Emmett Till..Barbarian Racist Victim الصبى إيميت تيل..ضحية العنصرية البربرية

إيميت “بوبو” تيل Emmett Louis Till (يوليو 1941- أغسطس 1954) ابن مامي كارثان (1921– 2003) و لويس تيل (1922– 1945)،

صبي أميركي من اصول إفريقية هاجر والداه من مسيسيبي إلى آرغو، إلينوي، كجزء من الهجرة الكبرى من العائلات السوداء الريفية من الجنوب إلى الشمال هربا من نقص في فرص العمل والمعاملة غير المتساوية والسيئة لهم حيث كان اغلبهم فقراء من المزارعين المستأجرين الذين يعيشون على الأرض التي يملكها البيض (ميسيسيبي كانت أفقر ولاية في الولايات المتحدة في 1950، وكانت بعض مقاطعات دلتا من أفقر المناطق في ولاية ميسيسيبي).

Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was a 14-year-old African-American who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after a white woman said she was offended by him in her family's grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the fact that his killers were acquitted drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the Civil Rights Movement.

بدايات طفولته:

ولد إيميت (والملقب ب بوبو) في شيكاغو وكان رضيعا عندما انفصل والديه حيث اكتشفت مامي خيانه زوجها واثناء جدالهما حاول خنقها مما جعلها تقاضيه على فعلته وخيره القاضي بين السجن و الجيش واختار لويس الجيش انضم للجيش الأمريكي في 1943 ورحل الى ايطاليا واعدم هناك اثر محاكمة عسكرية في عام 1945 بعد إدانته بالاغتصاب والقتل.

Till was born and raised in Chicago and in August 1955, was visiting relatives near Money, in the Mississippi Delta region. He spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the white married proprietor of a small grocery store there. Although what happened at the store is a matter of dispute, Till was accused of flirting with or whistling at Bryant. Decades later, Bryant disclosed that, in 1955, she had fabricated testimony that Till made verbal or physical advances towards her in the store.

اصيب ايميت بشلل الاطفال عندما كان في السادسة من العمر وترك الاخير فيه تلعثما مستمر وانتقل مع والدته مامي الى ديترويت حيث التقت برادلي وتزوجا عام 1951، فضّل ايميت العيش مع جدته في شيكاغو والدته وزوجها انضموا إليه في وقت لاحق من ذلك العام  ثم عاد الزوج الى ديترويت تاركا ايميت ووالدته في شيكاغو عام 1952.

Till's reported behavior, perhaps unwittingly, violated the strictures of conduct for an African-American male interacting with a white woman in the Jim Crow-era South. Several nights after the store incident, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam went armed to Till's great-uncle's house and abducted the boy. They took him away and beat and mutilated him before shooting him in the head and sinking his body in the Tallahatchie River. Three days later, Till's body was discovered and retrieved from the river.

في الحي المزدحم ساوث سايد عملت والده ايميت موظفة مدنية لسلاح الجو الأمريكي مقابل راتب جيد وكان ايميت نشيطا مرحا ولا يتوانى بمساعدة والدته مامي في الأعمال المنزلية في المنزل ويمضى أوقات فراغه في ألعاب صغيرة مثل البيسبول مع ابناء عمومته واصدقائه في الحي.

Till's body was returned to Chicago where his mother insisted on a public funeral service with an open casket. "The open-coffin funeral held by Mamie Till Bradley exposed the world to more than her son Emmett Till's bloated, mutilated body. Her decision focused attention not only on American racism and the barbarism of lynching but also on the limitations and vulnerabilities of American democracy"

في عام 1955، كان ايميت ممتلئ الجسم والعضلات ويزن (68 كلغ) مع انه كان فتى في 14 من العمر ولكن بدا بالغا وطوله كان (1.63م). وحدث ان زارهم موس رايت عم برادلي زوج مامي البالغ من العمر 64 واخذ يحدثهم عن الجنوب والحياة في دلتا المسيسيبي مما جعل ايميت يتمنى زيارتها ويترجى والدته بالسماح له بقضاء العطله هناك وهي ترفض محذره اياه بقولها ان شيكاغو ومسيسيبي عالمين مختلفين ولكن ايميت استطاع اقناع الوالدته وغادر الى دلتا مسيسيبي وودعته الاخيرة محذرة اياه ان يعرف كيفية التصرف أمام البيض في الجنوب وأكد لها ايميت انه يفهم ذلك.

Tens of thousands attended his funeral or viewed his open casket, and images of his mutilated body were published in black-oriented magazines and newspapers, rallying popular black support and white sympathy across the U.S. Intense scrutiny was brought to bear on the lack of black civil rights in Mississippi, with newspapers around America critical of the state. Although initially local newspapers and law enforcement officials decried the violence against Till and called for justice, they responded to national criticism by defending Mississippians, temporarily giving support to the killers.

File photos of John W. Milam, 35, left, his half-brother Roy Bryant, 24, who go on trial in Sumner, Miss., Sept. 18, 1955, are charged with the murder of 14-year-old African American Emmett L.Till from Chicago, who is alleged to have “wolf-whistled” and made advances at Bryant’s wife Carolyn

وصل ايميت الى موني، ميسيسيبي في 21 أغسطس 1955 وفي يوم 24 اغسطس اثناء القداس في الكنيسه العم موس رايت تسلل ايميت مع ابن عمه كورتيس جونز وبعض أولاد الحي من المزارعين من الكنيسة وقصدا متجر براينت لشراء الحلويات وكان هذا المتجر يعود لزوجين أبيضين هما روي براينت 24 عاما وزوجته كارولين 21 عاما وكانت الزوجة لوحدها ذلك اليوم وشقيقة زوجها روي كانت في الفناء الخلفي تشاهد الاطفال، ترك كورتيز جونز ايميت وبقية الاولاد في المحل وخرج ليلعب الداما في الشارع.

In September 1955, Bryant and Milam were acquitted by an all-white jury of Till's kidnapping and murder. Protected against double jeopardy, the two men publicly admitted in a 1956 interview with Look magazine that they had killed Till. In 2004 the case was officially reopened by the United States Department of Justice. The defense team in the 1955 trial had questioned whether the body was that of Till. In 2004, Till's body was exhumed and positively identified. Till's original casket was then donated to the Smithsonian Institution and it is displayed in the National Museum of African American History and Culture. After Milam and Bryant were acquitted, they initially remained in Mississippi, but were boycotted, threatened, attacked and humiliated by local residents. Milam died in 1980 at the age of 61, and Bryant died in 1994 at the age of 63. Bryant expressed no remorse for his crime and stated: "Emmett Till is dead. I don't know why he just can't stay dead."

وفقا ل جونز كان ايميت يحمل في محفظته صورة لفتاة بيضاء ويتفاخر بأن لديه صديقة بيضاء بالمدرسة في شيكاغو، وما حدث تحديدا في المتجر ما زال موضع الجدال بسبب تعدد الاقوال من الاطفال الذين كانو خارج المتجر واقوال الزوجة كارولين.

The trial of Bryant and Milam received extensive press coverage. Till's murder was seen as a catalyst for the next phase of the Civil Rights Movement. In December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott began in Alabama and lasted more than a year, gaining a US Supreme Court ruling that segregated buses were unconstitutional.

According to historians, events surrounding Emmett Till's life and death continue to resonate. Some writers have suggested that almost every story about Mississippi returns to Till, or the Delta region in which he died, in "some spiritual, homing way." An Emmett Till Memorial Commission was established in the early 21st century. The Sumner County Courthouse was restored and includes the Emmett Till Interpretive Center. The Emmett Till Memory Project is a website and smartphone app commemorating his life; fifty-one sites in the Mississippi Delta are associated with Till.

الجريمة:

 Strider Holding the cotton gin

عندما دخلها ايميت لشراء الحلوى طلب علكة مصدرا صفيراً وكان معتادا في شيكاغو على الصفير wolf-whistled لطلب العلكة بسبب تلعثمه وعدم نطقه الصحيح كما افادت الوالدة لحرف “b”

في المحاكمة قالت الزوجة كارولين إن ايميت أمسك يدها وتودد اليها قائلا إنني كنت مع فتيات بيضاوات وطلب منها تحديد موعدا لملاقاته وهي استطاعت بطريقة أو اخرى أن تحرر نفسها منه

“سيمون رايت ابن عم ايميت كتب لاحقا إنهما لم يستغرقا دقيقة واحده اخذا العلكه ودفعا لكارولين وخرجا معا وايميت لم ينفرد معها ابدا”

Emmett Till was born in 1941 in Chicago; he was the son of Mamie Carthan (1921–2003) and Louis Till (1922–1945). Emmett's mother Mamie was born in the small Delta town of Webb, Mississippi. The Delta region encompasses the large, multi-county area of northwestern Mississippi in the watershed of the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers. When Carthan was two years old, her family moved to Argo, Illinois, as part of the Great Migration of rural black families out of the South to the North to escape violence, lack of opportunity and unequal treatment under the law. Argo received so many Southern migrants that it was named "Little Mississippi"; Carthan's mother's home was often used by other recent migrants as a way station while they were trying to find jobs and housing.

المروحة التي ربطت في عنق ايميت

على أي حال خرجت كارولين مسرعة الى السيارة لأخذ المسدس من تحت مقعد السيارة وكان ايميت حينها يصفر ولا أحد يعلم هل كان يصفر لكارولين أو للاولاد الذين يلعبون الداما في الشارع وكان معهم رجلا كبيرا بالسن يلعب الداما وعندما شاهد ما يحدث حث الاولاد على الهرب من الموقع خوفا من وقوع شي لا تحمد عقباه،

في بلدة صغيره مثل دلتا مسيسيبي التي تحتوي على ثلاث متاجر صغيرة، ومدرسة، ومكتب بريد، ومحلج القطن، وبضع مئات من السكان، هل سيكون هذا الحدث مخفيّا؟!

القصة انتشرت بسرعة فاخبروا ايميت بمغادرة ميسيسبي حالا خوفا من تعقد الأمور عند عودة الزوج الغائب حيث زوج كارولين عند وقوع الحدث كان في تكساس لعقد صفقة روبيان ولن يعود قبل 27 اغسطس، وعند عودته علم بما حدث واخذ الزوج بالشك في جميع الزنوج من دخلوا المحل ذلك اليوم واستجواب الناس عنهم وكان منهم جي.و. واشنطن الذي ارغمه بالحديث والكشف عن هويه المتحرش بزوجته كارولين وعرف منه إنه الصبي من شيكاغو و يدعى ايميت.

Mississippi was the poorest state in the U.S. in the 1950s, and the Delta counties were some of the poorest in Mississippi. Mamie Carthan was born in Tallahatchie County, where the average income per white household in 1949 was $690 ($6,960 in 2016 dollars). For black families, the figure was $462 ($4,660 in 2016 dollars). In the rural areas, economic opportunities for blacks were almost nonexistent. They were mostly sharecroppers who lived on land owned by whites. Blacks had essentially been disenfranchised and excluded from voting and the political system since 1890, when the white-dominated legislature passed a new constitution that raised barriers to voter registration. Whites had also passed ordinances establishing racial segregation and Jim Crow laws.

وبين الساعه 2- 3:30 صباحا ذهب روي زوج كارولين مع ميلام الأخ الغير الشقيق متسلحا بمسدس الى منزل موس وايت ووجدوا ايميت نائما مع بقيه أفراد العائله المتكونين من 8 أشخاص متراصّين في غرفه صغيرة سألوا من هو ايميت وعندما ميزوه عن البقيه اختطفوه واخذوه الى حظيرة خلف المنزل وقامو بضربه بوحشيه حتى اقتلعت احدى عينيه من شدة الضرب ثم ضعوه في كيس من القماش ورموه في صندوق الشاحنه وذهبا الى محلج القطن واخذا مروحه آلة القطن وزنها (32 كلج) وتوجها للنهر لرميه هناك.

Mamie largely raised Emmett with her mother; she and Louis Till separated in 1942 after she discovered that he had been unfaithful. Louis later abused her, choking her to unconsciousness, to which she responded by throwing scalding water at him. For violating court orders to stay away from Mamie, Louis Till was forced by a judge in 1943 to choose between jail or enlisting in the U.S. Army.

قادا الشاحنه عده أميال يبحثان عن مكان مناسب ثم أنزلاه و أطلق روي رصاصة على راس ايميت ولف المروحة بالاسلاك في رقبة ايميت ورمى به في النهر.

At the age of six, Emmett contracted polio, which left him with a persistent stutter. Mamie and Emmett moved to Detroit, where she met and married "Pink" Bradley in 1951. Emmett preferred living in Chicago, so he returned there to live with his grandmother; his mother and stepfather rejoined him later that year. After the marriage dissolved in 1952, "Pink" Bradley returned alone to Detroit.

Emmett – Mamie -1954

“قالا لاحقا أثناء المحاكمه : إنهما كانوا ينوون ضرب ايميت ورميه قرب النهر وليس قتله”

Mamie Till Bradley and Emmett lived together in a busy neighborhood in Chicago's South Side, near distant relatives. She began working as a civilian clerk for the U.S. Air Force for a better salary. She recalled that Emmett was industrious enough to help with chores at home, although he sometimes got distracted. His mother remembered that he did not know his own limitations at times. Following the couple's separation, Bradley visited Mamie and began threatening her. At eleven years old, Emmett, with a butcher knife in hand, told Bradley he would kill him if the man did not leave. Usually, however, Emmett was happy. He and his cousins and friends pulled pranks on each other (Emmett once took advantage of an extended car ride when his friend fell asleep and placed the friend's underwear on his head), and they also spent their free time in pickup baseball games. He was a natty dresser and was often the center of attention among his peers.

أثناء ذلك بقي موس وايت ينتظر عودة ايميت وبعد انتظار 20 دقيقه خرج مع رجل آخر للبحث عنه حتى الساعه 8 صباحا عندما لم يجدو له أي أثر، خشي موس وايت الذهاب للشرطة خوفا على حياته ولكن كورتيس جونز استدعى شريف مقاطعة ليفلوري لقرابة الصله بينهما وكذلك أرسل في استدعاء الأم مامي وزوجها برادلي من شيكاغو.

In 1955, Emmett was stocky and muscular; he weighed about 150 pounds (68 kg) and stood 5 feet 4 inches (1.63 m) tall. Mamie Till Bradley's uncle, 64-year-old Mose Wright, visited her and Emmett in Chicago during the summer and told Emmett stories about living in the Mississippi Delta. Emmett wanted to see for himself. Bradley was ready for a vacation and planned to take Emmett with her, but after he begged her to visit Wright, she relented.

Till in a photograph taken by his mother on Christmas Day 1954

إستجواب براينت وميلام واعترفوا انهما اخذا الصبي وذهبوا به الى فناء منزل عمه الكبير، لكنهما ادعيا أنهم أطلقوا سراحه في نفس الليلة أمام متجر براينت. واعتقلا بتهمه الاختطاف.

Wright planned to accompany Till with a cousin, Wheeler Parker; another cousin, Curtis Jones, would join them soon. Wright was a sharecropper and part-time minister who was often called "Preacher". He lived in Money, Mississippi, a small town in the Delta that consisted of three stores, a school, a post office, a cotton gin, and a few hundred residents, 8 miles (13 km) north of Greenwood. Before Emmett departed for the Delta, his mother cautioned him that Chicago and Mississippi were two different worlds, and he should know how to behave in front of whites in the South. He assured her he understood.

وامرت الشرطة بالبحث في مزارع القطن عن أي أثر يدلهم على ايميت فيما ظن البعض انه ربما يختفي عند احد من اقاربه أو ربما عاد الى شيكاغو.

Statistics on lynchings began to be collected in 1882. Since that time, more than 500 African Americans have been killed by extrajudicial violence in Mississippi alone, and more than 3,000 across the South. Most of the incidents took place between 1876 and 1930; though far less common by the mid-1950s, these racially motivated murders still occurred. Throughout the South, whites publicly prohibited interracial relationships as a means to maintain white supremacy. Even the suggestion of sexual contact between black men and white women could carry severe penalties for black men. A resurgence of the enforcement of such Jim Crow mores was evident following World War II, when African-American veterans started pressing for equal rights in the South.

وبعد ثلاثه أيام من اختفاء ايميت اي يوم 25 مايو 1943 وجد شابين من صيادي السمك جثه مشوهة ومتورمة في نهر تالاهاتشي Tallahatchie River. وبها أضرار بالغة  في الراس وفيما يبدو هناك أثر لطلق ناري فوق الأذن اليمنى والعين مفقوده وعلى ما يبدو أنه قد تعرض للضرب على الظهر والوركين، وجسده مربوط بشفرة المروحة، الذي ثبتت حول عنقه بالأسلاك الشائكة وكان عاريا، ولكن يرتدي خاتم من الفضة مع الاحرف الاولى “إل تي”.

Racial tensions increased after the United States Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education to end segregation in public education, which it ruled as unconstitutional. Many segregationists believed the ruling would lead to interracial dating and marriage. Whites strongly resisted the court's ruling; one Virginia county closed all its public schools to prevent integration. Other jurisdictions simply ignored the ruling. In other ways, whites used stronger measures to keep blacks politically disenfranchised, which they had been since the turn of the century. Segregation in the South was used to constrain blacks forcefully from any semblance of social equality.

Till's mutilated corpse on display. His mother had insisted on an open-casket funeral. Images of Till's body, printed in The Chicago Defender and Jet magazine, made international news and directed attention to the lack of rights of blacks in the U.S. South.

تم استدعاء موس وايد للتعرف على الجثة وتم ازاله الخاتم الفضي واعطائه لموس واختلفت القصص حول إن كان ايميت كان يرتديه طوال الوقت أم لا أم هل تم وضعه في إصبعه عمدا لتضليل الشرطة.

A week before Till arrived in Mississippi, a black activist named Lamar Smith was shot and killed in front of the county courthouse in Brookhaven for political organizing. Three white suspects were arrested, but they were soon released.

حدثت هذه الجريمة في وقت حرج جدا عندما كان الزنوج يناضلون ضد ظلم البيض وهذا ما جعل العديد من المنظمات المناصرة لضم هذه القضية الى القضايا الاخرى التي تعرض ظلم الذي يتعرضون له الزنوج من قبل البيض.

Encounter between Till and Carolyn Bryant

Till arrived in Money, Mississippi, on August 21, 1955. On August 24, he and cousin Curtis Jones skipped church where his great-uncle Mose Wright was preaching and joined some local boys as they went to Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market to buy candy. The teenagers were children of sharecroppers and had been picking cotton all day. The market mostly served the local sharecropper population and was owned by a white couple, 24-year-old Roy Bryant and his 21-year-old wife Carolyn. Carolyn was alone in the store that day; her sister-in-law was in the rear of the store watching children. Jones left Till with the other boys while Jones played checkers across the street.

تم تكفين جسد ايميت وتم وضعه في تابوت من الصنوبر وطالبت الام بنقله الى شيكاغو ومنعت دفنه في مسيسيبي ولم يقم الاطباء بأي تشريح للجثة.

The facts of what took place in the store are still disputed. According to what Jones said at the time, the other boys reported that Till had a photograph of an integrated class at the school he attended in Chicago,[note 1] and Till bragged to the boys that the white children in the picture were his friends. He pointed to a white girl in the picture, or referred to a picture of a white girl that had come with his new wallet, and said she was his girlfriend and one or more of the local boys dared Till to speak to Bryant. However, writing a personal account of the incident in a book released in 2009, Till's cousin Simeon Wright, who was also present, disputed Jones' version of what happened on that day. According to Wright, Till did not have a photo of a white girl in his wallet and no one dared him to flirt with Bryant. Speaking in 2015, Wright said, "We didn't dare him to go to the store — the white folk said that. They said that he had pictures of his white girlfriend. There were no pictures. They never talked to me. They never interviewed me." The FBI report completed in 2006 notes "...Jones recanted his 1955 statements prior to his death and apologized to Mamie Till-Mobley".

Bryant's Grocery, 2013

وعند وصول جسد ايميت الى شيكاغو أصر برادلي زوج مامي أن يكون النعش مفتوحا أثناء الجنازة برغم الرائحة التي كانت تفوح من الجثه. قائلا “اعلم ان هذا مريع جدا ولكنني اردت للعالم ان يرى” واصطف العشرات خارج المشرحة لرؤيه 

ايميت وبعد ايام حضر الاف من الناس لجنازته في كنيسة الرب اليسوع في روبرتس.

According to some versions, including comments from some of the kids standing outside the store, Till may have wolf-whistled at Bryant. Following his disappearance, a newspaper account stated that Till sometimes whistled to alleviate his stuttering. His speech was sometimes unclear; his mother said he had particular difficulty with pronouncing "b" sounds, and he may have whistled to overcome problems asking for bubble gum. She said that, to help with his articulation, she taught Till how to whistle softly to himself before pronouncing his words.

Ernest Withers defied the judge's orders prohibiting photography during the trial; he caught on film Mose Wright standing to identify J. W. Milam, which "signified intimidation of Delta blacks was no longer as effective as the past". Wright had "crossed a line that no one could remember a black man ever crossing in Mississippi."

موس وايت وهو يشير الى قاتل ابن عمه ايميت اثناء المحاكمه

صور لجثته مشوهة وزعت في جميع أنحاء البلاد وأثارت رد فعل شعبيا عارما حيث كتبت جريدة نيشن و نيوزويك  “ان هذه القضية رد فعل لم يكن على أي فعل مماثل في التاريخ الحديث”.

During the murder trial, Bryant testified that Till grabbed her hand while she was stocking candy and said, "How about a date, baby?" She said that after she freed herself from his grasp, the young man followed her to the cash register, grabbed her waist and said, "What's the matter baby, can't you take it?" Bryant said she freed herself, and Till said, "You needn't be afraid of me, baby," used "one 'unprintable' word" and said "I've been with white women before." Bryant also alleged that one of Till's companions came into the store, grabbed him by the arm, and ordered him to leave. According to historian Timothy Tyson, Bryant admitted to him in a 2008 interview that her testimony during the trial that Till had made verbal and physical advances was false.

تم دفن جسد ايميت في 6 سبتمبر في بور مقبرة اوك Burr Oak Cemetery في ألسب، إلينوي.

Decades later, Simeon Wright, Till's cousin, also challenged the account given by Carolyn Bryant at the trial. Wright entered the store "less than a minute" after Till was left inside alone with Bryant, and he saw no inappropriate behavior and heard "no lecherous conversation." Wright said Till "paid for his items and we left the store together." In their 2006 investigation of the cold case, the FBI noted that a second anonymous source, who was confirmed to have been in the store at the same time as Till and his cousin, supported Wright's account.

defense team at emmett till murder trial

المحاكمة:

عقدت المحاكمة في سبتمبر 1955، واستمر لمدة خمسة أيام.

In any event, after Wright and Till left the store, Bryant went outside to retrieve a pistol from underneath the seat of a car. The teenagers saw her do this and left immediately. It was acknowledged that Till whistled while Bryant was going to her car. However, it is disputed whether Till whistled toward Bryant or toward a checkers game that was occurring just across the street.

في المحاكمة ظهر روي و زميله ميلام في الجريمه مبتسمين في بدلات الجيش ويستعرضان فضائلهما من غير ندم أو أسف على ما اقترفوه وادعى عمدة البلدة إن الجثه التي سحبت من نهر تالاهاتشي ما هي الا جيفة وضع في يدها خاتم الفضي وكلها تكهنات انها جثه ايميت وانه ربما ما زال على قيد الحياة.

One of the other boys ran across the street to tell Curtis Jones what happened in the store. When the older man with whom Jones was playing checkers heard the story, he urged the boys to leave quickly, fearing violence. Bryant told others of the events at the store, and the story spread quickly. Jones and Till declined to tell his great-uncle Mose Wright, fearing they would get in trouble.

واجهة روي و ميلام صعوبه للحصوع لى محامين لتمثيلهم ولعدم وجود مبلغ مناسب لدفع اجور المحامين ولكن خمسة محامين في مكتب محاماة سمنر عرضت خدماتها للمصلحة العامة.

Till said he wanted to return home to Chicago. Carolyn's husband Roy Bryant was on an extended trip hauling shrimp to Texas and did not return home until August 27.

وضعت مجموعة من الصناديق في المتاجر والأماكن العامة الأخرى في دلتا لجمع النقود، وجمع في نهاية المطاف 10،000 $ للدفاع.

Lynching

When Roy Bryant was informed of what had happened, he aggressively questioned several young black men who entered the store. That evening, Bryant, with a black man named J. W. Washington, approached a black teenager walking along a road. Bryant ordered Washington to seize the boy, put him in the back of a pickup truck, and took him to be identified by a companion of Carolyn's who had witnessed the episode with Till. Friends or parents vouched for the boy in Bryant's store, and Carolyn's companion denied that the boy Bryant and Washington seized was the one who had accosted her. Somehow, Bryant learned that the boy in the incident was from Chicago and was staying with Mose Wright. Several witnesses overheard Bryant and his 36-year-old half-brother, John William "J. W." Milam, discussing taking Till from his house.

sheriff H.S. Strider يسير بين المتهمين

والطقس كان حارا جدا برغم ذلك امتلأت قاعة المحكمة ل 280 متفرج، وكانت المحاكمة مشحونة بالعنصرية حتى انهم فصلوا الصحفيين الزنوج عن البيض وخصصوا لهم مقاعد بعيده عن لجنة التحكيم، ورحب شريف ستريدر Sheriff Strider بالمتفرجين الزنوج قائلا “Hello, Niggers!”

In the early morning hours—between 2:00 am and 3:30 am—on August 28, 1955, Bryant, Milam, and Bryant's wife drove to Mose Wright's house. Milam was armed with a pistol and a flashlight. He asked Wright if he had three boys in the house from Chicago. Till was sharing a bed with another cousin; there were eight people in the small two-bedroom cabin. Milam asked Wright to take them to "the nigger who did the talking." Till's great-aunt offered the men money, but Milam refused as he rushed Emmett to put on his clothes. Moses Wright informed the men that Till was from up north and didn't know any better. Milam reportedly then asked, "How old are you preacher?" to which Wright responded "64." Milam threatened that if Wright told anybody he wouldn't live to see 65. The men marched Till out to the truck and asked Carolyn Bryant whether this was the young man who had accosted her. She said that he was.

The defendants and their wives 1955

بعض الزوار من كوريا الشمالية وجدوا ان المحكمة قامت برسميات غريبة و مثيرة للدهشة حيث كان يسمح لأعضاء لجنة التحكيم شرب البيرة اثناء المحاكمة وكان كثير من الرجال البيض يضعون مسدسات في أحزمتهم.

جميع النقاط كانت في صالح المتهمين بداً من تشكيك بهويه الجثه الى اتهام الام انها ادعت انها تعود لابنها ايميت لتنال مبلغ التأمين على الحياة 400 $.

They tied up Till in the back of a green pickup truck and drove toward Money, Mississippi. According to some witnesses, they took Till back to Bryant's Groceries to drop off Carolyn Bryant and recruit two black men. The men then drove to a barn in Drew. They pistol-whipped him on the way and reportedly knocked him unconscious. Willie Reed, who was 18 years old at the time, saw the truck passing by and identified five people on the truck with Till. Reed recalled seeing J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant in the front seat, while Henry Lee Loggins and Leroy "Too Tight" Collins were in the back with Till. Both Loggins and Collins worked for Milam and were allegedly forced to help with the beating.

مع ام القتيل

طلب القاضى كورتيز سوانجو من الزوجة كارولين بالاعتلاء على المنصة وادلاء بأقوالها وتم الاعتراض من قبل الادعاء على ذلك ايضا بحكم انه لا علاقة لها بالاختطاف والقتل.

شريف ستردير صعد المنصه ليفسر نظرياته والطبيب ستانوود قال ان الجثة كانت متحلله جدا ويصعب معرفة هوية صاحبها.

Willie Reed said that while walking home, he heard the beating and crying from the barn. He told a neighbor and they both walked back up the road to a water well near the barn, where they were approached by Milam. Milam asked if they heard anything. Reed responded "No". Others passed by the shed and heard yelling. A local neighbor also spotted Leroy "Too Tight" Collins at the back of the barn washing blood off the truck and noticed Till's boot. Milam explained he had killed a deer and that the boot belonged to him.

Years later, an interview with Henry Lee Loggins's son Mayor Jhonny B. Thomas revealed that Till was shot and tossed over the Black Bayou Bridge in Glendora, Mississippi, near the Tallahatchie River. The group drove back to Roy Bryant's home in Money, where they reportedly burned Emmett's clothes.

فرحة المتهمين بحكم البراءة

في البيانات الختامية، اعترف احد محامي الادعاء أن ما فعله ايميت كان خطأ، ولكنه يبرر الضرب، وليس القتل.

وفي سبتمبر 23 بعد نقاشات التي امتدت 67 دقيقه برأت لجنة المحلفين التي كانت تتكون كلها من البيض كل من روي و ميلام وفي مقابلات لاحقة، واعترف أعضاء هيئة المحلفين أنهم يعرفون ان براينت وميلام مذنبان، ولكن ببساطة لا نعتقد ان السجن المؤبد أو الإعدام عقوبة مناسبة للبيض الذين قتلوا رجل أسود.

In an interview with William Bradford Huie that was published in Look magazine in 1956, Bryant and Milam said they intended to beat Till and throw him off an embankment into the river to frighten him. They told Huie that while they were beating Till, he called them bastards, declared he was as good as they, and said that he had sexual encounters with white women. They put Till in the back of their truck, drove to a cotton gin to take a 70-pound (32 kg) fan—the only time they admitted to being worried, thinking that by this time in early daylight they would be spotted and accused of stealing—and drove for several miles along the river looking for a place to dispose of Till. They shot him by the river and weighted his body with the fan.

واتهمت الصحافه الام مامي و زوجها برادلي انهم لم يبكوا كما يجب اثناء المحاكمة! واستمرت حتى عام 2005 عندما صرح اثنان من المحلفين لاحقا انهم يصدقون بكل ما قاله الدفاع حينها، و إن النيابه لم تتكبد عناء اثبات إن الجثه التي سحبت من النهر تعود لايميت.

في نوفمبر 1955، ورفض هيئة المحلفين العليا توجيه الاتهام الى براينت وميلام للاختطاف، على الرغم من اعترافهم باختطافه وشهادة موس رايت وشاب يدعى ويلي ريد بانهم اختطفوا ايميت.

Mose Wright stayed on his front porch for twenty minutes waiting for Till to return. He did not go back to bed. He and another man went into Money, got gasoline, and drove around trying to find Till. Unsuccessful, they returned home by 8:00 am. After hearing from Wright that he would not call the police because he feared for his life, Curtis Jones placed a call to the Leflore County sheriff, and another to his mother in Chicago. Distraught, she called Emmett's mother Mamie Till Bradley. Wright and his wife Elizabeth drove to Sumner, where Elizabeth's brother contacted the sheriff.

picture from the emmett till trial taken in 1955

ريد، غير لاحقا اسمه ل ويلي لويس استمر في العيش في منطقة شيكاغو حتى وفاته في 18 يوليو، 2013 بعيدا عن الاضواء والنقاشات حول القضية وابقى أمر القضية سرا حتى ابقاه بعيدا عن زوجته التي علمت لاحقا من احد الاقارب. تحدث ريد علناً عن القضية في برنامج تلفزيوني وثائقي “جريمة قتل إيميت تيل” في عام 2003.

Bryant and Milam were questioned by Leflore County sheriff George Smith. They admitted they had taken the boy from his great-uncle's yard but claimed they had released him the same night in front of Bryant's store. Bryant and Milam were arrested for kidnapping. Word got out that Till was missing, and soon Medgar Evers, Mississippi state field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Amzie Moore, head of the Bolivar County chapter, became involved. They disguised themselves as cotton pickers and went into the cotton fields in search of any information that might help find Till.

عام 1956 عقد براينت وميلام صفقة مع مجلة لووك في عام لرواية قصتهم للصحفي وليام برادفورد هاوي لقاء مبلغ 3600 $ و 4000 $. أجريت المقابلة في مكتب محاماة من المحامين الذين دافعوا عن براينت وميلام. ولم يسال الصحفي اي اسأله انما ترك المجال مفتوحا لهما للحديث ووفقا للصحفي هاوي ان ميلام كان اكثر وثوقا ووضوحا من روي براينت و ان ميلام اعترف لاطلاقهم النار حتى، و هم ينظرون إلى أنفسهم على أنهم غير مذنبون أو أنهما قد فعلا شيئا خاطئا.

Three days after his abduction and murder, Till's swollen and disfigured body was found by two boys who were fishing in the Tallahatchie River. His head was very badly mutilated, he had been shot above the right ear, an eye was dislodged from the socket, there was evidence that he had been beaten on the back and the hips, and his body weighted by a fan blade, which was fastened around his neck with barbed wire. He was nude, but wearing a silver ring with the initials "L. T." and "May 25, 1943" carved in it. His face was unrecognizable due to trauma and having been submerged in water. Mose Wright was called to the river to identify Till. The silver ring that Till was wearing was removed and returned to Wright and next passed on to the district attorney as evidence.

بعد اعترافات راينت و ميلام فقدوا الدعم من اهلهم واصدقائهم في ميسيسيبي ومن قام بالدفاع عنهم وتركهم العاملون الزنوج ولم يستطيعا دفع اجور عاملين البيض وافلسا واضطرا لبيع المزارع والهرب الى ولاية تكساس ولحق العار بهم الى هناك أيضا وكرههم السكان المحليون ايضا فعادا مره اخرى الى مسيسيبي.

Funeral and reaction

Although lynchings and racially motivated murders had occurred throughout the South for decades, the circumstances surrounding Emmett Till's murder and the timing acted as a catalyst to attract national attention to the case of a 14-year-old boy who had allegedly been killed for breaching a social caste system. Till's murder aroused feelings about segregation, law enforcement, relations between the North and South, the social status quo in Mississippi, the activities of the NAACP and the White Citizens' Councils, and the Cold War, all of which were played out in a drama staged in newspapers all over the U.S. and abroad.

وجد ميلام عمل كمشغل المعدات الثقيلة، ولكن بسبب سوء الحالته الصحية اجبر للتقاعد، مارس ميلام عدة جرائم اخرى مثل الاعتداء والضرب، وكتابة شيكات بدون رصيد، واستخدام بطاقة ائتمان مسروقة. وتوفي بمرض السرطان في العمود الفقري في عام 1980، في سن ال 61.

After Till went missing, a three-paragraph story was printed in the Greenwood Commonwealth and quickly picked up by other Mississippi newspapers. They reported on his death when the body was found. The next day, when a picture of him his mother had taken the previous Christmas showing them smiling together appeared in the Jackson Daily News and Vicksburg Evening Post, editorials and letters to the editor were printed expressing shame at the people who had caused Till's death. One read, "Now is the time for every citizen who loves the state of Mississippi to 'Stand up and be counted' before hoodlum white trash brings us to destruction." The letter said that Negroes were not the downfall of Mississippi society, but whites like those in White Citizens' Councils that condoned violence.

Mrs Mamie Bradley (center) reacts as the body of her son, Emmett Till

براينت عمل لحّام في ولاية تكساس، ولكنه ترك هذا العمل بسبب زيادة حالة العمى في عينيه.

وقال انه وكارولين تطلقا، وقال انها تزوجت مرة أخرى في عام 1980. وافتتح متجر في رولفيل، ميسيسيبي، وأدين في عام 1984 و 1988 من تزوير طوابع الغذاء ثم في مقابلة اخرى عام 1985 نفى أن يكون قد قتل حتى، لكنه قال: “إذا ايميت لم يتجاوز حدوده ذلك اليوم، وربما لم يكن ليحدث له ما حدث.” خوفا من المقاطعة الاقتصادية والانتقام، عاش براينت الحياته بخصوصيه منغلقه جدا ورفض السماح بالتقاط اي صور الفوتوغرافية له أو الكشف عن المكان المحدد من متجره، موضحا: “هذا الجيل الجديد مختلف، وأنا لا أريد أن تقلق بشأن رصاصة البعض اطلقت في الليل المظلم “. وقيل إنه توفي بمرض السرطان ايضا في عام 1994، في سن ال 63.

Till's body was clothed, packed in lime, placed into a pine coffin and prepared for burial. It may have been embalmed while in Mississippi. Mamie Till Bradley demanded that the body be sent to Chicago; she later said that she worked to halt an immediate burial in Mississippi and called several local and state authorities in Illinois and Mississippi to make sure that her son was returned to Chicago. A doctor did not examine Till post-mortem.

Mississippi's governor, Hugh L. White, deplored the murder, asserting that local authorities should pursue a "vigorous prosecution." He sent a telegram to the national offices of the NAACP promising a full investigation and assuring them "Mississippi does not condone such conduct." Delta residents, both black and white, also distanced themselves from Till's murder, finding the circumstances abhorrent. Local newspaper editorials denounced the murderers without question. Leflore County Deputy Sheriff John Cothran stated, "The white people around here feel pretty mad about the way that poor little boy was treated, and they won't stand for this."

والدة ايميت ايضا تزوجت بعد برادلي من جين موبلي Gene Mobley وغيرت لقبها الى تيل موبلي Till-Mobley وعملت كمعلمة وناشطة وفي عام في عام 1992 سنحت لها مشاهدة اعترافات روي براينت قالت: “ايميت مات لا اعلم لم لا يتركونه ميتا”.

توفيت موبيلي عام 2003 العام الذي نشرت فيه مذكراتها.

Soon, however, discourse about Till's murder became more complex. Robert B. Patterson, executive secretary of the segregationist White Citizens' Council, lamented Till's death by repeating that racial segregation policies were to provide for blacks' safety and that their efforts were being neutralized by the NAACP. In response, NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins characterized the incident as a lynching and said that Mississippi was trying to maintain white supremacy through murder. He said, "there is in the entire state no restraining influence of decency, not in the state capital, among the daily newspapers, the clergy, nor any segment of the so-called better citizens." Mamie Till Bradley told a reporter that she would seek legal aid to help law enforcement find her son's killers and that the State of Mississippi should share the financial responsibility. She was misquoted; it was reported as "Mississippi is going to pay for this."

أعيد فتح القضية رسمياً من قبل وزارة العدل في الولايات المتحدة في عام 2004. كجزء من التحقيق، وتم إخراج الجثة وتشريحها لجلب أدلة أدق. وأعيد دفنه في تابوت جديد. وقد تم التبرع بنعشه الأصلي إلى معهد سميثسونيان. الأحداث المحيطة في حياة إيميت تيل وموته لا تزال تلقى صداً لدى الناس، وتقريبا كل قصة عن ولاية مسيسبي يذكر بها المنطقة التي توفي فيها.

The A. A. Rayner Funeral Home in Chicago received Till's body. Upon arrival, Bradley insisted on viewing it to make a positive identification, later stating that the stench from it was noticeable two blocks away. She decided to have an open-casket funeral, saying, "There was just no way I could describe what was in that box. No way. And I just wanted the world to see." Tens of thousands of people lined the street outside the mortuary to view Till's body, and days later thousands more attended his funeral at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ.

في عام 1996، مخرج أفلام وثائقية كيث بوشامب Keith Beauchamp، الذي كان له الفضل الاكبر بتصوير ونقل الصور للنعش المفتوح والتحقيق في الجريمه والبحث أكد أن ما لا يقل عن 14 شخصا قد يكونون متورطين، بما في ذلك كارولين زوجة روي، قضى بوشامب تسع سنوات في إنتاج القصة غير المروية لمقتل ايميت لويس تيل، والذي صدر في عام 2003.

Photographs of his mutilated corpse circulated around the country, notably appearing in Jet magazine and The Chicago Defender, both black publications, generating intense public reaction. According to The Nation and Newsweek, Chicago's black community was "aroused as it has not been over any similar act in recent history." Time later selected one of the Jet photographs showing Mamie Till over the mutilated body of her dead son, as one of the 100 "most influential images of all time": "For almost a century, African Americans were lynched with regularity and impunity. Now, thanks to a mother’s determination to expose the barbarousness of the crime, the public could no longer pretend to ignore what they couldn’t see." Till was buried on September 6 in Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.

في عام 2005، بثت شبكة سي بي اس الصحافي إد برادلي تقرير 60 دقيقة التحقيق في جريمة قتل ايميت

News about Emmett Till spread to both coasts. Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley and Illinois Governor William Stratton also became involved, urging Mississippi Governor White to see that justice be done. The tone in Mississippi newspapers changed dramatically. They falsely reported riots in the funeral home in Chicago. Bryant and Milam appeared in photos smiling and wearing military uniforms,[65] and Carolyn Bryant's beauty and virtue were extolled. Rumors of an invasion of outraged blacks and northern whites were printed throughout the state, and were taken seriously by the Leflore County Sheriff. T. R. M. Howard, a local businessman, surgeon, and civil rights proponent and one of the wealthiest blacks in the state, warned of a "second civil war" if "slaughtering of Negroes" was allowed.

ارثه:

تم اعادة تسميه عده طرق ومدارس باسمه، منها مدرسه التي درس فيها ايميت وكانت تسمى جيمس ماكجوش الأبتداية ( James McCosh Elementary School ) تغيرت الى “أكاديمية ايميت لويس تيل للرياضيات والعلوم” في عام 2005 والطرق منها طريق الذي نتقل جثمانه الى شيكاغو وأيضا اصدر العمدة اعتذارا رسميا للعائلة على مقتل ايميت والظلم الذي حصل اثناء المحاكمة الغير المنصفة بالاضافه الى تمثال أزيح الستار عنه في دنفر عام 1976 ( ثم انتقل الى بويبلو في ولاية كولورادو) و أدرج اسمه بين أربعين شخصا الذين لقوا حتفهم في حركة الحقوق المدنية (قائمة الشهداء) مع مارتن لوثر كينج الابن.

Following Roy Wilkins' comments, white opinion began to shift. According to historian Stephen Whitfield, a specific brand of xenophobia in the South was particularly strong in Mississippi. Whites were urged to reject the influence of Northern opinion and agitation. This independent attitude was profound enough in Tallahatchie County that it earned the nickname "The Freestate of Tallahatchie," according to a former sheriff, "because people here do what they damn well please," making the county often difficult to govern.

protests against the murder of emmett till

إحتجاجات ضد قتل إيميت تيل

Tallahatchie County Sheriff Clarence Strider, who initially positively identified Till's body and stated that the case against Milam and Bryant was "pretty good", on September 3 announced his doubts that the body pulled from the Tallahatchie River was that of Till. He speculated that the boy was probably still alive. Strider suggested that the recovered body had been planted by the NAACP: a cadaver stolen by T. R. M. Howard, who colluded to place Till's ring on it. Strider changed his account after comments were published in the press denigrating the people of Mississippi, later saying: "The last thing I wanted to do was to defend those peckerwoods. But I just had no choice about it."

quote two months ago i had a nice apartment in Chicago

i had a good job

i had a son

mamie till

Bryant and Milam were indicted for murder. The grand jury's prosecuting attorney, Hamilton Caldwell, was not confident that he could get a conviction in a case of white violence against a black male accused of insulting a white woman. A local black paper was surprised at the indictment and praised the decision, as did the New York Times. The high-profile comments published in Northern newspapers and by the NAACP were of concern to the prosecuting attorney, Gerald Chatham; he worried that his office would not be able to secure a guilty verdict, despite the compelling evidence. Having limited funds, Bryant and Milam initially had difficulty finding attorneys to represent them, but five attorneys at a Sumner law firm offered their services pro bono. Their supporters placed collection jars in stores and other public places in the Delta, eventually gathering $10,000 for the defense.

The remains of Bryant's Grocery and (Meat) Market, the store that Emmett Till walked into in Money, Mississippi, where he interacted with a woman related to Till's murderers. See Page 22 of Jet magazine, September 19, 2005, Vol. 108, No. 12 - ISSN 0021-5996 to see another image of this building

Trial

The trial was held in the county courthouse in Sumner, the western seat of Tallahatchie County, because Till's body was found in this area. Sumner had one boarding house; the small town was besieged by reporters from all over the country. David Halberstam called the trial "the first great media event of the civil rights movement." A reporter who had covered the trials of Bruno Hauptmann and Machine Gun Kelly remarked that this was the most publicity for any trial he had ever seen.[36] No hotels were open to black visitors. Mamie Till Bradley arrived to testify, and the trial also attracted black congressman Charles Diggs from Michigan. Bradley, Diggs, and several black reporters stayed at Howard's home in Mound Bayou. Located on a large lot and surrounded by Howard's armed guards, it resembled a compound.

The day before the start of the trial, a young black man named Frank Young arrived to tell Howard he knew of two witnesses to the crime. Levi "Too Tight" Collins and Henry Lee Loggins were black employees of Leslie Milam, J. W.'s brother, in whose shed Till was beaten. Collins and Loggins were spotted with J. W. Milam, Bryant, and Till. The prosecution team was unaware of Collins and Loggins. Sheriff Strider, however, booked them into the Charleston, Mississippi jail to keep them from testifying.

The trial was held in September 1955 and lasted for five days; attendees remembered that the weather was very hot. The courtroom was filled to capacity with 280 spectators; black attendees sat in segregated sections. Press from major national newspapers attended, including black publications; black reporters were required to sit in the segregated black section and away from the white press, farther from the jury. Sheriff Strider welcomed black spectators coming back from lunch with a cheerful, "Hello, Niggers!" Some visitors from the North found the court to be run with surprising informality. Jury members were allowed to drink beer on duty, and many white male spectators wore handguns.

بقايا البقالة في 2009 التي التقى فيها ايميت بالمرأة البيضاء وكانت سبباً في نهايته المؤلمة

The defense sought to cast doubt on the identity of the body pulled from the river. They said it could not be positively identified, and they questioned whether Till was dead at all. The defense also asserted that although Bryant and Milam had taken Till from his great-uncle's house, they had released him that night. The defense attorneys attempted to prove that Mose Wright—who was addressed as "Uncle Mose" by the prosecution and "Mose" by the defense—could not identify Bryant and Milam as the men who took Till from his cabin. They noted that only Milam's flashlight had been in use that night, and no other lights in the house were turned on. Milam and Bryant had identified themselves to Wright the evening they took Till, Wright said he had only seen Milam clearly. Wright's testimony was considered remarkably courageous. It may have been the first time in the South that a black man had testified to the guilt of a white man in court -- and lived.

Journalist James Hicks, who worked for the black news wire service, the National Negro Publishers Association (later renamed the National Newspaper Publishers Association), was present in the courtroom; he was especially impressed that Wright stood to identify Milam, pointing to him and saying "There he is", calling it a historic moment and one filled with "electricity". A writer for the New York Post noted that following his identification, Wright sat "with a lurch which told better than anything else the cost in strength to him of the thing he had done." A reporter who covered the trial for the New Orleans Times-Picayune said it was "the most dramatic thing I saw in my career".

Mamie Till Bradley testified that she had instructed her son to watch his manners in Mississippi and that should a situation ever come to his being asked to get on his knees to ask forgiveness of a white person, he should do it without a thought. The defense questioned her identification of her son in the casket in Chicago and a $400 life insurance policy she had taken out on him.

While the trial progressed, Leflore County Sheriff George Smith, Howard, and several reporters, both black and white, attempted to locate Collins and Loggins. They could not, but found three witnesses who had seen Collins and Loggins with Milam and Bryant on Leslie Milam's property. Two of them testified that they heard someone being beaten, blows, and cries. One testified so quietly the judge ordered him several times to speak louder; he said he heard the victim call out, "Mama, Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy." Judge Curtis Swango allowed Carolyn Bryant to testify, but not in front of the jury, after the prosecution objected that her testimony was irrelevant to Till's abduction and murder. It may have been leaked in any case to the jury. Sheriff Strider testified for the defense his theory that Till was alive, and that the body retrieved from the river was white. A doctor from Greenwood stated on the stand that the body was too decomposed to identify, and therefore had been in the water too long for it to be Till.

In the concluding statements, one prosecuting attorney said that what Till did was wrong, but that his action warranted a spanking, not murder. Gerald Chatham passionately called for justice and mocked the sheriff and doctor's statements that alluded to a conspiracy. Mamie Bradley indicated she was very impressed with his summation. The defense stated that the prosecution's theory of the events the night Till was murdered were improbable, and said the jury's "forefathers would turn over in their graves" if they convicted Bryant and Milam. Only three outcomes were possible in Mississippi for capital murder: life imprisonment, the death penalty, or acquittal. On September 23 the all-white, all-male jury (both women and blacks had been banned) acquitted both defendants after a 67-minute deliberation; one juror said, "If we hadn't stopped to drink pop, it wouldn't have taken that long."

In post-trial analyses, blame for the outcome varied. Mamie Till Bradley was criticized for not crying enough on the stand. The jury was noted to have been picked almost exclusively from the hill country section of Tallahatchie County, which, due to its poorer economic make-up, found whites and blacks competing for land and other agrarian opportunities. Unlike the population living closer to the river (and thus closer to Bryant and Milam in Leflore County), who possessed a noblesse oblige toward blacks, according to historian Stephen Whitaker, those in the eastern part of the county were virulent in their racism. The prosecution was criticized for dismissing any potential juror who knew Milam or Bryant, for the fear that such a juror would vote to acquit. Afterward, Whitaker noted that this was a mistake, as anyone who had personally known the defendants usually disliked them. One juror voted twice to convict, but on the third discussion, acquiesced and voted with the rest of the jury to acquit. In later interviews, the jurors acknowledged that they knew Bryant and Milam were guilty, but simply did not believe that life imprisonment or the death penalty were fit punishment for whites who had killed a black man. But two jurors said as late as 2005 that they believed the defense's case. They said that the prosecution had not proved that Till had died, nor that it was his body that was removed from the river.

Bonnie Mettler is a piece painted in memory of Till

In November 1955, a grand jury declined to indict Bryant and Milam for kidnapping, despite their own admissions of having taken Till. Mose Wright and a young man named Willie Reed, who testified to seeing Milam enter the shed from which screams and blows were heard, both testified in front of the grand jury. After the trial, T. R. M. Howard paid the costs of relocating to Chicago for Wright, Reed, and another black witness who testified against Milam and Bryant, in order to protect the three witnesses from reprisals for having testified. Reed, who later changed his name to Willie Louis to avoid being found, continued to live in the Chicago area until his death on July 18, 2013. He avoided publicity and even kept his history secret from his wife until she was told by a relative. Reed began to speak publicly about the case in the PBS documentary The Murder of Emmett Till aired in 2003.

Media discourse

Newspapers in major international cities and Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and socialist publications reported outrage about the verdict and strong criticism of American society. Southern newspapers, particularly in Mississippi, wrote that the court system had done its job. Till's story continued to make the news for weeks following the trial, especially sparking debate among Southern, Northern, and black newspapers, the NAACP and various high-profile segregationists about justice for blacks and the propriety of Jim Crow society.

My skin color is not a crime.. my color given proudly by nature as a gift from god

In October 1955, the Jackson Daily News reported facts about Till's father that had been suppressed by the U.S. military. While serving in Italy, Louis Till raped two women and killed a third. He was court-martialed and executed by hanging by the Army near Pisa in July 1945. Mamie Till Bradley and her family knew none of this, having been told only that Louis had been killed for "willful misconduct." Mississippi senators James Eastland and John C. Stennis probed Army records and revealed Louis Till's crimes. Although Emmett Till's murder trial was over, news about his father was carried on the front pages of Mississippi newspapers for weeks in October and November 1955. This renewed debate about Emmett Till's actions and Carolyn Bryant's integrity. Stephen Whitfield writes that the lack of attention paid to identifying or finding Till is "strange" compared to the amount of published discourse about his father. According to historians Davis Houck and Matthew Grindy, "Louis Till became a most important rhetorical pawn in the high-stakes game of north versus south, black versus white, NAACP versus White Citizens' Councils". In 2016, reviewing the facts of the rapes and murder for which Till had been executed, John Edgar Wideman presented evidence suggesting that the conviction may have been racially motivated.

The singing bird has fly to heaven

Protected against double jeopardy, Bryant and Milam struck a deal with Look magazine in 1956 to tell their story to journalist William Bradford Huie for between $3,600 and $4,000. The interview took place in the law firm of the attorneys who had defended Bryant and Milam. Huie did not ask the questions; Bryant and Milam's own attorneys did. Neither attorney had heard their clients' accounts of the murder before. According to Huie, the older Milam was more articulate and sure of himself than the younger Bryant. Milam admitted to shooting Till and neither of them believed they were guilty or that they had done anything wrong.

Mamie Till Mobley 1990s

Reaction to Huie's interview with Bryant and Milam was explosive. Their brazen admission that they had murdered Till caused prominent civil rights leaders to push the federal government harder to investigate the case. Till's murder contributed to congressional passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957: it authorized the U.S. Department of Justice to intervene in local law enforcement issues when individual civil rights were being compromised. Huie's interview, in which Milam and Bryant said they had acted alone, overshadowed inconsistencies in earlier versions of the stories. As a consequence, details about Collins and Loggins and others who had possibly been involved in Till's abduction and murder, or the subsequent cover-up, were forgotten, according to historians David and Linda Beito.