Emmett Till
Page 75
5. Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 220–21; “Rights Hearings Will Open Today,” New York Times, February 4, 1957, 8; “States Assured on Rights Issue,” New York Times, February 5, 1957, 15; “Need to Protect Negro Vote Cited,” New York Times, February 15, 1957, 15.
6. As quoted in Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 225.
7. For Johnson’s role in the Civil Rights Act of 1957, see Robert A. Caro, Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson (New York: Knopf, 2002), 831–1012.
8. Congressional Record—House, June 14, 1957, 9189, www.heinonline.org.
9. Congressional Record—House, June 14, 1957, 9194, www.heinonline.org; Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 221; Hugh Stephen Whitaker, “A Case Study of Southern Justice: The Emmett Till Case” (Master’s thesis, Florida State University, 1963), 183–85, 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): 219–20; Stephen J. Whitfield, A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till (New York: Free Press, 1988), 82–83.
10. C. P. Trussell, “Civil Rights Plan Passed by House,” New York Times, June 19, 1957, 1.
11. William S. White, “Senate, 45 to 39, Sends Rights Bill Straight to Floor,” New York Times, June 21, 1957, 1, 16; William S. White, “Rights Struggle Opens in Senate,” New York Times, July 9, 1957, 1, 19; William S. White, “Senate Leaning to a Compromise Over Rights Bill,” New York Times, July 10, 1957, 1, 14; William S. White, “Senate, 51-42, Attaches Jury Trials to Rights Bill in Defeat for President,” New York Times, August 2, 1957, 1, 8; W. H. Lawrence, “Eisenhower Irate,” New York Times, August 3, 1957, 1; William S. White, “Senate Approves Rights Bill, 72–18, with Jury Clause,” New York Times, August 8, 1957, 1, 12; William S. White, “Martin Rejects Civil Rights Bill Voted by Senate,” New York Times, August 13, 1957, 1, 25; William S. White, “President Backs Jury Compromise in the Rights Bill,” New York Times, August 22, 1957, 1, 17; William S. White, “Congress Chiefs Reach an Accord on Civil Rights,” New York Times, August 24, 1957, 1, 34.
12. William S. White, “House Passes Rights Bill; Senators Rule Out a Delay,” New York Times, August 28, 1957, 1, 55; “Thurmond Talks Hours on Rights,” New York Times, August 29, 1957, 1; Jay Walz, “Carolinian Sets Talking Record,” New York Times, August 30, 1957, 1; William S. White, “Senate Votes Rights Bill and Sends It to President,” New York Times, August 30, 1957, 1, 20; W. H. Lawrence, “President Backs U.S. Court Order,” New York Times, September 10, 1957, 29.
13. For a look at the final version of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, see “Text of Civil Rights Bill as Passed by Congress,” New York Times, August 31, 1957, 6.
14. Alvin Sykes, author telephone interview, July 12, 2014; Monroe Dodd, Pursuit of Truth (Kansas City, Mo.: Kansas City Public Library, 2014), 17.
15. “Text of the Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act,” introduced in the US Senate on July 1, 2005, www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/s1369/text; H.R. 3506 (109th); “Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, H.R. 3506,” introduced in the US House of Representatives, www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr3506/text.
16. Jubera, “Civil Rights-Era Cases,” A1; Trice, “Setback on Till,” 2C1; “Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act,” Senate, Calendar No. 211, June 22, 2007, 12; 109th Congress, 2nd Session, S.2679, in the Senate of the United States, April 27, 2006, and S.2679, Calendar No. 579, August 3, 2006; http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-109s2679rs/pdf/BILLS-109s2679rs.pdf.
17. Tommy Stevenson, “House Passes ‘Emmett Till Bill,’” Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News, June 21, 2007, 1A, 2A; Dodd, Pursuit of Truth, 18.
18. Sykes, author telephone interview, July 12, 2014; Dodd, Pursuit of Truth, 18.
19. Herb Boyd, “Emmett Till Bill Stalled in Senate,” New York Amsterdam News, July 31, 2008, 4; “Senate Kills Bill for $10B in New Spending,” USA Today, July 26, 2008, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-07-28-senatebill_N.htm.
20. Sykes, author telephone interview, July 12, 2014; Dodd, Pursuit of Truth, 18–19.
21. “Reid Statement on Passage of Emmett Till Bill,” http://democrats.senate.gov/2008/09/24/reid-statement-on-passage-of-emmett-till-bill/#.VLw2AEfF-J0; Julia Malone, “Emmett Till Act Fulfills Promise: Pledge Kept to Slain Teenager’s Late Mother,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 10, 2008, A7.
22. Congressional Record—Senate, September 24, 2008, S9352, www.heinonline.org.
23. Malone, “Emmett Till Act Fulfills Promise,” A7.
24. Harry N. MacLean, The Past Is Never Dead: The Trial of James Ford Seale and Mississippi’s Struggle for Redemption (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2009), 88; Susan Glisson, author telephone interview, July 29, 2014; Susan Glisson, email to author, July 30, 2014.
25. MacLean, Past Is Never Dead, 143, 146; Glisson, author telephone interview.
26. MacLean, Past Is Never Dead, 146; Glisson, author telephone interview; Glisson, email to author, July 30, 2014; Jerry Mitchell, “Tallahatchie County to Formally Apologize to Till’s Family,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, October 2, 2007, 3A.
27. MacLean, Past Is Never Dead, 88–91, 143–46; Glisson, author telephone interview; Drew Jubera, “Decades Later, an Apology,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 2, 2007, A4.
28. Senate Bill 2689, to Judiciary, Division A, Mississippi Legislature, Regular Session 2007, http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2007/pdf/SB/2600-2699/SB2689IN.pdf; Mitchell, “Tallahatchie County to Formally Apologize,” 3A; Glisson, author telephone interview; MacLean, Past Is Never Dead, 223.
29. MacLean, Past Is Never Dead, 223–24; Glisson, author telephone interview.
30. MacLean, Past Is Never Dead, 225; Glisson, author telephone interview.
31. Annette Hollowell, “Tallahatchie County Group Commemorates Emmett Till,” Wellspring, March 2008, 2.
32. To read the resolution in full, go to etmctallahatchie.com/pages/resolution.htm.
33. Audie Cornish, “County Apologizes to Emmett Till Family,” October 2, 2007, npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14904083; MacLean, Past Is Never Dead, 231–32.
34. Hollowell, “Tallahatchie Group Commemorates,” 2–3; photo of marker taken by author on October 2, 2007, Sumner, Miss.
35. MacLean, Past Is Never Dead, 238.
36. The brochure may be downloaded at www.etmctallahatchie.com/documents/drivingtour.pdf.
37. “Memorial to Emmett Till to Be Placed in Leflore County,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, December 31, 2005, D1.
38. Karen E. Pride, “Commemoration of Emmett Till Lynching Anniversary Includes Renaming Expressway Bridge,” Chicago Defender, August 29–30 2005, 3; “Chicago School Renamed in Honor of Emmett Till,” Jet 109, no. 11 (March 20, 2006): 20, 22, 46; http://www.preservationchicago.org/success-story/11.
39. Jubera, “Decades Later,” A4; MacLean, Past Is Never Dead, 238.
40. Yolanda Jones, “Sign Honoring Emmett Till Is Marred by Vandalism,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, June 26, 2006, B2; “Vandals Destroy Sign Marking Emmett Till Murder Site,” USA Today, October 27, 2007, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-10-27-emmett-till_N.htm.
41. These were personal observations I made during trips to the Mississippi Delta on March 15, 2013, and August 14, 2014.
42. See John Ditmer, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994); Glen Feldman, ed., Before Brown: Civil Rights and White Backlash in the Modern South (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004).
Epilogue
1. Emmett Till Historical Museum flyer, copy sent to author by Carolyn Towns, manager of Burr Oak Cemetery.
2. Dennis Lythgoe, “The Death of Emmett Till,” Deseret News (Salt Lake City), February 26, 1997, C1–C2.
3. Mamie Till-Mobley, letter to author and the students at Olympus Jr. High School, February 14, 2000.
4. Online at http://theburroakcemetery.com/burr-
oak-history; Emmett Till Historical Museum flyer.
5. Emmett Till Historical Museum flyer.
6. Emmett Till Historical Museum flyer.
7. “Breach of Trust,” Chicago Tribune, July 10, 2009, 7; “200–300 Bodies Disinterred in Grave-Reselling Scheme,” Seattle Times, July 10, 2009, A2.
8. Dan Blake, “Cook County Board to Sue Cemetery Owners,” Chicago Tribune, July 22, 2009, 8; “Here’s the Cemetery Worker Who Blew the Whistle,” Arlington Heights (Ill.) Daily Herald, July 22, 2009, 15.
9. Don Babwin, “Till Casket Found in Rusty Shed,” Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette, July 14, 2009, B10; Lauren Fitzpatrick, “Proposed Till Museum Lost in Burr Oak Scandal,” Chicago Sun-Times, July 11, 2011, 22.
10. Jacqueline Trescott, “National African American Museum Acquires Emmett Till’s Casket,” Los Angeles Times, August 28, 2009, A14; Wendell Hutson, “Remembering Emmett Till,” Chicago Defender, September 2, 2009, 7.
11. Lauren Fitzpatrick, “‘I Am Very Sorry’: Burr Oak Manager Gets 12 Years,” Chicago Sun-Times, July 9, 2011, 2; Lolly Bowean, “Burr Oak Director Gets 12 Years,” Chicago Tribune, July 9, 2011, 4.
12. Dorothy Rowley, “African American Museum Groundbreaking Held on the National Mall,” Washington Informer, February 23, 2012, 32–33; Ian Duncan, “African American History Museum Is Underway in D.C.,” Los Angeles Times, February 23, 2012, A12.
13. Francine Knowles, “Monument Dedicated to Burr Oak Healing,” Chicago Sun-Times, August 30, 2014, 5.
Appendix
1. William Bradford Huie, “The Shocking Story of an Approved Killing in Mississippi,” Look, January 24, 1956, 46; “Bonnie Blue, Researcher, Author, Lecturer,” http://emmetttills-secretwitness.com/index.html.
2. George Murray, “‘Wolf Call’ Blamed by Argo Teen,” Chicago American, September 1, 1955, 4; William Bradford Huie, Wolf Whistle, and Other Stories (New York: Signet Books, 1959), 40; Devery S. Anderson, “A Wallet, a White Woman, and a Whistle: Fact and Fiction in Emmett Till’s Encounter in Money, Mississippi,” Southern Quarterly: A Journal of Arts & Letters in the South 45, no. 4 (Summer 2008): 11–12; Defense notes from interview with Carolyn Bryant, September 2, 1955, William Bradford Huie Papers, Cms 84, box 85, fd. 356, Ohio State University Library, Columbus (hereafter cited as Huie Papers).
3. “Kidnapped Boy Whistled at Woman,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 1955, 2; Murray, “‘Wolf Call’ Blamed by Argo Teen,” 4; Mattie Smith Colin and Robert Elliott, “Mother Waits in Vain for Her ‘Bo,’” Chicago Defender, September 10, 1955, 2; “Nation Horrified by Murder of Kidnapped Chicago Youth,” Jet 8, no. 19 (September 1955): 8.
4. Huie, “Shocking Story,” 46; Prosecutive Report of Investigation Concerning . . . Emmett Till, Deceased, Victim, February 9, 2009, 44 (hereafter cited as Prosecutive Report); Amos Dixon, “Mrs. Bryant Didn’t Even Hear Emmett Till Whistle,” California Eagle, January 26, 1956, 2.
5. This description of the location of the candy counter is given in defense notes of interview with Carolyn Bryant, September 2, 1955.
6. Defense notes of interview with Carolyn Bryant, September 2, 1955.
7. Prosecutive Report of Investigation Concerning . . . Emmett Till, Deceased, Appendix A—Trial Transcript, February 9, 2006, 269–75 (hereafter cited as Trial Transcript).
8. Timothy B. Tyson, emails to author, March 31 and July 26, 2014.
9. “Two Armed White Men Break into Negro Worker’s Home,” Greenwood (Miss.) Morning Star, September 1, 1955, 1; “Nation Horrified,” 8; Murray, “‘Wolf Call’ Blamed by Argo Teen,” 1; Clark Porteous, “Grand Jury to Get Case of Slain Negro Boy Monday,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, September 1, 1955, 5.
10. Defense notes of interview with Carolyn Bryant, September 2, 1955; Huie, “Shocking Story,” 47.
11. Huie, “Shocking Story,” 47; Prosecutive Report, 46.
12. T. R. M. Howard, “Terror Reigns in Mississippi,” speech delivered October 2, 1955, Baltimore, Washington Afro-American, October 1, 1955, 19, and Baltimore Afro-American, October 8, 1955, 6, reprinted in Davis W. Houck and David E. Dixon, eds., Religion, Rhetoric, and the Civil Rights Movement (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2008), 126 (hereafter, references to this speech will cite Houck and Dixon only); Huie, “Shocking Story,” 47.
13. Olive Arnold Adams, Time Bomb: Mississippi Exposed and the Full Story of Emmett Till (Mound Bayou, Miss.: Regional Councils of Negro Leadership, 1956), 18; Howard, “Terror Reigns,” 126.
14. Dixon, “Mrs. Bryant Didn’t Even Hear,” 2.
15. Wheeler Parker Jr., Crosby Smith Jr., and Simeon Wright, author interview, February 7, 2007, Argo, Ill., comments by Wright; Trial Transcript, 277.
16. Prosecutive Report, 41–42.
17. David A. Shostak, “Crosby Smith: Forgotten Witness to a Mississippi Nightmare,” Negro History Bulletin 38, no. 1 (December 1974–January 1975): 321; George F. Curry, “Killed for Whistling at a White Woman,” Emerge, August 1995, 27; Simeon Wright, with Herb Boyd, Simeon’s Story: An Eyewitness Account of the Kidnapping of Emmett Till (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2010), 137. Wright says nothing in his book about the accusations that Maurice told Roy Bryant about the store incident, but defends his brother against a rumor that “Maurice had told Roy Bryant how to get to our house in exchange for a fifty-cent store credit.”
18. “Look Magazine Names Milam, Bryant in Confession Story,” Tri-State Defender (Memphis, Tenn.), January 14, 1956, 1, 2.
19. Keith A. Beauchamp, “What Really Happened to Emmett Till: A Corrective to the 1956 Look Confession,” unpublished paper, n.d., copy in author’s possession.
20. Prosecutive Report, 55–56. Robert Wright’s name is redacted from the report for privacy purposes, but it was confirmed to me by Simeon Wright that Robert was the one in question (Simeon Wright, author interview, October 2, 2007, Money, Miss.).
21. Wright and Boyd, Simeon’s Story, 52, 137.
22. “Nation Horrified,” 8; “Details Told of Lynching of Emmett,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 17, 1955, 14.
23. Trial Transcript, 39; Huie, Wolf Whistle, 41.
24. “Resume of Interview with Mose Wright,” Huie Papers, box 85, fd. 346.
25. Statements of both Ruth Crawford Jackson and Roosevelt Crawford are in Keith A. Beauchamp, prod., The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till (Till Freedom Come Productions, 2005).
26. Prosecutive Report, 46.
27. Prosecutive Report, 46–47.
28. Mary Strafford, “‘When I Find Time I’ll Cry,’ Till’s Mother Tells Afro,” Baltimore Afro-American, October 29, 1955, 2.
29. Steve Ritea, “Opening Old Wounds,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 15, 2004, 1; Prosecutive Report, 48.
30. Michael Weissenstein, “Film Recounts Till’s Untold Story; Director’s First Work Helped Reopen Case,” Chicago Tribune, August 28, 2005, 14.
31. Ruth Crawford Jackson, interview, in Beauchamp, Untold Story.
32. Trial Transcript, 22–23, 45–48; “Resume of Interview with Mose Wright.”
33. Trial Transcript, 20, 33–38, 64–65; “Resume of Interview with Mose Wright.”
34. Prosecutive Report, 90.
35. “What the Public Didn’t Know About the Till Trial,” Jet 8, no. 23 (October 13, 1955): 14.
36. Defense notes of interview with Roy Bryant, September 6, 1955, Huie Papers, box 85, fd. 346.
37. Rita Dailey, email to author, May 14, 2012. Rita Dailey wrote me after finding my website, emmetttillmurder.com. Steve Whitaker, a Charleston native who wrote his 1963 master’s thesis on the Till case, vouched for Bobby Dailey’s honesty (Steve Whitaker, email to author, May 14, 2012).
38. James L. Hicks, open letter to U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell and FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover, in “Hicks Digs into Till Case,” Washington Afro-American, November 19, 1955, 4, reprinted in Christopher Metress, ed., The Lynching of Emmett Till: A Documentary Narrative (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2002), 195–96.
39. Prosecutive Report, 58,
95–96.
40. Prosecutive Report, 58.
41. M. Susan Orr-Klopher, The Emmett Till Book (Parchman, Miss.: M. Susan Orr-Klopher, 2005), 7–8.
42. Prosecutive Report, 90.
43. Huie, “Shocking Story,” 49–50.
44. Prosecutive Report, 92.
45. William Bradford Huie to Roy Wilkins, October 12, 1955, Huie Papers, box 38, fd. 353a.
46. Hicks, “Hicks Digs into Till Case,” 4; Metress, Lynching of Emmett Till, 196; Prosecutive Report, 58, 90–91.
47. Adams, Time Bomb, 19; Amos Dixon, “Milam Master-Minded Emmett Till Killing,” California Eagle, February 2, 1956, 2.
48. See, for example, David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, Black Maverick: T. R. M. Howard’s Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 152; Beauchamp, Untold Story; Willie Reed, author interview, February 6, 2007, Chicago.
49. Trial Transcript, 231.
50. T. R. M. Howard, interview, Pittsburgh Courier, October 8, 1955, 4; Amos Dixon, “Till Case: Torture and Murder,” California Eagle, February 16, 1956, 2.
51. Henry Lee Loggins, telephone interview with Linda Beito, July 21, 2001, transcript in author’s possession.
52. See Willie Reed interviews in Stanley Nelson, Murder of Emmett Till (Firelight Media, 2002), and Beauchamp, Untold Story.
53. Roosevelt Ward, “Negro Youth Ready to Testify Again at Trial of Emmett Till’s Kidnapers,” Daily Worker (New York), October 25, 1955, 3. See also Nelson, Murder of Emmett Till; Beauchamp, Untold Story; Michael Radutzky, “The Murder of Emmett Till,” 60 Minutes (CBS, October 24, 2004).
54. Trial Transcript, 247, 253.
55. Prosecutive Report, 112.
56. Clark Porteous, “Officers Work All Night on Searches,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, September 21, 1955, 1, 7; Prosecutive Report, 91–92.
57. Dixon, “Emmett Till: Torture and Murder,” February 16, 1956, 1.
58. Huie, “Shocking Story,” 50; Prosecutive Report, 80.
59. Prosecutive Report, 91; Porteous, “Officers Work All Night,” 7; Ralph Hutto, “NAACP Leader Says Two Witnesses Disappeared,” Jackson State Times, September 23, 1955, 6A.