case Again Seek Re-Instatement,” New York Times, October 7, 2006, B6; “Ex-Officer in Louima Case Is Freed from Halfway House,” New York Times, May 5, 2007, B2; Herb Boyd, “Louima: ‘God Is Good,’” New York Amsterdam News, August 16, 2007, 1.
110. Beauchamp, author telephone interview, November 10, 2013; Karin Lipson, “The Agents for Justice, Documentary Filmmakers Go Beyond Telling the Story of Emmett Till’s Shocking Murder by Instigating a Reopening of the 1955 Case,” Newsday, May 23, 2004, C6; “1955 Race Killing, Film Inspires Lawmakers’ Call for Probe,” Newsday, April 14, 2004, A6.
111. Amita Neruukar, “Lawmakers Want 1955 Mississippi Murder Reopened,” cnn.com/2004/LAW/04/13/till.murder.case.
112. Longino, “Group Seeks to Reopen,” E2; Frank Lombardi, “Civil Rights Slay Plea Pols Urge Reopening of 1955 Till Case,” New York Daily News, April 7, 2004, 1.
113. Sykes, author telephone interview, June 12, 2014.
114. Curry, “Justice Department Will Investigate,” 3.
115
. “Justice Will Investigate Till Murder Again,” CNN Live Event/Special, www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0405/10/se.02.html.
116. Sykes, author telephone interview, June 12, 2014.
117. Maria Newman, “U.S. to Reopen Investigation of Emmett Till’s Murder in 1955,” New York Times, May 10, 2004, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/10/national/10CND-TILL.html; Robert J. Garrity Jr., “Emmett Till Exhumation Is Crucial to a Just Resolution to This Case,” Tinley Park (Ill.) Daily Southtown, May 24, 2005.
118. Herb Boyd, “Till Case Reopened,” New York Amsterdam News, May 13, 2004, 1; Trice, “Renewed Focus on Till Case,” 2C; Beauchamp, author telephone interview, November 10, 2013.
119. Keith Beauchamp, email to author, May 28, 2014.
120. Lee, “Directors Elated,” B4.
121. Eric Lichtblau and Andrew Jacobs, “U.S. Reopens ’55 Murder Case, Flashpoint of Civil Rights Era,” New York Times, May 11, 2004, A19; Tara Burghart, “Family of Slain Boy Relieved at Reopening,” Cincinnati Post, May 11, 2004, A2.
122. Lynda Edwards, “Residents of Mississippi Town Say Till Killing Not Often Discussed,” Times of Northwest Indiana (Munster), May 17, 2004, http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/residents-of-mississippi-town-say-till-killing-not-often-discussed/article_1720b867-8062-56eb-b8e2-2ae147616aba.html.
123. “Emmett Till: Blacks React to Reopening of Tragic Case,” Jet 105, no. 22 (May 31, 2004): 6, 8.
124. Lee, “Directors Elated,” B4.
125. Bob Longino, “Emmett Till Case Reopened,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 11, 2004, A1.
126. Nita Martin, “Don’t Spend Money on Till Case,” letter to the editor, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, May 25, 2004, 6A.
Chapter 12
1. Dale R. Killinger, author telephone interview, April 29, 2014; Dale R. Killinger, email to author, September 15, 2014; Robert J. Garrity Jr., author telephone interview, July 7, 2014; “27-Year Veteran to Head Mississippi FBI Offices,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, June 30, 2004, D8; John Hailman, From Midnight to Guntown: True Crime Stories from a Federal Prosecutor in Mississippi (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2013), 227. The Greenville and Tupelo agencies have since closed, and currently there are seven resident agencies in Mississippi. Worthington went on to head homeland security for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety.
2. Killinger, author telephone interview.
3. Dale R. Killinger remarks at panel discussion as part of Mississippi Delta Center’s Landmarks in American History and Culture, http://vimeo.com/74032741; Killinger, author telephone interview.
4. Killinger, author telephone interview.
5. Steve Ritea, “Opening Old Wounds,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 15, 2004, 1.
6. Killinger, author telephone interview.
7. I could not identify a man by the name of Willie Hemphill in Darling, or anywhere in Mississippi, who fit the description of the person interviewed by Ritea, an indication that Hemphill used a pseudonym during his interview. However, in an April 29, 2014, email to me, Ritea wrote that “if he was using a pseudonym, that was never disclosed to me.” Hemphill’s name is redacted in Killinger’s report because Hemphill was still living at the time. See Federal Bureau of Investigation, Prosecutive Report of Investigation Concerning . . . Emmett Till, Deceased, Victim, February 9, 2006, 48 (hereafter cited as Prosecutive Report).
8. Ritea, “Opening Old Wounds,” 1.
9. Hailman, From Midnight to Guntown, 227–28, 33; Hailman, author telephone interview; Garrity, author telephone interview.
10. Michael Radutzky, “The Murder of Emmett Till,” 60 Minutes (CBS, October 24, 2004).
11. Radutzky, “Murder of Emmett Till”; Clarence Page, “Full New Probe Needed in Till Murder,” Newsday, October 26, 2004, A40.
12. Alvin Sykes, author telephone interview, June 12, 2014.
13. This criticism that the report “promised far more than it delivered” was noted by the historians David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, in “Why the ‘60 Minutes’ Story on Emmett Till Was a Disappointment,” History News Network, http://hnn.us/article/8193.
14. Keith Beauchamp, author telephone interview, August 23, 2014; David Holmberg, “Murder of Emmett Till: New Developments,” MaximsNews Network, http://www.maximsnews.com/2005davidholmberg12may.htm.
15. Rebecca Segall and David Holmberg, “Who Killed Emmett Till?,” Nation 276, no. 9 (February 3, 2003): 38; David Holmberg, author telephone interview, July 1, 2014.
16. Jan Hillegas, “West Point ‘Desegregation’ Produces Violent Reactions,” Southern Patriot (New Orleans), February 1970; James H. Haddock to Governor John Bell Williams, February 3, 1970, both in Sovereignty Commission Online, http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom.
17. Jan Hillegas, email to author, July 7, 2014.
18. See “Miss. School Rift Brings Fire, Bombing, Shooting,” Jet 37, no. 19 (February 12, 1970): 4; “Jet Erred in Miss. Bombing, Shooting Story,” Jet 37, no. 25 (March 19, 1970): 4.
19. Prosecutive Report, 110–12. Because Gode Davis died in 2010, I thought Killinger might reveal to me that Davis was his source because the right to privacy does not extend to deceased individuals. However, Killinger declined to “confirm or deny who provided the FBI the information referenced” (Dale R. Killinger, email to author, July 22, 2014).
20. Prosecutive Report, 112. Betty Wilson’s name was redacted from the FBI report because she was still living at the time Killinger finished it on February 9, 2006. Betty Wilson died almost a year later, on February 6, 2007.
21. Prosecutive Report, 110–13.
22. In response to the Segall and Holmberg piece cited above, Gode Davis wrote a letter to the Nation in which he denied naming Billy Wilson as a source and accused the authors of “a number of errors, distortions, omissions by inference and untrue statements.” Davis acknowledged speaking with Holmberg twice in 2002 but said he never talked with Segall. Davis insisted that his conversations with Holmberg “were never supposed to be ‘on the record.’” Davis confirmed that he had investigated the Till case for his documentary and said that “I strive to protect my sources.” He maintained that he “never identified any individual when speaking to Holmberg, neither confirming nor denying his speculative assumptions. I certainly did not quote my source by name at any time.” Holmberg responded to Davis in a letter published in the same issue and maintained, “At no time did I tell Gode Davis that our conversations were off the record.” Holmberg showed Davis Jan Hillegas’s 1970 Southern Patriot article that spoke of Wilson and his alleged connection to the Till case, and “Davis confirmed to me that he’d been dealing with a person by that name.” See “‘American Lynching’ Betrayed,” and “Holmberg Replies,” both in Nation 276, no. 9 (March 10, 2003): 2, 26.
23. Killinger, author telephone interview.
24. “Senators Schumer & Talent & Representative Rangel Hold a News Conference on the Investigation into the Murder of Emmett Till,” Political Transcript Wire, November 19, 2004, http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1p3-743021641.html; Ana Radelat, “Lawmaker Says He’ll Press AG Over Till Probe,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, November 20, 2004, 1B, 3B.
25. C. J. Janovy, “Justice at Last?,” Pitch (Kansas City), March 23, 2006, 15; “Senators Schumer & Talent & Representative Rangel”; 109 S. Cong. Res. 3, Introduced in the Senate, 109th Congress, January 24, 2005, www.opencongress.org/bill/sconres3-109/text; 109th H. Cong. Res. 77, Introduced in the House, February 17, 2005, http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.CON.RES.77.IH:.
26. Dawn Turner Trice, “Rushed Action Could Jeopardize Till Case Justice,” Chicago Tribune, December 28, 2004, 2C; Alvin Sykes, author telephone interview, August 17, 2013.
27. “Senators Schumer & Talent & Representative Rangel”; Mark Melady, “Filmmaker Says Indictments Expected; Story Told of 1955 Lynching of Black Teen,” Worchester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette, February 24, 1955, B1.
28. Sykes, author telephone interview, June 12, 2014; Hailman, author telephone interview.
&
nbsp; 29. Killinger, author telephone interview.
30. Page, “Full Probe Needed,” A40.
31. Prosecutive Report, 97–99; Willie Reed, author interview, February 6, 2007, Chicago; Jeffrey Andrews, author telephone interview, July 13, 2014.
32. Gretchen Ruethling, “Kin Disagree on Exhumation of Emmett Till,” New York Times, May 6, 2005, A23; Simeon Wright, with Herb Boyd, Simeon’s Story: An Eyewitness Account of the Kidnapping of Emmett Till (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2010), 108–9; Jerry Mitchell, “Group Seeks to Exhume Till Body,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, October 31, 2004, 1A.
33. P. J. Huffstutter, “FBI Begins Unearthing Mystery; Officials Exhume Casket of Victim in ’55 Murder,” Ft. Wayne (Ind.) Journal-Gazette, June 2, 2005, 4A; Dawn Turner Trice, “The First and Last Chance for Emmett Till to Speak for Himself,” Chicago Tribune, May 5, 2005, 1.
34. Roland S. Martin, “Rush Welcomes Justice Department Decision to Exhume Till,” Chicago Defender, May 5, 2005, 2.
35. Drew Jubera, “Autopsy Sought in 50-Year-Old Crime,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 5, 2005, A1. Myisha Priest erroneously states in a scholarly article that Emmett Till’s mother “objected to the exhumation,” apparently not realizing that Mamie Till-Mobley had died two years earlier. The author also suggests that this was a slap in the face to Till-Mobley, who “had repeatedly confirmed [the body’s] identity and did so under oath at the murder trial.” “The very facts that the FBI sought in the body . . . dispute and privilege knowledge in ways that preserve the utility of his body for the making of dominant power.” Priest did not discuss the fact that several family members saw the importance of the exhumation and autopsy. See Myisha Priest, “‘The Nightmare Is Not Cured’: Emmett Till and American Healing,” American Quarterly 62, no. 1 (March 2010): 2.
36. “Jesse Jackson Asks Mississippi, FBI to Apologize to Emmett Till Family,” New York Beacon, May 12–18, 2005, 3; Charles Sheehan, “Till Relatives Argue Over Exhuming Body,” Chicago Tribune, May 6, 2005, 1.
37. “Some Till Relatives Oppose Exhumation,” Chicago Tribune, May 6, 2005, 7; Sheehan, “Till Relatives Argue,” 1.
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