The Murder of Emmett Till

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Discretion. Is it by it's him
made murder? Emmett Till was only fourteen

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years old during the summer of nineteen
fifty five when he traveled from his home

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in Chicago, Illinois, to stay
with his relatives in the Mississippi Delta.

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It was in Mississippi that he had
an interaction that changed the course of the

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rest of his short life, although
at the time he didn't even notice that

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he'd done anything wrong. Exactly what
happened when Emmett Till met Carolyn Bryant in

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the grocery store she and her husband
owned is still up for debate. At

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twenty one years old, Carolyn was
seven years Immitt's senior, and crucially,

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unlike Emmett, she was white.
After his short interaction with Carolyn, he

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was accused of many things, whistling
at her in a casual manner, touching

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her, and even flirting with her
brazenly. He might have done it because

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of a dare. He might not
have been dared at all. He might

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not have even done it at all. Most of the witnesses seemed to agree

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that whatever Emmett had done, he
had not been obeying the unwritten rules of

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how a black boy should interact with
a white woman in America's southern states.

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Two days passed. At the time
of her interaction with Emmett. Carolyn's husband,

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Roy, had been away in Texas. When he returned home, Carolyn

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initially didn't tell him whatever Emmett had
said or done. Later, she explained

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that she tried to hide this information
because she believed that if Roy found out,

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he would harm Emmett. However,
Carolyn's secrecy was pointless. One of

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the grocery stores customers told Roy anyway. He was furious at his wife for

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keeping a secret, but he was
even more mad at Emmett. Till,

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along with his half brother j W. Milam, Roy, tracked Emmett down

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to his great uncle's house where he
was staying during his visit. Armed with

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pistols, the two men knocked on
the door and demanded to see Emmett.

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Emmett's great aunt offered j W and
Roy money in exchange for not harming the

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boy, but they refused, continuing
to demand that Emmett get dressed and come

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with them. After threatening the rest
of the household to stay quiet, Roy

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and j W. Ordered Emmett to
come out to their truck Meanwhile, Emmett's

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great uncle, Moe's Wright, stayed
awake, sitting on his porch and hoping

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that Emmett would come home. Eventually, he got into his own car and

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circled the nearby streets looking for any
sign of his great nephew. The sun

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rose, and Emmett was still nowhere
to be found. Mo's was afraid for

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his own life, believing that Roy
and j W would follow through in their

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promise to kill him if he contacted
the police. Instead, Curtis Jones,

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Emmett's cousin, made two phone calls, one to Emmett's mother and the other

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to the Lafleur County Sheriff's office.
Sheriff George Smith paid a visit to Roy

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and j W, who had clearly
expected Emmett's family members to stay quiet.

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Reluctantly, both men admitted that they
had taken Emmet with them on the previous

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night, but insisted that they had
released him shortly afterwards, dropping him off

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in front of the grocery store that
Roy and Carolyn owned. Sheriff Smith suspected

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that they were lying about that detail, but because both men had admitted to

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kidnapping Emmett, he was able to
place them under arrest. Words spread quickly

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about the missing black teenager, and
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored

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People, or NACP, was alerted. Two members of the nub ACP staff

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went under cover as cotton pickers,
asking black workers in the cotton fields about

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Emmett, but the search for the
missing boy ended three days later after a

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body was found in the Tallahatchee River. Two young boys were fishing when they

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came across a badly bloated, mutilated
male human body. The body was completely

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naked and his facial features were unrecognizable, but there was a silver ring on

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one of his fingers. The ring
had a unique engraving of the initials LT

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next to the date of May twenty
fifth, nineteen forty three. That ring

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belonged to the missing fourteen year old
Emmett Till It was clear that after his

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abduction, Emmett had suffered terribly.
He had been beaten severely, with one

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of his eyeballs protruding from the socket. He'd also been shot in the head,

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which appeared to be his cause of
death. After Emmett's great uncle Mos

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identified the body, Emmett's remains were
transported back to his home in Chicago.

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His mother, Maimi Till, wasn't
just grieving. She was furious both at

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the killers and at the Jim Crow
era, which had made it so dangerous

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for her son to simply exist while
being black. Her fear and anger led

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her to a simple conclusion. Emmett's
funeral would be public and the casket would

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be open. She wanted everyone who
attended to see what racism had done to

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her child. Emmett's funeral was attended
by thousands, and pictures of his body

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were quickly distributed across black newspapers and
magazines all over the United States. But

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despite the public outcry, not everybody
thought that Emmett's death had been an injustice,

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especially white people living in America's southern
states. Roy Bryant and J.

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W. Milam went to trial for
Emmett's murder in September of nineteen fifty five.

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The day before the trial began,
a black man named Frank Young came

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forward saying that he knew two other
black men who had witnessed Emmett being tortured.

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Their names were Henry Lee Loggin's and
Levi College, and they worked for

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j W. Milam's brother. However, the prosecution was never told about these

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two potential witnesses. Instead, both
Henry and Levi were placed in a local

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jail before the trial began, preventing
them from testifying against Roy and JW.

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The following day the trial began.
It was a spectacle, with almost three

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hundred people, both black and white, coming to the courtroom to watch.

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The selected members of the jury were
all white and all male. Women and

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black people were forbidden from participating.
From its very beginning, the trial was

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incredibly relaxed, with the members of
the jury being permitted to drink alcohol throughout

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the five days the trial continued.
The defense suggested that the missing boy might

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actually still be alive because the body
found in the Tallahatchee River had been so

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damaged that it was impossible to positively
identify it. They were leaning on that

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story that Roy and j W had
initially told the sheriff that they duct at

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Emmett to scare him, but released
him unharmed shortly afterwards. Despite multiple eyewitnesses,

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The defense attorney's attempted to prove that
there was no way Emmett's great uncle

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Moe's rights would have been able to
identify Roy in j W as perpetrators.

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It had been the middle of the
night and Mo's only had the light of

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a flashlight to see. In a
matter of minutes, Mo's rights went down

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in history, possibly becoming the first
Southern black man to testify against a white

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man in court and lived to talk
about it. Mo's stood up to identify

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j. W. Milam as one
of the perpetrators, saying, there he

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is. The jury deliberated for just
over two hours, taking a break in

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the middle to drink soda. They
were aware that in Mississippi, there were

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only three outcomes for Roy in JW. A death sentence, life in prison,

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or acquittal. Later, some members
of the jury were interviewed and said

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that they made their decision because they
believed that no white man should ever be

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killed or face life in jail for
killing any black man. Only one member

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of the jury believed that Roy and
j W should be found guilty, but

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the rest of the jury were able
to convince him to change his mind.

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Finally, the jury made their official
decision. Roy Bryant and j W.

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Milam were acquitted of Emmett Till's murder
in nineteen fifty six, Roy and j

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W sold their story to Look magazine
in exchanged for four thousand dollars cash.

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They'd described how they killed Emmett and
why, and even as they admitted that

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they'd murdered the boy, both of
them still maintained that Emmett had deserved it

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because of his confidence and his treatment
of Carolyn. When he was asked why

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he murdered Emmett, j W responded, what else could I do? He

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thought he was as good as any
white man. The public reaction to this

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interview was even more extreme than the
reaction to Emmett's death. The outrage pushed

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the federal government to make changes in
how black people were treated in America,

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even contributing to the nineteen fifty seven
Civil Rights Act being passed. In two

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thousand and six, the Tallahatchee Board
of Supervisors established a memorial commission in Emmett's

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memory and then issued a formal apology
to Emmett's family. In the years since

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his death, Emmett has been the
subject of countless poems, essays, and

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songs, to the point where he
has been referred to as the sacrificial lamb

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of America's civil rights movement. His
death inspired change, but only when it

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was too late to help Emmett,
a fourteen year old boy who didn't think

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he had done anything wrong. That
is ten Minute Murder for today, brief

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