THE CASE

The difference between the political, economic, and social milieu of the large Chicago metropolis and the rural Mississippi Delta in 1955 was vast, even though the two had strong connections. Chicago got more than its share of Southern blacks, as it became the mecca for Mississippi blacks seeking a northern refuge.

While relations between blacks and whites or not exactly great, rigid Jim-Crowism (legal separation, that is) was not the case up North. In Chicago, there was de facto (by practice) segregation, whereas in Mississippi, there was de jure (by law) segregation. Emmett lived in a predominantly black middle-class neighborhood and attended a predominantly black school, but there were a few white classmates, friends, and teachers.

There were also some interracial marriages, which demonstrated the intermingling of black and white. Clearly, the (veil) or the curtain of separation between the two bases was not as neatly drawn in Chicago as it was in the Deep South. Emmett, born and raised in Chicago, was accustomed to more relaxed relations between the two races. His mother, Mamie Till-Bradley, cautioned him "not to fool with white people down South." She said to him "if you have to get on your knees and bow when a white person goes past, do it willingly."

Race relations in Mississippi in 1955 where another story. Nothing redeeming has ever been said about Mississippi in this context. It was the cornerstone and the definition of Jim-Crowism for black folk. Segregation on all fronts was absolute law. Blacks and whites lived in different neighborhoods, attended separate schools, worked in different capacities or different levels when working together, and there were no instances of interracial social intermingling or interracial marriages.

The subservient attitude and manner of the Mississippi blacks mirrored their Jim Crow conditions. When Emmett arrived in the small town of a population of 350, he must have observed the inferior conditions of blacks there-their humble huts, their meager closing, and their oppressed speech and mannerisms. His great uncles tiny sharecropper's home, for example, was much like those of the majority of blacks in that area-small, crowded, and tattered.

The "Ya Sir" and "Naw Sir" place of blacks in that society was, indeed, oppressive. Even the adults feared the whites, including whites who were many years there juniors. The subservient position and mannerisms of his Great Uncle Mose and Great Aunt Elizabeth reflected that of most blacks there.

But the concerns of Emmett, the child, were certainly not those of adults. There was his Mississippi cousin, Simeon, and other kids in the area who were anxious to show him the fun and excitement of the tiny Deep South town of Money-a town that was to be the site of the Wolf whistle, the infamous Till abduction, and a brutal lynching. This was followed by the subsequent mock trial in the nearby Sunflower County Courthouse, in the town of Sumner, whose motto was ironically "A Good Place to Raise A Boy." To be sure, Emmett's focus was more on the fun that awaited him as a child than on the oppressive conditions of blacks.

On Wednesday evening, August 24th, in Money, only a few days after he had arrived Emmett and his cousin Curtis Jones drove Mose Wright's '41 Ford to Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market, a country store with a big metal Coca-Cola sign outside. There the boys met up with some other black children, and Curtis Jones began a game of checkers with a seventy year old black man sitting by the side of the building. Outside the store, Emmett was showing off a picture of a white girl who he claimed was a friend of his in Chicago.

Till bragged to the titillated boys that this white girl was his girl, and Jones recalls one of the southern boys said "'Hey, there's a white girl in that store there. I bet you won't go in there and talk to her.' So he went in to get some candy. When he was leaving the store, he told her, ' Bye, Baby.' And that's when the old man (the checker player) started telling us that she would go to her car, get a pistol, and blow his brains out."

The boys jumped in their car as Carolyn Bryant came out the swinging screen doors. They sped out of the little town. Three days passed, and the boys forgot about Emmett's comment to the pretty white woman. At about 2:30 a.m. on Sunday, August 28, Emmett experienced the ultimate terror.

Twenty-four-year-old Roy Bryant and his thirty-six-year-old step Brother J. W. Milam stormed the home of sixty-five-year-old Mose Wright in search of the "boy who done the talkin'." Mose pleaded with them, telling them the boy was from "up nawth" and didn't know a thing about how to act was white folks down South. He begged them to simply give the boy a good whipping. But, threatening Wright's family with a flashlight and a gun, they abducted the youth, stating "the fat boy from Chicago" had violated Carolyn Bryant's honor.

No amount of begging or pleading could have possibly pacified them. They came in search of revenge for what was considered America's greatest taboo: an attack by a black man on the sanctity of white womanhood.

As they stormed through the house, Mrs. Wright pleaded with them not to kill him. According to the account given by his cousins, they told Emmett to get up, get dressed, and come with them. Emmett followed their instructions, displaying no fear, which inflamed them and even more. Given the particulars, it is not surprising that Till verbal expressions, too, irritated an inflamed them. When DS assets came for hand and questioned a fewer the boy from up North, Till simply responded, "yes," rather than "yassar."

Indeed, this further ignited indignation on the part of the white men, who are totally unprepared and accustomed to blacks, even among the senior citizens, not addressing them with " Sir ." Bryant and Milam corporate herb by Till's behavior. They were used to blacks crying, begging for mercy, and apologizing for any wrong that they might have done. Not so with Till, the northerner who obviously could not imagine his ensuing fate. Obviously, proper southern etiquette had not been instilled in him. He was naive.

Ultimately, for a teenage indiscretion-characteristic behavior of teenagers going through the rights of passage-Emmett was taken away, flogged, mutilated, and murdered. Milam drove Emmett to the Tallahatchie River, and made the boy carry a 75 pound cotton gin fan from the back of the truck to the river bank before ordering him to strip. Milam then shot the boy in the head. Till's nude body was not found until Wednesday, August 31st, three days after the kidnapping had been reported to the Leflore County Sheriff's department and to Till's family in Chicago.

Barbed wire had been wrapped around his neck and tied to the cotton gin fan, which had become snagged on a tangled river root. There was a bullet in the boys skull, one eye was gouged out, and his forehead was crushed in on one side.

Milam and Bryant had been charged with kidnapping before the gruesome corpse had been discovered. They were now charged with murder. The speed of the indictment surprised many. But white Mississippi officials and newspapers said that all "decent" people were outraged at what had happened and that justice would be done. Milam and Bryant could not find a local white lawyer to take their case. The Mississippi establishment seemed to be turning its back on them. Meanwhile, the tortured, distended body pulled from the river became the focus of attention. It was so badly mangled that Mose Wright could identify the boy only by an initialed ring.The Sheriff wanted to bury the decomposing body quickly. But Curtis Jones called Chicago, passing word to Till's mother first of Emmett's death and then the of the imminent burial. She demanded that the corpse be sent back to Chicago. The Sheriff's office reluctantly agreed, but had the mortician sign an order that the casket was not to be opened.