Repost: Black History Month: Emmett Till

This one breaks my heart and feeds my anger.

1955. Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was excited about his trip from his home in Chicago's south side to the Mississippi Delta to visit relatives. He had been 'educated in the ways of the south' by his mother, Mamie Till Bradley, who told him how to behave around Southern white people. Mamie Till knew that life in Mississippi was a lot different than in Chicago. In Mississippi, over 500 Black people had been lynched since 1882 and racially motivated murders were not unfamiliar, especially in the Delta where Till was going.

On August 20, 1955, with his mother's warning ringing in his ears, and his deceased father's ring on his finger, Emmett Till set off with his cousin Curtis Jones on the train to Mississippi. When Till and Jones arrived on August 21, they stayed at the home of Till's great-uncle Mose Wright, just on the outskirts of Money, Mississippi.

Three days later, the two boys drove Wright's car into the small town of Money and stopped at Bryant's Grocery store to buy some candy. Prior to going inside, Till pulled out some pictures of his white friends in Chicago and showed them to the local boys outside the store. Those boys dared Till to talk to Carolyn Bryant, the store clerk. Till went into the store, purchased some candy, and what happened as he was leaving is unclear. Till either said, "Bye, baby" or he whistled at Carolyn Bryant.

Neither Emmett Till nor Curtis Jones understood the magnitude of Till's act, so they didn't tell Mose Wright what happened. They continued to think nothing of the event as three days passed without incident; three days of the cousins enjoying their summer vacation. However, on the fourth day, early Sunday morning, Carolyn Bryant's husband, Roy, and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, knocked on the door of Wright's home.

With a pistol and flashlight in hand, they asked Mose Wright whether three boys from Chicago were staying with him. And , because when white people with guns knocked at your door in Mississippi in 1955, and you're a Black man, you let them in, Mose Wright took the two men to a room where Emmett Till was sleeping.

Bryant and Milam told Till to get dressed. Wright unsuccessfully pleaded with them to just whip Till, but the two men ignored his pleas, and threatened to kill Wright if he told anyone. Several hours later, Mamie Till was notified of her son's kidnapping. A search of the area was conducted, and Mamie Till notified Chicago newspapers of her son's disappearance.

Wright told Money's sheriff who had taken Till, and he arrested Bryant and Milam for kidnapping. Little more than a week after Emmett Till arrived in Money, Mississippi, his body was discovered in the Tallahatchie River. It was weighted down by a seventy-five-pound cotton gin fan, which was tied around Till's neck with barbed wire. His face was so mutilated that when Wright identified the body, he could only do so based on the ring that Till has been wearing—his dead father's ring.

Mamie Till made the decision, when Emmett's body was returned to Chicago, to have an open casket funeral. She wanted the world to know what had happened to her son. His right eye was missing, his nose was broken, and there was a hole in the side of his head. Fifty-thousand people attended the funeral. Jet magazine ran photos of Till's body; soon Till's murder became an international story.

Down in Money, Mississippi, Milam and Bryant garnered support; whites in their community claimed they were innocent and supported their defense by donating to 'the cause.'

The trial began on September 19, 1955, in Sumner, Mississippi. The entire jury was composed of white men from the defendants' home county. At trial, the defense attorney asserted that the body recovered from the river was not Till's body, and instead, claimed Milam and Bryant had taken Till but had let him go. Milam and Bryant alleged that the NAACP and Mamie Till had dug up a body and claimed that it was Till and that Emmett Till was hiding out in Chicago.

For the prosecution, finding witnesses was difficult for the prosecution. In the South, it was dangerous for Black people to testify against any white person, so those who knew anything were reluctant to come forward. However, white and Black reporters and the NAACP were able to find witnesses against the defendants.

Barely whispering, out of fear of reprisal, Willie Reed testified on the stand that he had seen Roy Bryant, J.W. Milam, and another man with Till. Further, he testified that he heard screaming coming from the Milam barn. When Milam came out of the barn with a .45 on his hip, Milam asked Reed if he had seen anything, and Reed said no. Mose Wright had decided from the beginning that he was going to testify. When Wright took the stand, he testified that Milam and Bryant had taken Till at gunpoint from his home.

After Reed and Wright testified, they were quickly escorted out of Mississippi by the NAACP.

Mamie Till was forced to testify that the body she buried was her son, Emmett Till.

Neither J.W. Milam nor Roy Bryant testified.

The trial lasted five days. In the defense's closing argument, Milam and Bryant's attorney forewarned the jury about convicting the defendants:

"Your ancestors will turn over in their grave, and I'm sure every last Anglo-Saxon one of you has the courage to free these men."

The jury deliberated for only 67 minutes; a long time because, as one jury said, they'd taken a break to cool off with some soda pop. The jury found Milam and Bryant not guilty. They concluded that the prosecution had failed to prove that the body recovered from the river was Emmett Till.

On January 24, 1956, Look magazine published the confession of Milam and Bryant, who had agreed to tell their story, sell their story for $4,000 since they had already been found not guilty and could not be tried again. According to their confession, they beat Till with a .45 in Milam's barn, and then proceeded to take him to the Tallahatchie River where they had him take off his clothes and then they shot him. A gin fan was tied around his neck with wire in order to weigh the body down in the river. They burned Till's clothes and shoes.

Milam and Bryant were never charged with any other crimes relating to Till’s murder.

After the trial, Black people boycotted the Bryant’s' store, which forced them out of business.

Both Milam and Bryant remained in Mississippi until their deaths. J.W. Milam died of cancer in 1980, twenty-five years after he murdered Emmett Till. Roy Bryant died of cancer in 1994, thirty-nine years after he got away with murder.

Carolyn Bryant Donham, the white woman whose accusation led to the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till died in 2023. Donham testified in 1955 that Emmett grabbed her hand and waist and propositioned her, saying he had been with “White women before” but in 2017, author Timothy Tyson revealed in his book The Blood of Emmett Till that Donham had recanted her testimony. 

Donham's family publicly denied that she had recanted but the fact is, were it not for her words that a young Black man either whistled at her or said “Bye, baby,” Emmett till would have never been murdered.

Carolyn Bryant Donham died in 2023.