The Inevitable Outcome of the Emmett Till Trial in Sumner, Tallahatchie County, Mississippi in September of 1955

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Part 12: Jury Selection Begins with a Prosecution Misstep

Monday, September 19, 1955

Both the state and the defense took pains that the jury would consist entirely of “good people.” (A Case in Southern Justice: The Emmett Till Case, A Thesis, Florida State University, August, 1963, by Stephen Whitaker) However, it did not mean that this was a representative pool. 

In Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, in 1955 no Blacks were registered to vote, and therefore no Blacks could serve on the jury. The pool of potential jurors was therefore limited to white men over the age of 21—representing only about 10% of the total population of the county. Some were eliminated for not meeting literacy or residency requirements, and some could claim exemptions by being over 60 or due to business responsibilities. This last group unfortunately included many of the most competent and level-headed citizens. (Whitaker, quoting statistics from the U.S. Census data of 1950, citing General Characteristics.)

From this depleted pool of potential jurors, the state aimed to find jurors who did not know the brothers. They requested a special venire to give the prosecution a chance to get half of the jurors from the east side of the county, far from the homes of the accused. (Whitaker, page 142). However, this most likely worked against the prosecution, as the “hill people” competed with Blacks for jobs and were not as likely to feel Blacks needed protection or special consideration. 

Black and white photograph of five men sitting around a large table covered with papers, with shelves of legal books in the background.
Defense Attorneys, left to right: K.W. Kellum, C. Sidney Carlton, Harvey Henderson, John W. Whitten, Jr., and J.J. Breland, Sept. 13, 1955

The defense lawyers knew enough of the jurors personally to feel certain that the verdict would be “not guilty.” Sheriff-elect Harry Dogan, reported to know more people in the county than any other man, helped the defense pick which jurors were “doubtful” and which were “safe.” (Whitaker, page 145, based on an after-trial interview with J.J. Breland.)

The selection of the jury was important, although most people connected with the trial felt that there were no white men in the entire county who would have voted for conviction. All parties concerned—the judge, prosecuting attorneys, defense attorneys, the jury, and the accused—knew that a verdict of not guilty was certain. (Whitaker, page 147, based on interviews with all concerned after the trial) 

The dean of the defense attorneys, J.J. Breland, was quoted as saying after the trial how critical jury selection had been:

“After the jury had been chosen, any first-year law student could have won the case.” (Whitaker, page 146, quoting an interview with Breland)

Despite the odds, prosecutors Chatham and Smith were set to do all they could in the hopes there was some outside possibility for a conviction. At the very least, a good showing would be made, and Mississippi could save some embarrassment. 

Part 13: The Judge in the Till Trial

Black and white portrait of a serious man sitting at a desk, wearing a suit and tie, with a wooden backdrop and various items including a book and an ashtray on the desk.
Judge Curtis Swango presided over the Emmett Till murder trial, Sept. 20, 1955; Source: https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/speccoll-mss-mpressscimitar6/10/

Curtis M. Swango was the presiding judge during the case. Although by accounts of both Black and white journalists, he conducted the trial in an even-handed way (Devery, Who’s Who in the Emmett Till Case), Judge Swango did seem to show favor to the defendants:

  • The judge allowed the children of both Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam to run roughhouse during the proceedings and sit on their fathers’ laps. He also allowed the spouses to sit with their husbands—the women at times even rested their heads on their husbands’ shoulders. This was not normal courtroom protocol and likely helped give the impression that the defendants were good family men.
  • At no time were the defendants required to be in handcuffs—either entering, leaving or inside the courthouse.
  • Although Judge Swango dismissed the jury before Carolyn Bryant told her inflammatory version of that day in the Bryant Grocery store, the rest of the courtroom was not cleared—including spectators, reporters, and the defendants and their families. Ultimately, Judge Swango ruled her testimony inadmissible, but Carolyn Bryant’s version of the story was broadcasted by reporters and onlookers, no doubt reaching the ears of the jurors themselves.
  • The judge also permitted defendants Bryant and Milam to be present in his private chamber when Willie Reed was summoned in as a potential witness. Bryant and Milam were already there, their feet propped up on the judge’s desk. Reed declined to sit as he recounted his story of seeing the truck and Milam at barn the morning of the murder, the defendants listening to every word. Judge Swango approved Reed as a witness. (The Barn, pgs 29-30)
  • In addition, Judge Swango allowed the trial to take place very quickly after Emmett’s murder, as terms were coming to an end for Sheriff Strider and District Attorney Chatham in three months, and both did not wish to pass this chore onto newly elected officers. In addition, said Smith in an interview after, newspapers “would have roundly denounced a postponement.” (Whitaker, pgs. 147-148) Judge Swango set the trial date for September 19, 1955, the latest date possible, (Whitaker, page 131) but, because of the short time frame, this decision compromised the prosecution’s ability to gather evidence and witnesses. The prosecution had just two weeks since the indictment before the trial began. (Whitaker, pg 146)
A black and white image of a mixed group of people seated in an audience, featuring a woman leaning against a man in a white shirt, while another man in a light-colored shirt sits beside them, all engaged in the event.
Carolyn’s head on Roy’s shoulder during trial (perhaps after her testimony) https://assets-varnish.triblive.com/2023/06/6301984_web1_6143484-a3c8ccca875f4264a7ad69f980e4b42f.jpg

Part 14: The Attorneys in the Case

For the prosecution: 

  • Gerald Chatham, District Attorney
  • Robert B. Smith III, Special Assistant to the District Attorney
  • Hamilton Caldwell, County Attorney

For the Defense:

  • J. J. Breland, of Sumner, Mississippi (Head litigant)
  • C. Sidney Carlton, of Sumner, Mississippi
  • J. W. Kellum, of Sumner, Mississippi
  • John W. Whitten, Jr., of Sumner, Mississippi
  • Harvey Henderson, of Sumner, Mississippi

Prior to the “bad press” regarding Mississippi, Breland had supposedly turned down Roy Bryant, stating Bryant couldn’t afford him. Yet, after press became increasingly critical of the state and its people, and the southern way of life in general, five attorneys volunteered to defend Bryant and Milam free of charge. A grassroots fundraising effort took place, with mason jars on area business counters where residents could donate. Friends and neighbors raised nearly $10,000 for their defense fund, which is equivalent to $121, 368 in 2026. (Shocking the Conscience: A Reporter’s Account of the Civil Rights Movement, Simeon Booker, page 67) One of the questions that could get a potential jury member eliminated was if they answered “yes” to the question, “Did you donate money to the defense fund of the accused?”

Part 15: Moses and Mamie Bravely Testify for the Prosecution

A black and white photograph featuring an elderly man in a suit and suspenders, a woman in an elegant dress with a large bow, and a young boy wearing a white shirt, sitting closely together against a wooden backdrop.
From left: Emmett Till’s great-uncle, the Rev. Moses Wright; his mother Mamie Bardley; and his cousin Simeon Wright. Ed Clark; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Testifying for the Prosecution were Emmett’s Great-Uncle Moses Wright and Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. Moses Wright taking the stand was an unprecedented event. It was the first time in the history of the state that a black man had stood up in a courtroom and accused a white man of anything. (Simeon’s Story, page 75) Moses did not take this lightly. He knew it would put his life in danger. Neighbors tried to convince him not to testify, warning Moses he’d be killed. Medgar Evers encouraged him to testify, saying that the NAACP would do everything they could to protect him. In the end, Moses felt it his duty. He was resolved. As Moses said to his son Simeon, “I know one thing. I know I’m going to testify. Whether I live, I don’t know.” (Simeon Wright Oral History, Library of Congress, conducted by Joseph Mosnier in Chicago, May 23, 2011 at https://www.loc.gov/item/2015669109/)

A man in a white shirt and tie gestures while speaking in a meeting room, with seated individuals and a wooden bench in the background.
Original photo by Ernest Withers, sold to news wire; https://storyboardmemphis.org/featured-story/that-memphis-photographer-how-ernest-withers-captured-the-photo-of-the-emmett-till-murder-trial/

As Moses recounted details of the night Milam and Bryant had taken Emmett from his home, Chief Prosecutor Chatham asked him to identify if the man with Roy Bryant was in the courtroom that day. Moses rose from the witness chair and pointed at J.W. Milam—a moment defiantly captured on film by Black photographer Ernest Withers and one of the most iconic images in the Civil Rights movement. Moses went on to identify Bryant. The defense attorneys, of course, tried to disparage his testimony, to imply that Moses actually didn’t see the men on his porch clearly and was therefore unable to truly identify them.

When Mamie took the stand, there was a palpable hush in the courtroom. She testified that she was certain the body in the original casket and on the examining table was that of her beloved son Emmett. 

“I looked at the face very carefully. I looked at the ears, and the forehead, and also the hair; and I looked at the nose and the lips and the chin. I just looked at it all over very thoroughly. And I was able to find out that it was my boy. And I knew that it was my boy beyond a shadow of a doubt.” (Tragedy on Trial, page 147)

A vintage silver ring featuring an engraved date of May 25, 1943, and the Roman numeral 'LII'.
Louis Till, Emmett’s father, had this ring
had this ring made when he was in the service. The Army sent it to Mamie after Louis’ death.

Mamie positively identified the ring found on Emmett’s body. She testified she had received a ring in the personal effects of Louis Till from the army after his death overseas. The ring was engraved with his initials, “L. T.”, with the date “May 25, 1943.” Mamie confirmed Emmett put the ring on his finger the morning he boarded the train to Mississippi. She identified family photos of Emmett and confirmed newspapers images of his dead body matched how he looked at the funeral home. 

When it was the defense’s turn, Breland tried several lines of questioning to disparage her. Breland asked if she had been reading the Chicago Defender—a Black newspaper very critical of the handling of the Till case—after the incident and before the trial, which she confirmed. (Tragedy on Trial, pp 154-155) Perhaps this was to insinuate she was an outside agitator along with the NAACP. He questioned if she had prepared Emmett about how to behave when encountering white people, especially warning him against insulting white women. Mamie confirmed she’d spoken to Emmet several times about watching his behavior around all white people and answered “no” to Breland’s questioning if Emmett “was ever in trouble up in Chicago?” (Tragedy on Trial, pp 161-163 and page 152) Breland even went so far as to ask if she had a life insurance policy on Emmett, which she had two totaling about $400, with the implication that she was only interested in obtaining money. (Tragedy on Trial, pp 152-153)

Both Moses and Mamie had been steadfast under intense questioning. But the prosecution was not done. It had some additional “surprise” witnesses to bring before the court. 

Part 16: “Surprise” Eye Witnesses to the Beating at the Barn

In an extraordinary effort, Theodore Roosevelt Mason (T. R. M.) Howard , a prominent black physician/surgeon, business owner and civil rights activist, Medgar Evers, the field captain for the NAACP in Mississippi, and Rudy Hurley, another field captain for the NAACP, and the Black press, had heard of several eye witnesses on the morning of the murder and were determined to find them. Disguised in sharecroppers’ clothing so as not to call attention to themselves, they went to the fields as Blacks worked, looking to find those witnesses, to ascertain what they had seen and heard, and to convince them to testify.

A black and white photo of three individuals standing together. On the left is a woman wearing a headscarf and a blouse, while in the center is a young man with a serious expression in a white shirt. To the right is another young man in a slightly unbuttoned shirt, also looking serious. They are in an indoor setting with blurred background elements.
Willie Reed and Amanda Bradley testified at Till Trial;
Source: Special Collections & Archives, Florida State University Libraries,
Tallahassee, Florida; https://tillapp.emmett-till.org/items/show/10

The first witness was Willie Reed. Reed had been out on an errand early on the morning of Sunday, August 28th. When passing by the Sheridan plantation, where Leslie Milam lived and worked as a plantation manager, Reed testified he saw a green and white truck pass with four white men in the cab, three colored men in the back and a colored boy sitting in the bottom of the truck (Tragedy on Trial, page 173). He said the boy favored the pictures in the paper of Emmett Till. (Tragedy on Trial, page 175) He saw the truck parked in front of the barn, and saw J.W. Milam leave the barn to go to the well for a drink of water, a pistol on his belt. Milam returned towards the barn. As Reed passed, he heard hollering coming from the barn, someone hollering “Oh” multiple times, and a whole lot of licks. (Tragedy on Trial, pp 178-179) He went to tell Amanda Bradley, and returned to the well to get a bucket of water. He then went on his way to the store. On his way back, the truck was gone. (Tragedy, page 180) Under cross-examination, Reed could not identify the men in the truck, but confirmed that the boy had been facing toward him and that he got a good look at his face—the boy he identified as Emmett Till. 

Add Reed, Willie’s grandfather, testified to seeing a white pick-up truck parked around the building that morning, and seeing two men, one of whom was Leslie Milam. (Tragedy on Trial, pp 196-197) Amanda Bradley, looking out her window after being visited by Willie Reed, saw four white men coming in and out from around the barn, and saw “a tall, bald-headed man” get a drink at the well. She also saw men back up the truck to the barn and then drive away. (Tragedy on Trial, pp 200-201)

A black and white photograph featuring six individuals standing together, looking serious. The group includes three men and three women, dressed in formal and semi-formal attire. One woman is holding a fan, and they are positioned in an indoor setting with doors in the background.
Walter Reed (left) his grandson Willie Reed (second left) Amanda Bradley (right). Also Mamie Bradley, Dr. TRM Howard, Mich Congressman Charles Diggs. (Memphis Press-Scimitar newspaper morgue, Special Collections Department, University of Memphis Libraries; https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/speccoll-mss-mpressscimitar6/18/)

There were two additional witnesses the prosecution team tried to find—Levi “Too Tight” Collins and Henry Lee Loggins. The two Black men were believed to have been involved, holding Emmett down in the truck bed and perhaps even witnessing for actual murder. However, the two men had disappeared. It was only after the trial that rumors that they were being hidden by Sheriff Strider in another jail under false names proved to be true. 

A man in a hat kneels beside a large, circular aircraft part with multiple blades and a metallic surface, inspecting it.
Deputy Sheriff John Ed Cothran kneels before the cotton gin fan used to weigh down Till’s body; Sept 2, 1955; Commercial Appeal newspaper morgue, Special Collections Dept, University of Memphis Libraries; SOURCE: “Deputy Sheriff John Ed Cothran, Greenville, Miss., 1955” (2023). Other. 3.
https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/speccoll-mss-commercialappeal6/3

Also testifying for the prosecution were Leflore County Sheriff George Smith and Deputy Sheriff John Ed Cothran. Both testified as to Roy Brant and J.W. Milam admitting to the kidnapping of Emmett Till. 

Sheriff Smith testified that on the afternoon of August 28 Roy Bryant had admitted to him that they went to get that [expective] boy from Moses Wright’s home to let his wife see him to identify him, and that she said it wasn’t the right one, and that they had turned him loose. (Tragedy on Trial, pp 99-101) With no other witnesses to the conversation, and the assumption that Bryant felt he was talking in confidence to “a friend” without the knowledge that Smith planned to arrest him, the Defense argued that the testimony was not admissible because Bryant hadn’t been notified of his rights. (The Miranda Rights, as we now know them, were not put into law until 1966.) Judge Swango allowed the testimony, as he said the witness was the Sheriff of Leflore County, and as such, it was his duty to investigate any and all crimes and alleged crimes. (Tragedy on Trial, page 108)

Cothran testified as to what he observed after the body was taken out of the river: two gashes above the left ear and a “little hole” above his right ear, and the fact that there had been a ring on the right hand of the deceased. Cothran also testified that in the Leflore County jail on Monday, August 29th, after he had arrested J.W. Milam but before any body was found, that Milam had admitted they had “carried the boy off” to Roy Bryant’s store, but claimed, after talking to Emmett, they had let him go. (Tragedy on Trial, pp 111-130) The defense claimed this “alleged admission” was not freely and voluntarily made, and that even if Milam had admitted to the kidnapping, he had not been properly advised of his rights. Judge Swango overruled the objection. 

Part 17: Testifying for the Defense

A family portrait featuring a woman holding a young boy, a man seated with another boy on his lap, all in front of a bookshelf filled with books.
Carolyn Bryant, her husband and their two sons
in the office of Roy Bryant’s lawyer in 1955
(AP-from Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/
obituaries/2023/04/27/carolyn-bryant-emmett-till-dies/)

Seven character witnesses—three for Milam and four for Bryant—testified to the good character and reputation of the defendants (Tragedy on Trial, page263), though District Attorney Chatham took the track that they would be willing to testify to anything to “help a friend.” Judge Swango upheld the defense’s objection when the prosecution asked one of the witnesses if it was true that Milam “had been charged and pleaded guilty on quite a number of charges.” Milam was known in the area for bootlegging, among other things. (Tragedy on Trial, page 263) 

As mentioned in an earlier post, Tallahatchie County Sheriff Clarence Strider testified for the defense, casting doubt as to the race and identify of the body and denying that he had known the true identity of the body when filling out the death certificate in the name of Emmett Till. Strider also testified that, in his opinion, the body had been in the water 10 days—an assertion affirmed by both Dr. L.B. Otken, a physician, and by H.D. Malone, the funeral director where Emmett’s body was embalmed. At no time was Emmett’s body examined by a pathologist.

A black and white photograph of four people engaged in conversation in a crowded setting. Two men are leaning towards two women, who are seated. The expressions of the individuals suggest a serious discussion.
At trial Milam/Bryant and wives;https://thepbsblog.com/2024/07/25/little-known-facts-about-emmett-till-the-trial-and-aftermath/

Part 18: Carolyn Bryant Tells Her Side of the Story

As is protocol in testimony that might not be deemed admissible in trial, the judge removed the jurors from the courtroom when Carolyn Bryant gave her account of the day when Emmett Till entered the Bryant Meat Market and Grocery. She testified that Emmett grabbed her hands, asked her on a date, and at one point grabbed her by the hips and said she needn’t be afraid because he had [expletive]ed white women before. This story line did not match Carolyn’s statement to the defense attorneys in their offices before the trial. This story was much more animated and implied Emmett had basically threatened to rape her. 

Judge Swango did not admit Carolyn Bryant’s testimony into record and brought the jurors back without hearing her story. But the damage had been done. The jurors no doubt heard of Carolyn’s testimony from others in the courtroom and it helped further views that the killing of Emmett was somehow justified. There was also rumors that White Citizen’s Council members had visited jurors to be certain they voted “the right way.” (Innocence, page 199)

Part 19: The Prosecution Makes its Emotional Closing Arguments

Although the actual transcripts of closing arguments from both the prosecution and defense were either never recorded or were “lost,” Ronald K.L. Collins recreated the arguments from newspaper reports of the trial.

In his book, Tragedy on Trial, Collins summarizes the main closing arguments for the prosecution (Trial, pages 289-293):

Premeditated Crimes—Kidnapping and Murder: To demonstrate malice aforethought, Chatham recounted Bryant’s words to Moses Wright that fateful night: “Preacher, preacher. I want that boy from Chicago—that boy that did the talking in Money.” Chatham said that the crimes were calculated, and that the men tried to hide the crime by weighing down Emmett’s body and dumping him in the river.

A vintage black and white photograph of a wooden house with a porch, surrounded by trees and a dirt path.
Moses Wright Home near Money, Miss in 1955 (Source Special Collections & Archives, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, FL Sept 1955)

The Accused Had a Duty to Protect a Minor, Not Inflict Murderous Punishment: Chatham admitted that it was common for a boy to be whipped for bad behavior in the south, but that “you deal with a child as a child—not as if he were a man.” The men‘s abduction of Emmett by gunpoint was nothing short of a “command of a summary court-martial with the death penalty.” 

The Defendant’s Presence at the Scenes of the Crimes: Moses had identified Bryant and Milam as the men who had abducted Emmett from his home. Willie Reed saw Milam with a gun coming from and going back to the barn where Reed had heard someone being beaten and crying out for help. Reed saw a pick-up truck with white men up front and Black men in the bed. Amanda Bradley also testified to Milam’s presence at the well and that a truck had been backed up to the barn and had then disappeared.

The Body was Indeed Emmett’s—Therefore Establishing the Corpus Delicti: Chatham brought out three main arguments against the defense’s denial of the identity of the body: Mamie, his mother had identified Emmett’s body; Sheriff Strider offered conflicting statements and actions pre-trial versus during the trial (including naming Till on the death certificate and sending the body to a Black mortuary); and the “expert witness” testimony was not reliable.

What is Morally Right: Chatham was himself a southerner, and tapped into that heritage. Looking at the jury, he declared, “I am concerned with what is morally right or wrong. … To be concerned with anything else will be dangerous to the precepts and traditions of the South. If your verdict is influenced by anything except the evidence, you will endanger every custom and tradition we hold dear. To ignore such traditions and what is morally right,” he told the court and jury, will have consequences: “The next time it maybe you who will be sitting here crying.” 

Part 20: The Defense Makes its “Southern Duty” Closing Arguments

Sidney Carlton began the arguments for the defense: (Summarized from Tragedy on Trial pages 296-298):

No Evidence of Motive: Because Carolyn Bryant’s testimony was deemed inadmissible and was offered outside the presence of the jury, the defense claimed there was no motive. Even though everyone knew the defendants had abducted, beaten and killed Emmett because he wolf whistled at Carolyn, and supposedly made other lewd comments and actions.

The Burden of Proof Had Not Been Met: “We don’t have to prove to you that it was not Till’s body: we only have to raise a reasonable doubt.”

No Link to the Defendants: Taking out Carolyn’s testimony, the “only testimony that Emmett Till did anything with these defendants was Moses Wright’s testimony that he heard the boy had done something.” And if that was the case, the defense argued, why hadn’t Moses “whipped him himself.” Plus, citing testimony that supposedly inadmissible, Carolyn had said that the Black boy her husband and Milam brought before her was “not the one.” 

No Evil Intent: The defense argued that if Bryant had in fact identified himself to Moses the night of Emmett’s abduction, it would have been “stupid” for Bryant to have given his name if he was planning to beat and kill the boy. 

Uncertainty as to the Identity of Milam: Citing that Moses testified that it was dark and the man he saw with Bryant was “big and bald,” did not prove that it was J.W. Milam beyond a reasonable doubt.

A black and white portrait of a woman with styled hair, wearing a textured top and looking to the side.

Uncertainty as to the Identity of the Corpse with No Scientific Evidence: Carlton cited the testimony of a sheriff, a medical doctor and an embalmer that the body was beyond recognition. And, as to Mamie’s testimony, “Sometimes mothers believe what they want to believe. I’m sure Mamie Bradley thinks the body was her son, but scientific facts show otherwise.” These “scientific facts” were never detailed. 

J.W. Kellum followed up with additional arguments for the defense:

A Discrepancy in Time: Repeating that Dr. Otken said the body was in the river eight-ten days, and pointing out that Emmett had only been missing for three days, Kellum construed that the time discrepancy was too great for the body to be Emmett’s.

Then, Kellum ended with arguments that appealed to the jurors southern roots and pride—and their anger at northern norms aimed at destroying their southern way of life:

Keep The Land of the Free: Kellum claimed that to convict the defendants would mean that freedom would be “lost forever.” As a “peerage of democracy,” it was their solemn duty to acquit or their forefathers will “absolutely roll in their graves.” 

Think of Your Eternity: In a trial for the murder of a boy, Kellum appealed to his jurors to think of how they would be judged as they crossed over. … “[As] you enter your father’s house … I want you to hold in the palm of your hand a record of service to God and your fellow man. And the only way you can do this is to turn these boys loose.” 

After a break for lunch, John W. Whitten Jr. now spoke for the defense. (Tragedy on Trial, pages 300-303)

Portrait of a man wearing glasses and a bow tie, seated at a table with microphones, appearing serious.
Theodore Roosevelt Mason Howard (Mississippi Dept. of Archives and History, Archives and Records Division [2-79-1-4-1-1-1] https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/trm-howard/)

The Plot to Shame the South: In this argument, Whitten claimed the real culprits were not the defendants, but all the others trying to take away the southern way of life. He suggested that others wanting to “defy the customs of the South … would commit perhaps any crime known to man in order to widen the gap.” He went on to imply that some of these people were doctors and undertakers who “have ready access to a corpse.” Without specifically mentioning names, Whitten’s words pointed to Dr. T.R.M Howard, who was chief surgeon of the Taborian Hospital in Mound Bayou. (Remembering Emmett Till, Dave Tell, pgs 40 and 48)

The Evil Conspiracy and the Planted Ring: Continuing this argument, Whitten stated that “they would not be above putting a rotting, stinking body in the river in the hope it would be identified as Emmett Till.” His implication was again that Dr. T.R.M. Howard and the NAACP had planted the body. 

It’s Okay to Disregard the Facts and the Law: Here, Whitten basically told the jurors they could make any decision they wanted, regardless of evidence, regardless of the law. “There is no way anyone can punish you for any decision you make.”

The Anglo-Saxon Argument: Lastly, Whitten appealed to the jurors to preserve the Anglo-Saxon racial tradition—a tradition that meant the subjugation of Black people. “You are our hope and confidence to send these defendants back to their families happy … [I have full confidence that] every last Anglo-Saxon one of you have the courage to free these men.” 

Part 21: The Jury Deliberated Only 67 minutes

The jury barely deliberated for an hour. Black reporter Simeon Booker said witnesses reported hearing laughter coming from the deliberation room. (Shocking the Conscience, Simeon Booker, pg 78) One juror joked that they would have taken longer but stopped to have some Cokes.

After the “not guilty” verdict was read, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant lit victory cigars. The photographers crowded around and asked the men to kiss their wives. (The Barn, page 300)

A group of four people joyfully interacting at a social gathering, with two men and two women, one man holding a cigar, and the women smiling and wearing dresses.
J.W. and Junita Milam, and Carolyn and Roy Bryant, celebrate after verdict. (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-murder-of-emmett-till/; Bettman/Getty Images)

Mamie was not in the courtroom to hear the verdict being read. She had known what the outcome would be and had already left town.

Stephen Whitaker confirmed in interviews with jury members in the years after the trial that none of them had a doubt that Milam and Bryant had in fact killed Emmett Till. Whitaker found that that 2-3 jury members had even voted “guilty” in first rounds of voting. But ultimately, they found the defendants “not guilty” because they couldn’t bring themselves to convict fellow white Mississippians (however unsavory), and thus their very way of life.

                                    *                      *                      *

How Sheriff Clarence Strider Swayed the Till Trial

/ tamaratabel / Leave a comment

If you had to conjure up the perfect actor to play a bigoted, unscrupulous Southern sheriff, you could do no better than Sheriff Henry Clarence Strider. 

A man in a white shirt and hat standing next to a vintage car.
Sheriff Clarence Strider (Source: The Commercial Appeal from PBS American Experience site on the Murder of Emmett Till)

At 270 pounds, “H.C.” Strider made a commanding figure. Wearing collared short-sleeved white cotton shirts, his belt straining around his belly, an oversized blackjack sticking prominently out of the right-hand pocket of his trousers, often with a cigar in hand, he asserted power in every situation. (Tragedy on Trial, page 227) Strider was a wealthy plantation owner, feared by his Black workers. His property could be identified from miles away by the letters S-T-R-I-D-E-R, which he insisted be painted on the roofs of sharecropper’s shacks. (American Experience: Bio Sheriff Clarence Strider) And his badge gave him virtually unchecked power over the law.

Strider took control of Emmett’s body, the murder charges, announcements to the press and the very courtroom where Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were being tried for murder. His influence on the trial of the two men helped lead to its inevitable conclusion—not guilty. 

To understand all the strings Strider pulled and lies he told, we have to go back to the beginning.

Strider Took Immediate Control of the Body

The case of Emmett Till’s kidnapping and murder was complicated by its multiple locales. This meant that several jurisdictions and law enforcement personnel could potentially be involved in investigating and prosecuting the case:

  • Tallahatchie County: The body of Emmett Till was pulled from the Tallahatchie River in Tallahatchie County, where Sheriff Strider had jurisdiction. 
  • Leflore County: George Smith was the Sheriff of LeFlore County—where Moses Wright’s home was located and where the kidnapping took place.
  • Sunflower County: The Sheridan plantation, was managed by J. W. Milam’s brother, Leslie Milam, and was located in Sunflower County. Emmett’s beating and torture took place in a barn on this property. (FBI Investigation of February 9, 2006, lists the name of the plantation as the Clint Shurden Plantation, page 97)
Front view of a vintage black police car with a red light on top, parked on a sunny street.
Adobe

Although both Strider and Smith appeared at the scene, it was Strider who took control, under the guise that Emmett was shot and killed at the banks of the river in Tallahatchie County—an assertion not yet proven and one that many local Blacks doubted. Dr. T. R. M. Howard, a wealthy physician and Black activist from the area, claimed that the murder likely took place in a barn on the Sheridan plantation. (Tragedy on Trial, page 167) 

The murder trial outcome may have turned out differently if the trial had been moved to Sunflower County—or at the very least, more evidence and witnesses might have been brought out during the trial. But the trial went on in Tallahatchie. And Tallahatchie County belonged to Strider. 

Strider Acted Quickly to Bury the Body

Once he took control over the murder, though there was not yet proof of where the murder had actually taken place, Strider did the following:

  • He summoned a Black undertaker to the scene (Tragedy on Trial, page 229)
  • He signed the death certificate under the name of Emmett Till and described him as a “Negro . . . high school student” born in 1941. Cause of death: “murder.” (Tragedy on Trial, page 229)
  • As noted on the death certificate, Strider requested the body be sent to the “Avent Funeral Home,” a Black funeral home (Tragedy on Trial, page 229)
  • He did not order an autopsy (Tragedy on Trial, page 229)
  • He requested immediate burial of the body (Tragedy on Trial, page 229) and ordered Emmett’s relatives to get his body in the ground by nightfall (American Experience Strider Bio)
  • From the onset, Strider pushed for a speedy handling of the investigation, which made gathering evidence and finding witnesses difficult for the prosecution (Tragedy on Trial, page 229)

Mamie Till-Mobley Foiled Strider’s Plan to Bury Emmett in Mississippi

The body was first sent to the Century Funeral Home in Greenwood, run by Chester Miller. The staff began preparations for immediate burial, per Strider’s instructions. The grave was being dug. Moses Wright began preparing his eulogy and others readied their funeral clothes. (Blood of Emmett Till, page 65)

But when Emmett’s mother in Chicago learned that her son had been found and would soon be buried in Mississippi, she demanded the body be sent home. Mamie called her uncle Crosby Smith in Sumner, who promised “to get Emmett’s body back to Chicago if he had to pack it in ice and drive it back in his truck.”(Innocence, page 130)

Crosby Smith drove to the cemetery with Chester Miller and one of the sympathetic Leflore County deputies. “[The grave diggers] had got the body out to the cemetery and dug the grave,” Smith recalled. “I got there and had the deputy sheriff with me. He told them whatever I said, went.” Smith told the grave diggers, “’No, the body ain’t going in the ground.’ That body went to Chicago.” (Blood, page 65, from Erle Johnson Papers, University of Southern Mississippi and The Barn, page 279)

The body was picked up by Chester F. “Chick” Nelson, whose funeral home in Tutwiler embalmed and prepared … Till’s body for shipment back to Chicago ….” (Tragedy on Trial page 140, including Nelson bio info from Anderson’s “Who’s Who in the Emmett Till Case”) The coffin was sealed with the state of Mississippi seal, under the agreement that the casket never be opened. 

The quick and quiet burial Strider had ordered was not to be. Instead, Emmett’s body would be returned to Chicago, where Mamie would open the coffin, identify the body as her son, and display Emmett’s disfigured body so everyone can “see what I had seen.”

Crowd gathered outside Roberts Temple, with people in hats and formal attire, and vintage cars in the foreground.
Crowds turned out by the hundreds for Emmett Till’s memorial and funeral, where his mutilated body lay in an open casket on Sept. 3, 1955; https://www.nydailynews.com/2022/03/30/remembering-the-life-and-death-of-emmett-till/

“The whole nation had to bear witness to this. … I knew that if they walked by that casket, if people opened the pages of Jet magazine and the Chicago Defender, if other people could see it with their own eyes, then together we might find a way to express what we had seen. It was important to do that, I thought, to help people recognize the horrible problems we were facing in the South.” 

Mamie Till-Mobley (Innocence, page 139)

Many Applaud Mamie’s Actions … But Not Strider

This “spectacle” enraged Sheriff Strider and others in the community. Further, comments from the NAACP stating that “Mississippi has decided to maintain white supremacy by murdering children,” and that Emmett’s murderers felt “felt free to lynch him” because of the racist climate that state leaders there had accepted (Innocence, page 144), began to change the general sentiment about the trial. 

While previously, many local and state newspapers and officials had come out to condemn the actions of Bryant and Milam and support a just trial for the atrocity, the implication that all of Mississippi was in support of the murder drew the ire of state residents. Normally, they wouldn’t have supported low-class whites (deemed “peckerheads”), but they felt their whole state and whole way of life was on trial.

Newspaper writers and politicians warned that “outside agitators” were threatening the outcome of the case. This infuriated Mamie. She felt that she, and others like the NAACP, were only pushing for the conviction of two murderers; and, further, that fair-minded people wouldn’t make a decision out of spite, just to make a point to outside agitators—unless they were really not fair-minded to begin with. (Innocence, page 150) She felt a right to speak out, a duty to agitate. It was not Milam and Bryant on trial—it was the state of Mississippi against the state’s critics. She realized then that her son’s murderers might go free, yet she prepared to go to Mississippi for the trial. 

“They had brought the worst of Mississippi right to our Chicago doorstep and I was going to take a little Chicago right back to them. ‘Someone is going to pay for this,’ Mamie declared. ‘The entire state of Mississippi is going to pay.'” (Innocence, pages 150-151)

A woman in a formal dress stands at a microphone while several men operate cameras and equipment in a busy outdoor setting with parked vintage cars in the background.
Mamie Till-Mobley speaks to the press during the trial of her son’s murderers. (Ed Clark, Life magazine/Shutterstock)

Strider Casts Doubt as to the Identity of the Body

Shortly after the body was discovered, Strider said that the body had “been in the water about two days. ”(Tragedy page 228) He also signed the death certificate in the name of Emmett Till, identifying him as Negro, and sent the body to a Black undertaker. But, shortly thereafter, Strider flipped and said he did not know if the body was white or Black. (Tragedy on Trial, page 229, quoting Devery Anderson in 2016 interview) As national and international condemnation grew, Strider continued to cast doubt that the body was that of Emmett Till, telling reporters on September 3, 1955 that owing to the condition of the body neither its identity or race could be established. “The body we took from the river,” he stressed, “looked more like a grown man instead of a young boy. It was also more decomposed than it should have been after a short stay in the water.” (Tragedy on Trial page 229, quoting the Jackson Daily News) 

Black and white image of a man wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a collared shirt, speaking at a podium surrounded by microphones, with a window frame in the background.
Sheriff Strider during a press briefing (Source: ABC News – Good Morning America)

Further, Strider floated a conspiracy theory that “[t]he whole thing looks like a deal made up by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.” (Tragedy on Trial, page 228, quoting newspaper articles “Sheriff Says Body Found May Not Be Chicago Boy,” Richmond Times-Dispatch (AP), September 3, 1955; and “Sheriff Believes Body Not Till’s: Family Disagrees—Mother ‘Positive’ It Was her Son,” Clarion Ledger, September 4, 1955, p. 1) Strider’s implication that “the killing might have been planned and plotted by the NAACP,” was ludicrous. (Strider quote from Innocence, page 144) It implied that the NAACP had itself killed Emmett or had planted a body for discovery—a body wearing Emmett’s ring—all to implicate southerners for murder and racial injustice. 

The most infamous of Strider’s quotes is his statement regarding Northern interference in their way of life—a sentiment likely held by others in Mississippi, but never so publicly stated, especially by a member of the law enforcement community:

“We never have any trouble until some of our Southern [expletive]s go up North and the NAACP talks to ’em and they come back home. If they would keep their nose and mouths out of our business we would be able to do more when enforcing the laws of Tallahatchie County and Mississippi.” (American Experience Bio Sheriff Strider and other sources)

A woman sitting at a table, holding a piece of paper, while a man in a white shirt hands her another document. Several people with cameras are seen in the background.
Mamie Till Bradley, the mother of Emmett Louis Till, receives a subpoena from Sheriff H.C. Strider on Sept. 20, 1955, in a courtroom in Tallahatchie, Miss., for her to appear as a witness in the trial of two white Mississippi men accused of murdering her son. Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam were acquitted by an all-white jury in 1955. Bryant and Milam confessed to the killing in a 1956 Look magazine article. https://www.nydailynews.com/2022/03/30/remembering-the-life-and-death-of-emmett-till/

Strider Helped Vet Jury Members to Give the Defense a Favorable Outcome

The defense attorneys, in no small measure assisted by Sheriff Strider and Sheriff-elect Harry Dogan, knew enough of the jurors personally to be confident of acquittal. (The Blood of Emmett Till, Timothy B. Tyson, page 130) 

Jury members at the murder trial of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam. The courtroom was packed to capacity during the trial with predominantly white faces. (Sources: Ed Clark, Life Pictures/Shutterstock, AP photo of back of jurors)

Strider Bullied Blacks at the Tallahatchie Courthouse in Sumner Mississippi

Strider tried to invoke his power on the Sumner courtroom where the trial was taking place. He segregated the courtroom into Black and white. He tried to exclude Black journalists from the courtroom altogether, but was overruled by Judge Swango. So instead, Strider relegated the Black reporters and Detroit Congressman Charles Diggs to a card table on the sidelines. Strider greeted them each morning as he passed with a cheery, “Hello [expletive]s.” (PBS Newshour The Murder of Emmett Till)

A large crowd of people gathered in a room, with some individuals seated at a table in the foreground taking notes, while others attentively listen in the background.

In a PBS news story aired years after the trial, Ernest Withers quoted Strider as laying out that “we got 22 seats over here for you white boys, and we got four seats over here for you colored boys. We don’t mix them down here. We ain’t going to mix them, and we don’t intend to. You ain’t going to be with the white folks, and the white folks ain’t going to be with you, and y’all might be ….ain’t going to be no love nest between black and white folks.”(PBS Newshour The Murder of Emmett Till) Withers was the photographer who snapped the famous photo of Moses pointing at Milam and Bryant in the courtroom, identifying them as the pair that had kidnapped his grand-nephew Emmett.

As the Lead Law Enforcement Officer, Strider Testified for the DEFENSE

In an unprecedented move, Sheriff Strider testified in defense of the accused murders. This was highly unusual—Sheriffs and other law enforcement officials typically worked with prosecutors to gather evidence and identify witnesses to help prove the guilt of those charged. Strider never assisted the prosecution, and seemed to go out of his way to undermine their efforts.

Three men sit at a table, with a large airplane propeller blade visible in the foreground. One man has a concerned expression, resting his forehead on his hand, while the others appear focused on an item on the table.
Prosecutors show the wheel used to weigh down the body of Emmett Till.; Bettmann/Getty Images; https://allthatsinteresting.com/emmett-till-story

In the trial testimony, Strider said many things that cast doubt on the race/identity of the body, even recanting that he had identified Emmett Till on the death certificate he had signed. Strider testified to the following:

  • He denied he had signed the death certificate for Emmett Louis Till, saying he had only certified that it was a dead body, NOT Emmett’s body, imploring that he had never met Emmett Till so how could he know what he looked like (Tragedy on Trial, page 235, citing trial transcript)
  • He denied he could tell if it was a Black or white person, with the only identifying feature the kinky hair, and “I have seen white people with kinky hair” (Tragedy on Trial, page 233, citing trial transcript)
  • He denied that he could identify if there was a bullet hole in the head, and “couldn’t identify where it penetrated into the skull” (Tragedy on Trial, page 237, citing trial transcript)
  • He gave the opinion that, based on the decomposition of the body, it had been in the river “at least ten days, if not fifteen,“ (Tragedy on Trial, page 233, citing trial transcript), which would imply that it couldn’t be the body of Emmett Till as he has only been missing for three days at the time of the body’s discovery
  • When asked if he could identify if the body was of any particular person, he stated “Well, if one of my boys had been missing, I couldn’t really say if it was my own son or not, or anybody else’s. I couldn’t tell that. All I could tell, it was a human being.” (Tragedy on Trial, page 234, citing trial transcript)
A group of people congregating outside a building, with some individuals walking away, and others standing in a line, while two vintage cars are parked nearby.
Sheriff Strider and Roy Bryant leave courthouse after acquittal. (https://www.nydailynews.com/2022/03/30/remembering-the-life-and-times-of-emmett-till/)

Strider’s opinions were backed up by two “experts.” Dr. L.B. Otken, a general practice medical doctor who had viewed the body at the request of the sheriff’s office of Sheriff George Smith, said the body had been dead eight to ten days and that he could not say for sure whether injuries found on the body were caused before or after death—this despite the fact he did not actually touch the body, never examining it up close or performing any pathological examination. (Tragedy on Trial, pages 239-240 and 242-243) H.D Malone, the embalmer who worked on the body, said the body was so bloated and swollen that it was beyond any possible recognition, and had likely been dead ten days or longer. (Tragedy on Trial, pages 252-253, citing trial transcript) 

In his closing remarks, Prosecutor Robert Smith did note that Malone had not personally embalmed the body so was not in a position to judge either its condition or the amount of time it was in the river, but did not go as far as to suggest who might have actually performed the embalmment. (Tutwiler Funeral Home Till Memory Project) Many believe that Till’s body was actually prepared by Malone’s Black assistant Woodrow Jackson, which was confirmed by multiple sources in personal interviews with Jackson well after the trial had ended. (Remembering Emmett Till, pages 151-152 and Emmett Till Memory Project)

Yet, the combined testimony of these three witnesses during the trial created the necessary doubt that the body was Emmett’s, giving the jury another reason—or excuse—to offer its ultimate verdict. 

Strider Likely Tampered with Witnesses

Three men seated, engaged in a serious discussion, with a dark background.
Defendants Bryant and Milam confer with J.W. Kellum, one of their five attorneys, Sept 6, 1955.

Rumors circulated during the trial that Strider had hidden prosecutor witnesses Levi “Too Tight” Collins and Henry Lee Loggins in another jail under false names to prevent them from testifying—two Black men that potentially were seen by Willie Reed in the truck bed with Emmett the morning of the murder. The two men had essentially disappeared, despite prosecutor attempts to locate them. Chatham had questioned Strider on this point, but Strider had denied it was true.

However, in 1962, Stephen Whitaker interviewed J.J. Breland, the top attorney for the defense, on this point. Breland confirmed the rumors were true:

“Unknown to the District Attorney or special prosecutor Smith, these Negroes were held under false identities in the Charleston jail on the orders of Sheriff Strider, prior to and during the entire trial,” said Breland. (A Case in Southern Justice, Thesis, Whitaker, page 150)

Others Were Suspected of Participating in Emmett’s Murder

There were actually four Black men suspected of taking part in the kidnapping/murder by potentially holding Emmett down in the truck bed and witnessing the murder: Henry Lee Loggins, Levi Collins, Willie Hubbard and Otha Johnson. (Tragedy on Trial, page 320) All four men worked for Leslie Milam, and most likely were coerced into assisting in the crime. A Tri-State Defender, Memphis, Tennessee, article dated October 8, 1955, published a question-and-answer interview of Collins stating he worked for Milam and was sent by Milam’s brother-in-law, Melvin Campbell, to Clarksdale on a job with Loggins driving a gravel truck during the time of the trial. (coldcaserecords.gov 1955-08-28 Emmett Till) Throughout his life, Loggins continued to deny his presence at the crime scene. Yet, on his deathbed, Otha Johnson confessed to his son of his involvement. (Tragedy on Trial, page 320)

As far as the white men who participated, many believe that Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were not alone. It is almost certain Leslie Milam, J.W.’s brother, was present. Carolyn Bryant told her family that her brother-in-law Melvin Campbell was there and actually pulled the trigger. J.W. Milam told an acquaintance that a man named Hugh Clark was there. After the murder, Carolyn was heard saying that Elmer Kimbell, an associate of J.W. and Roy, was also present. Kimball’s son may also have been there. (The Barn, pages 264-265) Yet none of these individuals was brought to testify.

An Autopsy was Not Performed Until Decades Later

State laws typically require autopsies in cases of sudden, suspicious or violent deaths, including homicides. In Mississippi today, an autopsy may be ordered by a circuit judge, chancellor or county judge of the county or district where a person died and where his/her body was found if the petitioner believes the deceased person came to his death by some criminal means or agency, or that the cause of justice would be promoted by having an autopsy performed. (Mississippi Code Re: Autopsies and Autopsy Laws by State.)

Gravestone of Emmett L. Till, engraved with his birth date, July 25, 1941, and death date, August 28, 1955, surrounded by greenery.
Emmett Till gravesite (Source: Dave Tell, Emmett Till Memory Project)

As of this post, the author was unable to determine the date when it became mandatory for autopsies to be performed on victims of suspected homicides in Mississippi. It is possible that an autopsy of Emmett Till’s body was not required in 1955, though it does beg the question of why the state prosecutors in the case did not request one, or why the state’s medical examiner or coroner did not require one when criminal activity had clearly taken place. 

When the Till case was re-opened in 2004, an autopsy positively identified the body as that of Emmett Till. His mother, Mamie, had never doubted it.

The autopsy showed the severity of the beating Emmett had endured—two broken wrists, a broken femur, multiple comminuted skull fractures (caused by impact) and a gunshot wound to the head leaving lead fragments and metallic deposits. The shot was determined to be the ultimate cause of Emmett’s death. 

The autopsy deemed it a murder. Just as Sheriff H.C. Strider had originally noted on the death certificate he had filled out in 1955 under the name of Emmett Till. 

                                    *                      *                      *

The Murder of Emmett Till: Timeline of a Tragedy

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August 30, 2025 was the 70th anniversary of the vicious murder of a 14-year-old Black boy named Emmett Till. In 1955, Emmett Till from Chicago was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, when he made an unforgivable mistake in the south—he whistled at a white woman named Carolyn Bryant. Three days later, the woman’s husband, brother-in-law and others took Emmett from his bed, tortured and then killed him, dumping his body in the Tallahatchie River. Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, put her son’s mutilated and bloated body on public display in her Chicago church. Some 50,000 people viewed Emmett’s body. A murder trial quickly followed, but the defendants, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were found not guilty.

Emmett and Mamie Till-Mobley
Emmett Till and his mother Mamie Till Mobley (Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of the Mamie Till Mobley family)

The murder and the trial horrified the nation and the world. Till’s death was a spark that helped mobilize the civil rights movement. (American Experience) Three months later, Rosa Parks said she thought of Emmett when she refused to give up her seat on the bus, spurring the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The late Rep. John Lewis linked the racial injustice he witnessed as a youth, with the violence that led to the recent Black Lives Matter movement. “Emmett Till was my George Floyd,” Lewis stated in a posthumous op-ed in the New York Times. “He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor.” Lewis realized Emmett could easily have been him. (Emmett Till my George Floyd says John Lewis)

Following is a summary of the events leading up to Emmett’s killing, the kidnapping/murder, the trial, subsequent events surrounding the incident and its impact on family members. Sources include books, articles, filmed interviews, websites, podcasts, trial transcripts, and White House and FBI letters and reports. Whenever possible, I have cited the source of my findings. I gave deference to first-person accounts of family members and trial transcripts if any accounts/information differed. It is my hope that by educating readers with the facts about this murder and its impact on the nation, we can all work to prevent hate crimes like these from ever happening again. 

Part 1: The Beginning – Before the Murder

Saturday, August 20, 1955

Emmett and Wheeler
Emmett Till (left) and cousin Wheeler Parker, Jr. (right); Jackson Free Press

Although Mamie Till-Mobley agreed to let Emmett visit relatives in the south, she had her reservations. Did she make it clear enough to him in her warnings that things were different down there. That he had to watch what he said and how he acted, always say “No sir. No ma’am.” Step off the curb if a white woman approaches. Don’t look her in the eye. Wait until she passes by, then get back on the sidewalk, keep going, don’t look back. If you have to humble yourself, then just do it. Get on your knees, if you have to.” (Death of Innocence by Mamie Till-Mobley/Christopher Benson, page 101) She would have years to contemplate.

Mamie and her family were aware of the violent reactions to “social transgressions” by Blacks. She had been born in the south, but her family had brought her to Chicago when she was only two years old, though they continued to visit family back home. Jim Crow laws, put in place after Reconstruction following the Civil War, had been designed to “keep Blacks in their place” and make it nearly impossible for Blacks to register to vote and, therefore, serve on juries. This animosity was exacerbated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, which overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine established in Plessy v Ferguson (1896) that had allowed racial segregation in public facilities. (Britannica biography Emmett-Till) Public facilities, including schools, were now to be racially integrated. This federal interference angered those in the south.

A black and white photograph of a train at a station, featuring a locomotive with the number 4035, surrounded by tracks, a water tower, and a few people nearby.
Illinois Central train. (Credit: J. Parker Lamb, Collection of the Center for Railroad Photography & Art from https://emmetttillexhibit.org/)

Emmett, who had just turned fourteen years old, was traveling with his great uncle, Moses Wright, who was visiting Chicago for a funeral. Also with them was Emmett’s cousin and best friend Wheeler Parker Jr., aged sixteen. Wheeler was Moses’ grandson. They were passengers on the City of New Orleans—a train line that crossed through northern states, then through southern states all the way down to New Orleans. They met Moses at the Englewood Station at Sixty-third and Woodlawn in Chicago, leaving at 8:01 am. (Death of Innocence, page 104)

Map of path of Cit of New Orleans Illinois Central rail
Route map 1942 city of New Orleans
Source: http://www.american-rails.com/orleans.html

Mamie packed her son food to take with. Emmett’s lunch box contained his favorite dark meat fried chicken, cake, some treats Emmett had bought himself and a drink—all neatly packed in a shoe box—the same kind of packed lunch Mamie had herself when traveling south as a child. (Death of Innocence, page 104) The trio started in the regular passenger compartments at the beginning of the trip. But, as was custom and law, once they crossed the Mason Dixon line, they had to move to the colored section—directly behind the engine, spewing its soot and smoke.

At 7:25 that Saturday night, the train arrived in Grenada, Mississippi. Papa Moses and the boys were met by Maurice Wright, the oldest son of Papa Moses and Aunt Lizzie. Maurice was waiting with the family’s 1946 Ford sedan for the thirty-mile drive down marked roads and dusty gravel roads to the Wright house on Dark Fear Road just outside of Money. (Simeon’s Story, page 41; Death of Innocence, page 106) 

A black and white photograph of a wooden house with a porch, surrounded by trees and a dirt pathway.
Moses Wright’s shotgun-style house included a kitchen, dining room, four bedrooms and a long screened in porch that spanned the front of the home. (Special Collections & Archives, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, Florida, Sept 1955; from emmett-till.org)

Moses and Elisabeth Wright lived in a large ranch house in the Mississippi Delta. Moses raised cotton, but worked for himself. His “boss” was a German man named Grover Frederick. By all accounts Frederick treated Moses fairly, leaving Moses with a profit every year that he used to support his family through the winter. The Wrights had two ample vegetable gardens behind their home, as did many Blacks at the time, including those up north. This gave them fresh vegetables through the summer and canned goods through the winter. His boss had wanted to take away the gardens and plant cotton right up to the house, but Moses had pushed back strongly and was allowed to keep his vegetable gardens. (Death of Innocence, pages 108-109) Not all Blacks were that lucky.

A scenic view of downtown Chicago showcasing skyscrapers, including the iconic Wrigley Building with its clock tower, alongside a bridge over the Chicago River, adorned with flags and autumn foliage.
Emmett shared stories of the many activities he enjoyed in his hometown of Chicago. (Historic buildings in downtown Chicago; Adobe)

The first night was a celebration of Moses’ return and the visit from their Chicago relative. During his visit, Emmett, called “Bobo” by his family, regaled them with stories of Chicago—picnics, swimming and events at Lincoln Park; the animals at Lincoln Park Zoo; and the rides and roller coaster of Riverview Amusement Park. (Innocence, page 112; Simeon, page 43) Emmett showed off his Frankenstein comic book and his father’s silver ring, engraved with Louis Till’s initials. (Innocence, page 112) Simeon admired the ring so much, Emmett let him wear it for a couple of days. (Simeon’s Story, page 42)

Three of Moses’ sons were currently staying at the house: Maurice, Robert and Simeon Wright. (Tragedy on Trial, page 15, from trial transcripts). Emmett slept in one of four bedrooms, sharing a bed with Moses’ son Simeon, while Robert slept in another bed. Curtis Jones (who arrived from Chicago a week later) slept in one of the guest bedrooms, Wheeler Parker and Maurice Wright in another, and Moses and Elizabeth/Lillybeth Wright in the final bedroom. The home had a kitchen, dining room, storage room and three porches—the large front screened-in porch spanning the length of the front, a back porch and a side porch. (Simeon’s Story, page 56)

Sunday, August 21, 1955

Early in the trip, Emmett began to see just how different things were. After they bought fireworks from Mr. Wolf’s store in Money, Emmett unexpectedly lit some in front of the store. His cousin Simeon chastised Emmett, as you couldn’t set off firecrackers within the city limits. Simeon later recounted that Emmett wasn’t trying to be funny—he just didn’t know the rules. (Simeon’s Story, page 42)

Emmett Till in hat
Emmett in his “Sunday” Hat (Photo likely taken by Mamie Till-Mobley)

Emmett’s dress also distinguished him from his cousins. Bobo wore khaki pants or dress pants, short-sleeved cotton shirts, penny loafers and a “Sunday” hat, while his cousins dressed in nylon shirts, overalls and blue jeans.(Simeon’s Story, pages 42 and 45) 

Monday, August 22, 1955

Monday was the start of cotton harvest on the sharecropper farm, and Moses had thirty acres to pick, which meant all hands-on deck. Emmett and Wheeler begged to join them in the fields. Cotton picking was “sun to sun”—with occasional afternoons off. But Emmett was not cut out for the drudging toil of picking. The air was heavy, the sun hot, the heat relentless, with no shade. He dragged his nine-foot sack behind him, but was unable to keep up, not picking his share. (Simeon’s Story, page 44)

Cotton fields CU workers background
Picking cotton in 1955 was very labor-intensive, requiring long hours over weeks as not all the cotton blooms at the same time. The sun, heat and humidity was stifling.

That night, he told his Aunt Lizzie/Lizzy that’s “it’s too hot and I can’t stand the heat.” Moses relented—Emmett was excused from working the fields. Unlike his cousins, Emmett was allowed to stay home and help his aunt with the household tasks. (Simeon’s Story, page 45) Emmett often helped his mother, Mamie, who worked full-time at her Social Security Administration job. He swept, mopped, waxed, did laundry and even cooked dinner, though Mamie said it was sometimes hard to swallow down his “pepper” corn, laced with too much black pepper for her taste. (Innocence, pages 61 and 83)

Later that evening, Emmett and his cousins were hanging out with several other boys from near-by plantations, one of whom had a gun. Up drove a 17-year-old Black boy named Fletcher, who threatened to take to gun. Fletcher had a higher standing, as he drove a tractor for the owner of his plantation, and was “mean as a snake.” When the group did not stand up to him, going silent, Emmett later struck out at his cousins. “How can you let someone come on your turf and strut his stuff? You can’t allow anyone to come around and disrespect you like that. We would never tolerate this in Chicago.” (Simeon’s Story, pages 46-47)

But this was not Chicago. 

Tuesday, August 23, 1955

Emmet waited for his cousins to return from the fields, so he could continue his antics and his storytelling. Simeon said Emmett might have grown up to be a comedian as he could recite all the routines of all the top ones on television—Red Skelton, Jack Benny, Abbott and Costello, and George Gobel. (Simeon’s Story, page 47) 

In an effort to entertain the Chicago boys, Emmett’s cousins “borrowed” some melons from a watermelon patch, throwing them on the ground to crack them open, exposing the sweet center flesh. Later, they headed down to the water, running out the snakes before going in to swim. (Simeon’s Story, pages 48-49) The visit was going well. 

Part 2: The Incident at Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market

Store in Money Mississippi
The store in Money, MS where Till allegedly flirted with Carolyn Bryant.
(From Ed Clark; Life Pictures/Shutterstock.)

Wednesday, August 24, 1955

After his cousins returned from working in the fields, Emmett, Simeon, Wheeler, Maurice, and two neighbors, loaded into the old Ford to travel for some candy and perhaps a cold RC cola to cool down. (Simeon’s Story, page 49) [In his book, The Barn, Wright Thompson identified the two neighbors as Ruthie Mae Crawford and Roosevelt Crawford, but Simeon Wright insisted more than fifty years later that Ruthie wasn’t there. (The Barn, page 239) Timothy Tyson, in his book, The Blood of Emmett Till, stated that six boys and one girl made the trip: Emmett, Maurice, Wheeler, Simeon, and neighbors Thelton “Pete” Parker, Ruthie Mae Crawford, eighteen, and her uncle Roosevelt Crawford, fifteen. (The Blood of Emmett Till, page 51)] Maurice, the oldest of the Wright brethren at sixteen years old, took the wheel as the sun was just disappearing over the horizon. There were no adults along as Maurice had dropped off Moses and Elizabeth at church. Per Moses’ directive, the teens were only supposed to go to the little country store out in East Money on the plantation, as Maurice had no license. (The Barn, pages 239-240; The Blood of Emmett Till, page 51) Instead, they travelled further to Money, Mississippi, to Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market. (Simeon’s Story, page 49) It would turn out to be a horrible mistake.

Although accounts differ as to what Emmett said or did that evening, personal accounts by both Simeon and Maurice indicate nothing inappropriate happened in the store. Emmett followed Wheeler into the store. When Wheeler returned to the porch to eat his ice cream cone, Maurice noticed Emmet had not yet come out and sent Simeon in to get him, and to make sure Emmett was watching his manners. Nothing seemed amiss. Emmett had his two cents’ worth of bubble gum (American Experience: Getting Away with Murder) and Bryant did not seem flustered in any way. Simeon and Emmett left the store together, and the sharecroppers on the porch continued their checker games as the boys watched. (Interview of Wheeler Parker with Dave Tell and Theon Hill, May 11, 2023; the Chicago Crusader) Emmett had been alone in the store with Carolyn Bryant for less than a minute. (Simeon’s Story, page 50) 

Carolyn Bryant
Many media outlets chose to run Carolyn Bryant’s beauty pageant photo. She was 21 at the time of the trial. (Photo wikicelebs.com)

Some speculate that Emmett may have brushed Carolyn’s hand when giving her his money instead of putting the money on the counter, a social code that a black man was never to touch a white woman. Did Emmett flirt with her? Maybe? Maurice Wright said Emmett told Carolyn Bryant “Goodbye” as he left the store, but did not say “ma’am.”(The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi, Wright Thompson, page 243) Moses said in the days before the incident, Emmett has delighted in not adopting that little soul-crushing bit of deference. (The Barn, page 243.) Did Emmett grab her by the waist and propose sex with her, as Carolyn Bryant later testified? The latter seems highly unlikely. As Simeon noted in his book, a counter separated the customers from the store clerk; Bobo would have had to jump over it to get to Mrs. Bryant. (Simeon’s Story, pages 50-51) The width of the big glass cases (serving as the counter) was too great for people to, say, hug. (The Barn, page 242) And further, Emmett had a pronounced lisp, a result of having polio at age six, (Innocence, pages 37-40) so likely could not have even gotten those words out. If Carolyn Bryant had called out, if voices had been raised, the Black checker players on the porch would have heard them—the screens were open, with sound floating freely from inside to out, and vice versa. (The Barn, page 241) But for that single minute, no one was in the store except Carolyn and Emmett. Only the two of them knew what truly transpired.

Then, for reasons that are unclear, Carolyn Bryant exited the store. Perhaps, as Parker speculated, she was curious about all the talking and laughing on the porch. (Wheeler Parker oral history interview by Joseph Mosnier, Library of Congress) Perhaps, she went to get something out of her sister-in-law’s car, parked alongside the store. (The Barn, page 243) Some think she looked mad and was going to get her gun. In her memoir, Carolyn said she had looked for the gun inside the store, and realizing it was in the car, had gone out to get it. (The Barn, page 252) Others believe the whistle is what prompted her to want to get the gun. (The Barn, page 243)

The Whistle

What is not denied is that as Carolyn Bryant headed toward the vehicle, Emmett whistled—a long, shrill “whee wheeeee!” that Simeon described as a wolf whistle. (Simeon’s Story, page 51, NPR Simeon Death and multiple other sources) The whistle broke the peaceful night air. Emmett’s cousins grew stiff, looking at each other in fear and panic, knowing that Emmett had broken a social taboo about conduct between Blacks and whites in the South. (Simeon’s Story, page 51) Carolyn now hurried her pace to her car, and kids at the store said she was going for a gun. (American Experience emmett-biography) The checker players scrambled off the porch. Sensing danger, the cousins gathered Emmett and raced toward the Wright’s car. It was only then that Emmett, the jokester, realized he had done something very wrong. (Simeon’s Story, page 51) 

Front view of Bryant's Grocery Store
Front porch and windows of Bryant Grocery (Famous Trials.com UMKC School of Law Prof Douglas O. Linder)

As they tumbled in, Maurice hesitated. Simeon described the scramble to pick up a lit cigarette that had fallen on the floor. (Simeon’s Story, page 51; The Barn, page 244) Once found, the boys yelled for Maurice to “drive!” and they sped off down the dark road. Soon, they saw headlights and feared for their lives. “They’re after us!” Chicago Sun-Times Wheeler Parker Eyewitness) Maurice knew he couldn’t outrun another car in the old Ford, so pulled over and the boys jumped out, racing into the cotton fields, unopened bolls scratching their legs, causing Wheeler and Bobo to fall to the ground. Simeon, afraid he couldn’t catch up or that he might get lost, stayed in the car, but slipped down in the seat out of view. (Simeon’s Story, page 52) But the car passed by—just a neighbor going home. (Innocence, pages 122-123) No one was after them, yet.

Emmett begged his cousins not to tell his great-uncle, for fear he’d be sent back, ending his vacation early. They agreed. They returned home without mentioning the incident to Moses. They kept Emmett’s secret. (Simeon’s Story, page 53)

Thursday, August 25, 1955

At daybreak, Emmett’s cousins headed for the cotton fields. In the evening, a neighbor girl, Rutha/Ruthie Mae Crawford, told Moses and Elisabeth what happened, and warned that these white men would not take this lightly. Trouble was brewing. “You’re going to hear more about this. We know these people.” (Simeon Oral History, Library of Congress.) She suggested Emmett should leave for Chicago immediately. 

Friday, August 26, 1955

The day passed without incident. It had been several days now since the wolf whistle at the Bryant grocery store. The boys felt that the danger had died down.

Saturday, August 27, 1955

The young folk were excited for a big night in Greenwood—a big city in comparison to the rural life they lead, with juke joints, movie theaters, ice cream shops and vendors selling hot tamales, fried fish and foot-long hotdogs. Maurice, Bobo, Wheeler and neighbor Roosevelt Crawford walked the main strip, Johnson Street, looking into nightclubs and watching people dance through the smoke. (The Barn, page 247) Simeon, garnering a ride from Roosevelt’s older brother John Crawford, watched a western movie. Their final stop was a house party on the Four Fifths Planation northwest of Greenwood, a “juke joint.” They arrived home after midnight. (Simeon’s Story, pages 54-55; The Barn, pages 247-248) [In the trial transcripts, Moses stated he went with the youngsters, (Tragedy on Trial, page 15) but neither Simeon nor Wheeler ever mention that Moses accompanied them.] Curtis Jones, Willie Mae’s son, another of Emmett’s cousins, had arrived at Moses’ home from Chicago during their outing. (Innocence, page 115) Robert had stayed home to listen to his favorite radio program, Gunsmoke. (Simeon’s Story, page 54)

Part 3: When Men Came Knocking

Sunday, August 28, 1955

Early Sunday morning at about 2:00-2:30 am, three men appeared on Moses’ porch—two white and one black. The first white man was Roy Bryant. The other white man was tall and large, brandishing a flashlight in his left hand and his Ithaca .45 in his right. (The Barn, page 258) That man was J.W. Milam.

(The rest of the text in this section is taken directly from the trial transcripts of Moses’ testimony, from Tragedy on Trial, pages 15-25, unless otherwise noted)

Bryant had awakened Moses by calling his nickname, “Preacher!”

“Who is it?” Moses asked.

“This is Mr. Bryant.”

“Yes, sir,” Wright said and opened the door to find Milam in the doorway, Bryant standing somewhat behind him, and the third man by the screen door. [The third man Moses surmised was Black because he stayed in the background outside with his head down to hide himself, acting like a Black man. (The Barn, page 258) Many believe that black man was Johnny Washington, who hung around the Bryant store. Moses Wright believed Washington told Milam and Bryant where Emmett was staying and accompanied them to Wright’s home. Nobody could ever prove it. (The Barn, page 255)]

“You got two boys from Chicago?” Milam asked.

“Yes sir,” Moses replied, thinking of Wheeler and Emmett.

“I want that boy who done the talking down at Money,” Milam said.

Milam and Bryant smoking during trial
Defendants J.W. Milam, left, and Roy Brant, right, during their trail for the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till. Ed Clark; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Moses led Milam and Bryant through the house—first past the bedroom of Wheeler and Maurice, Milam shining the flashlight across their faces, past the second bedroom where Curtis still slept soundly without ever waking (The Barn, page 260, quoting Simeon Wright), to the final bedroom, where Emmett and Simeon lay sleeping. 

Moses shook Emmett awake. Milam spoke in the dark.

“Are you the one who did the smart talk up at Money?”

“Yeah,” Emmett said.

“Don’t you ‘yeah’ me. I’ll blow your head off. You say ‘Yes, sir.’ ” (The Barn, pages 260-261)

Milam instructed Emmett to get up. Emmett sat on the side of the bed and dressed, insisting they wait while he put on his sox before putting on his shoes. Once Emmett rose, the three of them started out. The Wrights begged them not to take Emmett. Moses suggested that they just whip Emmett, that Emmett didn’t know what he’d done since he wasn’t from the south. Elizabeth approached the men, pleading that “we will pay you whatever you want to charge if you will just release him. We’ll pay for whatever he might have done if you just let him go.” 

The men did not reply to Elizabeth’s offer. Milam instructed her to “get back in bed—I mean I want to hear the springs squeak.” 

Milam then asked Moses, “Do you know anyone here?” Moses responded that he did not.

“How old are you?”

“Sixty-four.”

“Well, if you know any of us here tonight, then you will never live to be sixty-five.”

They took Emmett out to their car as Moses stood by the screen door at the front of house. Moses heard the men ask if this was the boy, and someone said “Yes,” in a voice lighter than a man’s. 

Moses believed until his dying day that the voice in the truck was Carolyn Bryant’s. (The Barn, pgs 262-263)

After the men left with Emmett, Elizabeth Wright ran next store to their white neighbors and begged to use the Chamblee’s’ phone. Mrs. Chamblee wanted to help, but her husband, “the straw boss,” said no. Robert, Maurice and Curtis still slept soundly. Wheeler and Simeon stayed frozen in fear in the darkness. Wheeler decided if the men returned, he would run, even putting on his shoes in preparation. 

“It was horrible,” Wheeler later said. “It seemed like day would never come.” (The Barn, page 261.)

Anxiously, the family waited for first light. Moses thought they would just whip him and bring him back. In fact, Bryant and Milam said if Emmett wasn’t the one, they’d bring him back and put him to bed.

But that’s not what happened. They never saw Emmett alive again.

Mamie letter, calls, donations — Mamie devoted to fight racial prejudice (pinterest)

Part 4: The Horrible News Reaches Mamie

Early Morning Sunday, August 28, 1955

In the hours after the kidnapping, Moses Wright got a friend to drive him to the Bryant grocery store. Moses knocked, and then knocked again. Though he felt someone was there, no one came to answer the door. It was then that he knew. Emmett was dead. They began to search under bridges and on the banks of the rivers and bayous. (The Barn, page 266)

Meanwhile, Curtis Jones went to the home of Grover Frederick, the owner of Moses’ land. He called his mother, Willie Mae Wright Parker, in Chicago to tell her that Emmett had been taken and was still missing. Willie Mae had the heart-wrenching task of telling Mamie. (The Barn, page 266)

When the phone rang at about 9:30 am, Mamie picked up the receiver. “Hello,” she said. But there was silence. She said “hello” again. 

“Finally, the voice came through. “This is Willie Mae. I don’t know how to tell you. Bo.”

“Bo, what?” Mamie sat up, her heart racing. “Willie Mae, what about Bo?”

“Some men came and got him last night.” (Innocence, page 114)

Mamie went to her mother’s home. Though her mother, Alma Smith Carthan Spearman, had always been the strong one, Alma crumbled at the news. It was up to Mamie to act. She contacted the newspapers and reporters came out. Mamie and Alma also contacted Rayfield Mooty, a relative of Alma’s husband Henry Spearman, and the head of the Steelworkers Local union and someone with contacts with politicians and civil rights people. Mooty had been touched by Bo, and vowed to do everything he could to help. (Innocence, page 119) Mamie’s friend, Ollie Williams, worked for Inland Steel Container Company, and contacted her supervisor who was the head of industrial relations. Inland Steel had offices in the south—New Orleans and Memphis. (Innocence pages 119-120.)

Unable to reach Moses, they called Alma’s brother, Crosby Smith, who still lived in Mississippi. Everyone else was safe. Uncle Crosby was going to the sheriff with Papa Moses. (Innocence, page 120) Moses Wright identified Roy Brant and J.W. Milam as the two men who had kidnapped Emmett from his home. The authorities in Mississippi were now on notice.

Part 5: Mamie Expands Pressure to Find Emmett Through the Press, Politicians and the NAACP

Monday, August 29, 1955

Rayfield arranged for Mamie to meet with the Chicago branch of the NAACP, connecting with William Henry Huff, the counsel for the Chicago branch and chairman of the branch’s Legal Redress Committee. Rayfield Mooty and William Huff exerted pressure to make the story of Emmett into news. The story was being carried in Chicago newspapers. Local and state officials began pressing Mississippi authorities to find Emmett. Even the Chicago mayor, Richard J. Daley, was involved, as was the Illinois Governor, William Stratton, and William Dawson, a powerful South side congressman. Ollie’s boss at Inland Steel contacted the president of the company who told his Southern offices to put their planes on the lookout as they flew over the area in Mississippi where Emmett had been taken. (Innocence, page 120) Emmett’s disappearance was gaining attention. 

Though, like any mother would, Mamie wanted to travel immediately to Mississippi, Uncle Crosby convinced her to stay in Chicago. He would take care of things down south. 

Family photo of Emmett – emmetttillexhibit.org – Courtesy of Till family

Wheeler Parker had been smuggled out of town to Duck Hill by his uncles Elbert Parker, Sr. and William Parker Sr., who—at great risk to their own safety—got Wheeler on a train back to Chicago. (Wheeler’s Uncles Help Him Escape) When Wheeler arrived at Alma’s home in Chicago, Mamie stopped him on his way across the room to her. Wheeler and Bo had been best friends. They loved each other. Mamie found the grace to send Wheeler to Willie Mae. “Go hug your mother.” (Innocence page 121)

Part 6: Kidnapping Charges are Brought Against Bryant and Milam

Tuesday, August 30, 1955

George Smith, the Sheriff of Leflore County, Mississippi, announced the arrest of two white men on kidnapping charges: Roy Bryant and J.W. “Big” Milam. They were held in jail without bond. (Emmett Till Legacy Foundation; The Barn, page 280) They admitted to taking Emmett, but said they had let him go. (Innocence page 120) This gave Mamie momentary hope that Emmett was still alive.

Carolyn Bryant, her husband and their two sons in the office of Roy Bryant’s lawyer in 1955 (AP-from Wash Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2023/04/27/carolyn-bryant-emmett-till-dies/

In Chicago, they waited. Attorney Huff gave her an update and showed Mamie telegrams he had sent to Illinois Governor William Grant Stratton and Mississippi Governor Hugh White. Mamie left her mother’s house to get money to send to Uncle Crosby. Upon her return, her mother said that they’d been informed that Bo might be on his way home. But after calling the police, Mamie realized they had been victims of a hoax. Bo had not been found. It was only the first phase in discovering he full measure of human cruelty. (Innocence page 126)

Part 7: Emmett’s Bludgeoned Body is Discovered in the Tallahatchie River

Wednesday, August 31, 1955 

On the morning of August 31, young Robert Hodges was checking his trotlines in the Tallahatchie River when he noticed something odd: two feet projecting out of the water. Hodges rushed home to tell his father, who called his landlord, B.L. Mims, who relayed the information to the police. The Tallahatchie County sheriff’s office dispatched people to the scene. The first to arrive was Deputy Garland Melton. Together with Mims, Melton towed the body back to shore. (The Barn, page 276) The men removed the 74-lb cotton gin fan, which was attached to the body by barbed wire wrapped around Emmett’s neck—the weight meant to keep the body submerged, to keep the murder a secret. At some point, Tallahatchie Sheriff Strider arrived, as did Leflore County Deputy Sheriff John Ed Cothran. 

Sheriff H.C. Strider, took control, though it was not clear he had jurisdiction, as the site of the actual murder had not been confirmed. Moses Wright was called to identify it. The naked body was bloated, and badly beaten and disfigured, but there was one recognizable item—the ring of Louis Till. It was still on Emmett’s hand. 

Strider then ordered the immediate burial of Till and had the coffin sealed under penalty of law to prevent its opening or transportation. The body was released to the Tutwiler Funeral Home, operated by the town Mayor Chick Nelson. (Emmett Till Memory Project – Tutwiler)

In Chicago, the news came from a reporter. He called Alma’s house, but didn’t want to speak to Mamie. He requested the phone number of someone else he could call. Mamie knew. When her friend Ollie Williams came over and stood in the doorway, Mamie had confirmation. Ollie’s look said it all. Emmett was dead. They’d found his body in the Tallahatchie River. (Innocence, page 126)

Mamie hugged her mother, her rock, the one who always took charge, but her mother was depleted. And then, as if in a transfer of strength, Mamie realized that the only one she could count on was herself. (Innocence, page 127)

Part 8: A Mother’s Love and Courage: Mamie Demands Emmett be Returned to Chicago

When word came that Emmett’s body was being buried that day, in Mississippi, Mamie did something very courageous. She demanded the body be brought back to Chicago. They contacted A.A. Rayner, one of the most respected Black Funeral directors in Chicago. Together with Uncle Crosby, Rayner made arrangements for Emmett’s body to be placed on the train Thursday night. Crosby would accompany the body for Emmett’s return—just two short weeks after Emmett had ridden that same train south so full of joy and anticipation at seeing his cousins. (Innocence page 130)

“They were not going to bury my boy in Mississippi. He would be coming home. Finally, Bo would be coming home.” Mamie (Innocence, page 130)

Friday, September 2, 1955 

Mamie Collapsing at site of Emmett's coffin
Mamie Till collapsed as Emmett’s body arrived at the receiving dock of the funeral home on September 2, 1955. Photo Credit:
Chicago History Museum, STM-092678138, Dave Mann/Chicago Sun-Times

A crowd had gathered at the Twelfth Street station. Mamie was accompanied by her husband, her father, Rayfield Mooty, a few cousins, and Bishop Louis Henry Ford and Bishop Isaiah Roberts. (Innocence, page 131) After Emmett was transferred to the A.A. Rayner Funeral Home in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, Mamie insisted the box be opened. 

“Oh, Mrs. Bradley,” Mr. Rayner said, “we can’t open that box.”

Rayner explained that the seal of Mississippi was on the box, and that promises had been made to keep it sealed, that it was how they’d gotten Bo’s body out of Mississippi, that all of them had signed papers promising to keep it shut—Rayner, the undertaker and Mamie’s family. But Mamie would not relent. She had to know. She had to see for herself what they had done to her son. (Innocence, page131) When Rayner continued to resist, Mamie said she’d take a hammer and open it herself. 

“You see, I didn’t sign any papers and I dare them to sue me. Let them come to Chicago and sue me.” She thought, what judge would deny her, find her guilty of viewing the body of her baby. (Innocence page 132) Finally, Rayner relented, but he wanted time to prepare the body. Mamie waited.

The funeral home laid the body out on a table. Her husband, Gennie “Gene” Mobley, held one of her arms, her father the other. Mamie settled herself, despite her terror. If she hesitated, she might miss this chance. She couldn’t yet look at Emmett’s face, so started with his feet, then his ankles, shaped thinner than her own. She moved to his legs, marveling at how strong they’d become, despite his bout with polio at age six. She paused at his knees, round and rather flat, just like hers. She moved further up to his private area, relieved that everything was intact. There’d been so many rumors. The skin was lose, but the body so far has not shown scars—until she got to his face. His tongue rested on his chin, An eyeball hung down on his right check. She looked at the eye, confirming its color—a light hazel brown that everyone thought was so pretty. She looked at his teeth, then at the bridge of his nose between his eyebrows, which had been chopped, as if with a meat cleaver. Next, she went to his ears. The distinctive little twist on the lobe had been cut off. She saw that someone or something had cut through the top of his head from ear to ear. The back of his head was loose from the front, and she could see clear through the bullet hole from one side of his head to the other. (Innocence, pages 134-136)

She had to stop. She didn’t need to compare the body with the photos of Emmett she’d brought. Yes, it was her son. Yes, it was Bo.

Part 9: Mamie Bears Witness

David Jackson taking photos of Emmett's mutilated body

Mamie Till-Mobley invited David Jackson to photograph Emmett’s body and provided images to national and international press outlets

Then Mamie did something remarkable. She invited Jet photographer David Jackson to take photos of Emmett’s body on the cart. When Rayner gently asked if Mamie wanted his team to work on the body, to make it more presentable, Mamie declined. “Let the world see what I’ve seen.” (The Barn, page 280) In the now infamous images, Emmett’s bloated, brutalized face is shown up close, with Mamie stoically standing in the background. (Time Till Civil Rights Photos) 

The photos appeared first in Jet magazine, and then in the Chicago Defender, publications with Black-based content and readership. No white papers carried them; yet, the photos were out there—testimony to the raging violence inflicted upon Emmett’s body.

Part 10: Let the World See What I’ve Seen: Tens of Thousands View Emmett’s Body

Mourners file past Emmett's casket
100K mourners file past Emmett’s open casket. Photo credit: AP Photo/File

The next remarkable thing Mamie Till-Mobley did was to publicly display Emmett’s body. She made the decision to keep her son’s body as it was, without further “work,” and have a public, open-casket funeral “so everyone can see what they did to my boy.” Emmett’s body lay in a casket with glass over the top to help prevent the awful smell from leaching out. It didn’t work. Thousands of people lined up outside the A.A. Rayner Funeral Home through that Friday night to pay their respects. Tens thousands more spilled into the streets in front of the Robert’s Temple Church of God in Christ, Mamie and Alma’s church, and waited hours to view the body, while the eulogy was broadcast over a public-address system. (The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America by Ethan Michaeli, page 325) Women fainted. Even strong men wept. And the young men who viewed Emmett’s bloated body could not help but think that it could have been them. So many people came that the viewing was extended an additional day.

Caretaker sipes tears from Mamie's face

Part 11: The Southern Response

Although the images of Emmett’s body and the crowds outside the Robert’s Temple Church of Christ garnered national—and even worldwide—condemnation and sympathy, not everyone was supportive of Mamie’s bold actions. Some Mississippi residents felt that the entire state was being dragged through the mud because of the actions of a few “peckerheads.” They resented Mamie’s boldness and the cutting comments of the NAACP. 

When Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the NAACP, described the Till killing as a “lynching” and commented that “the state of Mississippi has decided to maintain white supremacy by murdering children,” many Mississippians were deeply offended and angered. According to historian Hugh Whitaker, the strident remarks of Wilkins and other northern opponents of segregation caused the local power structure to dig in and throw support to Bryant and Milam, two men they otherwise might have been happy to see put away. (Famous Trials Till Murder citing Hugh Stephen Whitaker’s thesis, “A Case Study in Southern Justice: The Emmett Till Case,” published in August, 1963, Florida State University.) 

Mississippi newspapers and public officials who had initially been outraged at the murders, now began to take a slightly different tact. They attacked northern interference and accusations. In an outrageous turn of events, the very sheriff in charge of investigating the case, Tallahatchie Sheriff Clarence Strider, stunned those attending a press conference when he voiced what many in the local white community felt:

“We never have any trouble until some of our Southern [expletive]s go up North and the NAACP talks to ‘em and they come back home. If they would keep their nose and mouths out of our business, we would be able to do more when enforcing the laws of Tallahatchie County and Mississippi.” 

American Experience Strider

Further, Sheriff Strider went on to testify for the defense, casting doubt that the body was in fact that of Emmett Till. More about Strider in an upcoming blog. 

To Come in Future Blogs:

Strider and the Trial: How It Was Rigged from the Beginning

The Black Press and the Emmett Till Murder

Part 1: The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot

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A Commission Forms to Study Chicago’s 1919 Race Riot

cropped-150304_hist_blackselfdef_2-4.jpg.crop_.original-original-4.jpg

In the summer of 1919, Chicago exploded in violence. A Race Riot loomed for over a week—whites against Blacks—ending only after the state militia was brought in to quell violence and protect all the city’s citizens. But much damage had already been done.

There were 38 fatalities—23 Black and 15 white. Fifteen met death at the hands of mobs. A reported 537 persons were injured. Black homes were ransacked and property destroyed, leaving 1,000 black families homeless. Near the end of the riot, large numbers of houses in the back of the Stock Yards, primarily homes of Lithuanians, were burned to the ground. (Although originally assumed that the fires had been started by Blacks, later evidence pointed to the Irish athletic clubs.)

 

The Red Summer of 1919

Unfortunately, Chicago was not an isolated incident. Although Blacks in the South had previously borne the brunt of America’s racial violence and discrimination, there were “race riots” all across the country that year—so many that the season was named “Red Summer.” Riots broke out in Charleston, South Carolina; Longview, Texas; Bisbee, Arizona; Washington, D.C.; Knoxville, Tennessee; Omaha, Nebraska; Phillips County, Arkansas; Gary, Indiana; and Bogalusa, Louisiana. Between late 1918 and late 1919, the United States recorded ten major race riots, dozens of minor, racially charged clashes, and almost 100 lynchings as white Americans tried to enforce the continual subjugation of Black Americans in the postwar era. (Krugler, pg 3)

By November, the “RACE WAR” of 1919 that had shocked the nation arrived at an unsettled and incomplete truce. (McWhirter, pg 236.) The nation grappled with its growing racial conflict.

440px-Thomas_Woodrow_Wilson Harris_&_Ewing_bw_photo 1919
Woodrow Wilson served as U.S. President from 1913 to 1921. Photo Source: Wikipedia

President Woodrow Wilson castigated the “white race” as “the aggressor” in both the Chicago and Washington riots, and efforts were launched to promote racial harmony through voluntary organizations and ameliorative legislation in Congress. (Encyclopaedia Britannica)

Blacks had now seen racial injustice and oppression play out in Northern cities, not just the south. They felt pride and power from the actions of Blacks in the cities where they had fought back with armed resistance—the beginnings of a “New Negro,” who, after fighting for democracy overseas, now demanded democracy in their own country. The NAACP used the violence to try to shame local, state and federal governments into action. (McWhirter, page 236)

Those whites inclined to violence, learned they would be met with resistance, especially in larger cities.

Local governments saw the devastating effects of nonaction against racial violence. Newspapers urged politicians to act with the first signs of trouble, to avoid the carnage and bad publicity riots brought their cities. (McWhirter, page 236) The Chicago Tribune, in an editorial on July 31—the day after the state militia was called in to quell the violence—called Chicago “disgraced and dishonored. Its head is bloodied and bowed, bloodied by crime and bowed by its shame. Its reputation is besmirched. Its fame is tarnished for years. People do not forget cities which have been the scene of mob murders, of savagery and inhuman violence. Chicago may expect to suffer the consequences.” (Chicago Tribune)

 

Local Leaders Request a Study on Causes and Prevention of Race Riots

Chicago community leaders called for a commission to research the issues and make changes to avoid future riots. The people of Chicago wanted answers. Not just about the causes of the riot, but also about how the city could stop violence from continuing to happen.

On August 1, 1919, even before Chicago’s Race Riot was totally under control, a group of civic, social, commercial and professional organizations met at the Union League to discuss the seriousness of the riot and ways of avoiding a reoccurrence. They sent a letter to the Governor of Illinois, Frank O. Lowden, offering to serve on a committee:

DEAR SIR: A meeting was held today at the Union League Club to take up the matter of the present race riots.

This meeting was attended by 81 representatives of 48 prominent civic, professional, and commercial organizations, such as Chicago Medical Association, Chicago Bar Association, Federation of churches, Association of Commerce, Packing House Industries, Urban League, Woman’s City Club, Chicago Women’s Club, Foreign Language Division representing foreign-born population, etc.

A resolution was adopted unanimously, appointing the undersigned as a committee to wait upon you and ask that you appoint at your earliest convenience an emergency state committee to study the psychological, social, and economic causes underlying the conditions resulting in the present race riot and to make such recommendations as will tend to prevent a recurrence of such conditions in the future.

The committee would welcome an opportunity to meet you at any time convenient to yourself and to talk over with you details and give you such information as has been gathered through these various organizations.

Respectfully,

CHARLES W. FOLDS

GRAHAM TAYLOR

WILLIAM C. GRAVES

HARRIET E. VITTUM

T. ARNOLD HILL

FELIX J. STREYCKMANS

Governor Lowden Appoints a Race Commission

440px-Frank_Orren_Lowden_in_1920 WIKI
Frank Orren Lowden was Illinois’ 25th Governor,
serving from January 1917 to January 1921.
Photo Source: Wikipedia

With this and other requests for more investigation of the causes and prevention of riots, and with knowledge from his own investigations during the riot itself, Governor Lowden acted. On August 20, 1919, he announced the appointment of a Commission on Race Relations:

I have been requested by many citizens and by many civic organizations in Chicago to appoint a Commission to study and report upon the broad question of the relations between the two races. These riots were the work of the worst element of both races. They did not represent the great overwhelming majority of either race. The two are here and will remain here. The great majority of each realizes the necessity of their living upon terms of cordial good will and respect, each for the other. That condition must be brought about.

To say that we cannot solve this problem is to confess the failure of self-government. I offer no solution of the problem. I do know, however, that the question cannot be answered by mob violence. I do know that every time men, white or colored, take the law into their own hands, instead of helping they only postpone the settlement of the question. When we admit the existence of a problem and courageously face it, we have gone half-way toward its solution.

I have with the utmost care, in response to the requests above set forth, appointed a Commission to undertake this great work. I have sought only the most representative men of the two races. I have not even asked them whether they had views as to how the question could be met. I have asked them only to approach the difficult subject with an open mind, and in a spirit of fairness and justice to all. This is a tribunal that has been constituted to get the facts and interpret them to and to find a way out. I believe that great good can come out of the work of this Commission.

I ask that our people, white and colored, give their fullest co-operation to the Commission. I ask, too, as I have a right to ask, that both races exercise that patience and self-restraint which are indispensable to self-government while we are working out this problem.

 

The Commission Members

The Commission consisted of 12 members—6 white and 6 Black. They were businessmen, attorneys and esteemed members of the community. They included Julius Rosenwald, the president of Sears; Victor F. Lawson, the owner, editor and publisher of the Chicago Daily News; and Robert Abbott, the publisher of the Chicago Defender.

Julius Rosenwald Tribune Screen Shot 2020-07-09 at 10.48.39 PM
The philanthropic contributions of Julius Rosenwald, President of Sears, Roebuck and Company, included creating a fund to help construct over 5,000 schools for Black students  in 15 southern states. He also established the Museum of Science and Industry, founded dental clinics in public schools and contributed to the University of Chicago. Photo Source: Chicago Tribune

White Commissioners

Edgar A. Bancroft, Chairman, Lawyer

William Scott Bond, Real Estate Dealer

Edward Osgood Brown, Lawyer

Harry Eugene Kelly, Lawyer

Victor F. Lawson, Editor

Julius Rosenwald, Merchant

Dr. Francis W. Shepardson, Acting Chairman (after Bancroft stepped down due to ill health) and Director of the State Department of Registration and Education

AbbottRS Watch the Yard
Robert S. Abbott founded the Chicago Defender in 1905–the newspaper credited with encouraging thousands of Blacks to leave the south for northern cities, helping to create the Great Migration.

Black Commissioners

Robert A. Abbott, Editor

George Cleveland Hall, Physician and Surgeon

George H. Jackson, Real Estate Dealer

Edward H. Morris, Lawyer

Adelbert H. Roberts, Lawyer

Lacey Kirk Williams, Minister

 

A Year-Long Investigation

Beginning in October of 1919, the Commission held 10 meetings to determine the fields of inquiry, and organize the studies and investigations.

Early on the Commission met some stumbling blocks. It was completely without funds, and relied upon private fundraising to begin. It had some difficulty procuring space, as several building agents declined to make a lease upon learning that Commission members, executives secretaries and field and office staff included blacks. A space was found at 118 North LaSalle Street, with a lease beginning February 1, 1920. By March 1 the staff of investigators began its work.

 

Scope of the Study

From its inception, the Commission saw that it needed to go beyond just collecting and studying the facts of the riot. It determined that of more importance was to study and interpret the conditions of black life in Chicago and the relations between the two races.

It therefore organized into six committees: Racial Clashes, Housing, Industry, Crime, Racial Contacts and a Committee on Public Opinion.

Information was garnered in two main ways. First, the Commission held a series of 30 conferences or informal hearings, where people were invited to offer their special insight and information on the topics at hand. Topics included race friction and its remedies; contacts between whites and blacks in schools and parks, and the courts and correctional institutions; the needs and difficulties of black housing; black labor; black health; the views of police the militia, the grand jury and the state’s attorney on the 1919 race riot; and the role of the white press in relation to public opinion on race relations.

Secondly, research and field work was carried out through a staff of trained investigators of both races, “whose training and experience had fitted them for intelligent and sympathetic handling of research and field work along the lines mapped out by the Commission.”

A broad selection of agencies, individuals and organizations assisted with the research. For example, the Chicago Urban League offered access to many of its files, and gave a leave of absence to its head of the Department of Research and Investigations, Mr. Charles S. Johnson, to be Executive Secretary. The Committee of Fifteen provided a report on the study of environment and crime. Assistance also came from government agencies such as the Census Bureau; the Chicago Public School system’s superintendent, principals and teachers; park boards; municipal, county and state officials; others connected with industrial plants; trades union officers; and leaders in civic and social agencies—which helped facilitate investigations in their respective fields of expertise.

The Commission’s staff researched, interviewed, canvassed, and studied. It was an exhaustive undertaking lasting 11 months, with subsequent multiple edits. The final 672-page document was released in September of 1922.

Objective, in-depth and exhaustively researched, The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot, provided insight into the attitudes of the time and the racism that led to violence. And further, the study provided recommendations for how to avoid such riots in the future.

 

Sources

1919, The Year of Racial Violence: How African Americans Fought Back; David F. Krugler; 2015

The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot; The Chicago Commission on Race Relations; 1922

Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America; Cameron McWhirter; 2011

https://www.britannica.com/event/Chicago-Race-Riot-of-1919

 

 

Timeline of a Riot: July 27th, 1919

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On July 27, 1919, Chicago erupted in one of the most violent riots in the nation’s history. The tensions began weeks, months, even years before the actual riot. Resentment over blacks as strikebreakers, competition for jobs and housing (especially after white servicemen returned home from World War I), and underlying racial discrimination were all key triggers.

Below is a timeline of the Riot’s first day. It began with skirmishes on the 29th Street beach between Black and white beachgoers and ignited after the drowning of Eugene Williams, reported to have been struck with a rock thrown by a white man, causing Williams to slip under the Lake Michigan waters.

Mob running with bricks during Chicago Race Riots of 1919
Members of a white mob run with bricks in hand, during the Chicago race riot of July and August, 1919.

1:00 p.m.

Skirmishes begin between Blacks and white swimmers on the 29th Street Beach

 

2:00 p.m.

A raft of five Black ten-age boys mistakenly ventures into white waters

George Stauber, out on a breaker, throws a stone at Eugene Williams, Black, who drowns

Black and white beachgoers jump in to save Williams, but to no avail

Williams’ friends bring the Black lifeguard and other Blacks from the 25th Street Black beach

The Blacks demand Officer Daniel Callahan, white, arrest Stauber, but the officer refuses

The Blacks beat Stauber

 

4:00 – 5:00 p.m.

Eugene’s body is recovered

1,000 Blacks return to the beach to demand police turn over Callahan and Stauber

Police attempt to disperse the Black and white crowd

29th-street-1919
The 29th Street Bridge After Eugene Williams’ Death (Chicago History Museum)

 

6:00 p.m.

Two patrol cars arrive; Blacks, including James Crawford, fire at officers

Jesse Igoes, a Black officer, returns fire, killing Crawford

 

6:15 p.m.

Beach mob is dispersed, leaving 40 rioters and several policemen injured

The battle spills out into the streets of the South Side

Individual rioters fan out through neighborhoods to draw in more combatants

Fights erupt – rock throwing, shooting, stabbing—around Black Belt and other areas

Cottage Grove Avenue and State Street from 29th south to 35th Street were bubbling cauldrons of action (The Chicago Tribune has this action at 5:00 p.m., but I feel this timing is more correct)

Deputy Chief Alcock sends out a call to every Chicago station to rush available officers to the South Side

Blacks attack whites—4 beaten, 5 stabbed, 1 shot

 

768_009
White “Hoodlums” Storm the Black Belt Looking for Targets. 

 

Dusk

Police and white and Black mobs clash at Prairie Avenue and 31st Street, at State and 35th, and at 37th and Cottage Grove

On 39th Street, white crowds take potshots at Blacks on Streetcars

White gangs beyond the Western edge of the Black Belt attack Blacks passing through white neighborhoods

A Black man in pummeled with clubs as he waits for a car on Halsted

 

Nightfall

Riots break out across the city, driven mostly by white men and boys

In particular, young men affiliated with Chicago “Athletic Clubs” descend on the South Side

Hundreds of mounted police storm up and down the avenues to disperse warring mobs

Success is limited—confrontations would be broken up only to reignite 2-3 blocks away

Blacks are armed and stand ready to defend themselves; snipers shoot from buildings

escort-man-to-safety-chicagos-1919-race-riot-5
Mounted Police Escort a Rioter 

Shouts and gunfire are heard for many more hours

Few arrests are made

Police focus on transporting the wounded to hospitals

Hospitals work overtime to care for the wounded

 

FINAL TALLY

Whites: 4 beaten, 5 stabbed, 1 shot

Blacks: 27 beaten, 7 stabbed, 4 shot, 2 dead (Including Eugene Williams)

50 whites and Blacks seriously wounded

Scores more suffer minor cuts and bruises

(These figures represent a consensus of several sources—listed below)

 

Screen Shot 2016-11-14 at 8.28.02 PM

By Monday morning at 3 a.m., the rioting had quieted. Whites, especially the athletic clubs, had invaded the Black Belt using bricks, stones, fists, baseball bats, iron bars, and hammers. Blacks primarily used knives and firearms to defend their neighborhoods from the invaders.

Morning workers commute to work, white business owners in the Black Belt open shops and deliveries are received

Monday’s papers are more concerned with a murderer’s confession of killing a young girl in his building. Little does the city know what violence is yet to come.

 

Sources

1919, The Year of Racial Violence: How African Americans Fought Back; David F. Krugler

City of Scoundrels; Gary Krist

On the Laps of God; Robert Whitaker

Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919; William M. Tuttle, Jr.

Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America; Cameron McWhirter

 

 

 

The Red Summer of 1919: Causes of the Race Riots

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In the summer and autumn of 1919, cities and towns across the United States were host to deadly race riots. Hundreds killed. Thousands injured. And many left homeless when houses and businesses were ravaged or burned to the ground. The voracity of the racial violence and number of injured and dead earned it the name “The Red Summer.”

Photo of violence during Race Riots of 1919

Violence Rages in East St. Louis July 1-3, 1917. Ida B. Wells Warned Similar Violence Could Befall Chicago. Her Prediction Proved True.

Violence raged in some of America’s largest cities—Charleston, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Omaha—pitting whites against blacks, soldier against soldier, civilian against police. Some began as minor racial altercations that exploded into riots. Some were the result of mob action against a black man unjustly accused of a crime, usually sexual in nature. And one, resulting in the most black deaths, was simply because a group of blacks dared to stand up for their rights for cotton earnings that were owed them.

One thing remained consistent among all of these incidents. Most of the injuries and deaths were sustained by blacks.

Racial tensions had long been simmering. But what sparked this animosity to turn so violent on such a wide scale?

The reasons ran wide and deep.

A History of Racial Injustice and Intolerance

The bedrock of the racial incidents of 1919 began with slavery and a new system of peonage established In the south following the Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment at the end of the Civil War, and Reconstruction. “Jim Crow” laws repressed black rights and upward mobility, and lynchings were a fear tactic used to “keep blacks in their place.”  White intolerance grew in the north fueled by thousands of southern blacks moving north in the Great Migration competing with whites for jobs, housing and voting power.

Lack of Jobs and Conflict Over Unions

In many northern industries in the early 1900s, such as steel and meat packing, workers had rallied to form unions and make demands for better pay, working conditions and hours. Business owners often called in black workers as strikebreakers. As blacks became more integrated into the workforce, many pushed back against joining unions, either from mistrust of whites or loyalty to the plant owners who supported black communities through donations to neighborhood organizations like the YMCA and sponsorship of black baseball teams.  Whites seethed with resentment.

Meatpacking Industry Chicago 1900s

Racial Tensions in Chicago’s Meatpacking Plants of Swift and Armour Began with Blacks Breaking a Strike in 1906

In 1919, with veterans returning from the war and some industries ratcheting back on war-time production numbers, jobs were scarce. Blacks and whites competed for the same jobs which some whites perceived should be theirs.

Overcrowding

Cities burgeoned with European immigrants and Southern blacks. In Chicago, millions of blacks had emigrated north during the Great Migration, but were forced into a designated “Black Belt” area, housing up to 3-4 times the number of blacks it should. Other cities also experienced overcrowding, which led to competition for housing and enforcement of imagined color lines.

Amistice Day 1918 NY

Thousands Crowded to the Streets on Armistice Day 1918 in New York City.

War-Time Rhetoric and The Red Scare

During WWI, the United States government unleashed a campaign of speeches, posters and handouts that promoted patriotism and nationalism. It encouraged all citizens, regardless of social or financial status, to contribute to War Bond efforts as a show of patriotism. There was “meatless Thursday” and other programs promoting the idea that Americans should limit their consumption of foods and supplies so that those resources could fuel the bodies and efforts of the troops overseas.

With the success of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 and the establishment of the world’s first communist state under the dictatorship of Vladimir Lenin, the American government feared communists’ influence and infiltration into American society. It aimed to quell socialist, pacifist or anti-war activists. This became the nation’s first Red Scare. (The second, taking place during the 1940s and 1950s, is widely associated with Senator Joseph McCarthy.)

Passed during WWI, the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act imposed fines and prison sentences for those who were deemed as supporting endeavors against U.S. war efforts, or making insulting or abusive statements against the government, flag, Constitution or military. (History.com) This created an atmosphere of mistrust among neighbors. Who might be listening and turn you in? Anti-communist efforts only strengthened after the war’s end.

Jealousy of Black Middle-Class Prosperity

Particularly in the Washington, D.C. area riots, lower class whites resented the success of black businesses. This jealously sparked violence against blacks, particularly black business owners and farmers.

False Accusations of Rape

Ida B. Wells, Ida Wells-Barnett

Ida B. Wells Began Spent Years Interviewing Victims and Victims’ Families of Lynchings and Other Violent Acts Against Blacks

Many “race riots” began with an unjust accusation that a black man had raped or solicited a white woman, resulting in vigilante murder. As Ida B. Wells-Barnette discovered during her 20 years of anti-lynching advocacy and murder investigations, the majority of accusations proved untrue. In most cases the charges were either fabricated or the sexual relationship between the black man and white woman had been consensual. (Sources: Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases and A Red Record)

Solicitous Newspaper Accounts

Sensationalized and sometimes blatantly untrue newspaper headlines and accounts riled up people to engage in violence. For example, one account in the Chicago Tribune inaccurately reported riot death tolls at 17 whites and 5 blacks, when actually the opposite was true. The daily accounting of injuries and deaths during Chicago’s riot incited both sides to even the score.

Other times the headline and language were purposely inciteful. When a series of reported rapes was attributed to a black man, headlines called for the arrest of the “Black Fiend.”

Vigilantism and Poor Police Enforcement

Will Brown and Omaha Race Riot

A Mob Gathers Before the Omaha Courthouse. Later the Mob Would Break In and Kill Will Brown, An Accused Black Man. (From Omaha’s Riot in Story and Picture)

In many “race riots,” vigilantes broke accused black men out of jail and tortured and lynched them, with law enforcement either unable or unwilling to protect the accused. Citizens, or recently “deputized” civilians, has taken law into their own hands. This blurring delineation between government and civil “police forces” created a lack of accountability, fueling the intensity of violence and adding to the duration of the rioting. In some cases, the very militia or police brought in to suppress an outbreak, joined in to beat or kill blacks.

Lack of Accountability for White Instigators, Especially for Chicago’s Athletic Clubs

In the in-depth report by The Chicago Commission on Race Relations, the Commission concluded that the actions of Chicago’s white, Irish athletic clubs during Chicago’s Race Riot began the majority of the violence, adding to the Riot’s duration and level of violence. These clubs, sponsored by powerful city alderman, were often beyond the jurisdiction of police, who looked the other way, leading athletic club members to carry on acts of violence knowing there would be no repercussions. (Source: The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot) Even President Wilson publicly blamed whites for being the instigators of  race-related riots in both Chicago and Washington, D.C. (The Chicago Race Riot of 1919; History.com) There was, however, few indictments and even fewer convictions against white perpetrators.

Black Soldier and Militia Chi 1919

Black Soldiers Returned from WWI to Defend Property and Life in Chicago’s 1919 Riots.  Pictured a Black Soldier and National Guardsman Meet on the Streets After the Militia Was Brought in to Quell the Violence.

The “New Negro”

The “Race Riots” of 1919 drew a line in the sand. Especially in the incidents in Washington, D.C. and Chicago, blacks made a unified attempt to fight back. Black soldiers who had fought for democracy oversees now demanded democracy and equal treatment at home. Black veterans were angry that President Woodrow Wilson had talked of ensuring democracy for the world, yet failed to protect blacks at home. After having risked their lives fighting for the causes of freedom and democracy, blacks were denied basic rights such as adequate housing and equality under the law, leading them to become increasingly militant. (The Chicago Race Riot of 1919; History.com)

As many historians note, soldiers’ and black civilians’ actions to defend lives and property can be held as the beginning of the “New Negro” and the start of the Civil Rights Movement—a long and hard-sought battle for equal rights. A battle that is still being fought today.

Sources

1919, The Year of Racial Violence: How African Americans Fought Back; David F. Krugler; Cambridge University Press; 2015

Chicago’s New Negroes: Modernity, The Great Migration and Black Urban Life; Davarian L. Baldwin; The University of North Caroline Press Chapel Hill; 2007

Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919; William M. Tuttle, Jr.; University of Illinois Press; 1970

Race Riots & Resistance: The Red Summer of 1919; Jan Voogd; Peter Lang Publishing; 2008

Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America; Cameron McWhirter; St. Martin’s Griffin, July 2012

The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot; By The Chicago Commission on Race Relations; The University of Chicago Press; 1922

Southern Horrors and Other Writings: The Anti-Lynching Campaign of Ida B. Wells, 1892-1900; Bedford/St. Martin’s; 2016, 1997 (reprint of earlier work)

Work and Community in the Jungle: Chicago’s Packinghouse Workers 1894-1922; James R. Barrett; University of Illinois Press; 1987

The Chicago Race Riot of 1919; History.com; July 1, 2019; http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/chicago-race-riot-of-1919

U.S. Congress Passes Espionage Act; History.com; November 5, 2009; history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-congress-passes-espionage-act

 

Carl Sandburg and the 1919 Race Riots

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Reporter image

Carl Sandburg as reporter for the Chicago Daily News in 1918-1919

Although many of us know Carl Sandburg by his poetry, “The fog come on little cat feet…”, but Sandburg also supported himself as a reporter. This former socialist, railroad vagabond, traveling salesman (he sold Stereoscopic photographs) had a unique talent for disarming people to confide their thoughts and to tell their stories. Sandburg attributed this talent to his hobo adventures, saying, “I have often thought that this training of my tramp days is due much of my success as a story-writer.” (Niven; Carl Sandburg: A Biography)

Carl Sandburg was a two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize—first in 1940 for his biography of Abraham Lincoln and again in 1951 for Complete Poems. Additionally, he authored children’s’ books, The Rootabaga Stories, written for his daughters when they were young.

Sandburg wrote children’s stories to first entertain his own children

Sandburg as Reporter

Although Sandburg’s reputation as a poet was flourishing and he’d won awards from Poetry magazine, poetry did not pay the bills for his growing family. Carl got a job as a reporter in the newsroom at Chicago Daily News in Chicago, working alongside famed bohemian reporter Ben Hecht, his foray into the “bohemia” of Chicago “down-and-outers” who attended open air lectures, took part in demonstrations and moved on down the rails if they chose. (The Chicago Race Riots 2013 intro by Paul Buhle). They were also “deeply sympathetic” to the growing black population in Chicago.

His most important work as a reporter was his coverage of the racial issues plaguing the city, an assignment he received prior to Chicago’s Race Riot in 1919. The articles ran three weeks before the riot and were later compiled into a separate pamphlet after the riots occurred—The Chicago Race Riots: July 1919—Sandburg’s first non-fiction publication.

Sandburg’s racial investigation article series was later published as a pamphlet and then a book

In this 15-article series, Sandburg investigated the many issues affecting those in the Black Belt—jobs, rents, unions, gambling and lynchings. He found clear racial bias, providing insight into the racial tensions underpinning everyday life for blacks and preventing free movement in jobs and housing. His articles cited hard facts, but also included poignant interviews that spoke to the frustrations and dreams of those living in Chicago’s Black Belt.

The Chicago Race Riots: July, 1919

Notebook in hand, Sandburg interviewed shopkeepers, housewives, factory workers, preachers, gamblers, pimps and others, searching to understand the racial tension in Chicago, trying to place it in a national context, as riots had broken out in other cities in United States that same “Red Summer”—including Washington, New York and Omaha. And he analyzed reports of race warfare in other cities, reviewing crime rates by blacks and researching gambling establishments.

In his article series, he reported the facts. And they weren’t pretty. Infant mortality in the Black Belt was seven times higher than in other neighborhoods close by.

Housing was severely overcrowded, taking in more than double the amount of people in poorly maintained buildings than prior to the Great Migration of 1916-1918. A housing survey deemed Chicago housing for blacks in Chicago as “reprehensible” and “a menace to health”.

Thousands had come north in the hopes of bettering their lives; yet, had little chance of getting skilled and unskilled jobs, with black women taking “the most menial and by far the most underpaid work”.

Women at a lamp factory (Chicago Magazine

His conclusion was that the “race question” was rooted in       economic and educational inequity.

Equality in Labor—Others Speak Out for Rights

Sandburg suggested that work for blacks should have three important features:

                • Open doors to new occupations so skilled men won’t have to stay in the common labor pool
                • Train men and women and coach them on the job so they can keep them
                • Create a sentiment among employers that no man or woman of color will be dismissed merely because of race

Sandburg wasn’t alone. Others believed in addressing the labor issue with training and education, and a more open door policy.

At an American Federation of Labor meeting in July, an organizer told the crowd of 2000 blacks, Lithuanians, Poles, Slovaks and Italians that ”there ain’t no Negro problem any more than there’s an Irish problem or a Russian or a Polish or Jewish or any other problem. There is only the human problem, that’s all. All we demand is the open door.”

Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck & Co., was committed to education for blacks, founding over 300 schools in the rural south with plans for 700 more.

Julius Rosenwald of Sears

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called for equal rights—to a fair trial, to education, to defense against lynchings, to equal service on trains,

Joel Spingarn, a white Columbia University professor who chaired the NAACP for six years, agreed that the race issue was national in scope, and advocated for federal aid and a biracial commission to investigate racial problems on a national level.

Blacks Returning from World War I

Black veterans especially felt the sting of bigotry.

Chicago’s black veterans felt deserted by their country

Chicago’s black war veterans told Sandburg that they had made “the supreme sacrifice” and “now we want to see our country live up to the constitution and the declaration of independence.”

Upon their return, white soldiers viewed blacks as taking jobs that belonged to them. But particularly disturbing, was the treatment of black veterans in uniform. Sandburg reported on the case of Wilbur Little, who had been beaten and harassed for wearing his uniform after his return from Europe, and was eventually found dead, badly beaten and still wearing his uniform.

Spingarm stated that “every colored soldier that I have talked with in France, Germany or America has a grievance.”

The Race Riot Begins

Unfortunately, Sandburg’s warnings about the need to address the racial issues went unheeded. On Sunday, July 27th, temperatures skyrocketed to 96 degrees as tensions rose between white and black beachgoers along the Lake Michigan lakefront, with stone throwing and skirmishes throughout the day. That afternoon, a black teenager rafting with friends drowned after witnesses claimed he was stoned by a white man. A white officer refused to arrest the accused. In anger, a black man shot at white officers, who returned fire, killing the black man. The city erupted in violence as each side used the incident to spark anger and vengeance.

A black home attacked during the riots

Aftermath

Sandburg completed an introduction to the book after the Chicago Riots had taken place. He reported that three conditions marked the riots as different from others around the country:

  • The overcrowded Black Belt, doubling during the war from 50,000 to at least 125,000 people; yet, without any new housing, creating vast overcrowding in sub-par conditions
  • The Black Belt of Chicago having probably the strongest effective unit of political power in America. (The blacks had great voting power, driving Mayor “Big Bill” Thompson to victory for another term, which he was still serving during the Race Riots)
  • Thousands of white men and thousands of colored men stood together during the riots as members of the Stockyards labor unions, shaking hands as “brothers”.

Blacks stand in line to receive payment from stockyard jobs during the riots

Sandburg reported on the violence of the Riots, but never had the chance to get to the last part of his series: making recommendations on how to change things so the violence of the Riots never returned to Chicago.

Some of the recommendations made by others in the article series speak to a national/federal level of need.

Spingarn’s suggestion, appearing in Sandburg’s last article in the series, suggested that “the race problem is not a local, but is a national question” demanding federal attention and aid. In particular he cited the poor treatment of blacks in the South and encouraged educated whites to action. “ The intelligent white man who is not informed on the neglect and the wrong training of the negro in the south is as dangerous to future peace and law and order as the so-called bad negro.”

Blacks under police protection after homes were destroyed

“I have fought for my country two years as a major of infantry,” Spingarn was quoted, “and I wish to give it as my mature judgment that no barbarities committed by the Prussians in Belgium will compare with the brutalities and atrocities committed on negroes [sic] in the south. In effect, you may say that the Negroes who come north have issued from a system of life and industry far worse than anything ever seen under Prussianism in its worst manifestations.”

As to the labor issue, Sandburg quoted Dr. George Edwin Hayes, a black scholar with a master’s degree from Yale and a Ph.D. from Columbia. “When the colored man can come into the labor market and bargain for the sale of his services on the same terms as other workers, a great deal of what is termed today the ‘race question’ is going to be settled.”

Author’s Note

The most striking aspect of Sandburg’s reporting is that much of what Sandburg wrote or what was said by others in his series, is as true today and it was then. In the 1969 reprinting of Sandburg’s book, Ralph McGill, editor of the Atlanta Constitution wrote: “How much do cities, a people, a nation learn in fifty years? Not much.”

And I ask now, “How much have we learned in 100 years?” Certainly not enough.

Below is a poem by Carl Sandburg, inspired by World War I, the Race Riots of Chicago and the continued violence against blacks in the south.

Man, the Manhunter by Carl Sandburg

I saw Man, the man-hunter,

Hunting with a torch in one hand

And kerosene can in the other,

Hunting with guns, ropes, shackels.

I listened

And the high cry rang,

the high cry of Man, the man-hunter:

We’ll get you yet, you son of a bitch! *

I listened later.

The high cry rang:

Kill him! Kill him! The son of a bitch!

In the morning the sun saw

Two butts of something, a smoking rump,

And a warning in charred wood:

Well, we got him,

the son of a bitch.

* I have replaced the original notation of “sbxyzch” with son of a bitch, which is what Sandburg intended, but it could not be published at the time.

Sources

Carl Sandburg: The Chicago Riots: July, 1919; Harcourt, Brace and Howe; 1919

Penelope Niven; Carl Sandburg: A Biography: University of Illinois Press; 1993

Harry Golden; Carl Sandburg; Prairie State Books, University of Illinois Press, Reprint Edition; 1988

The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg: Introduction by Archibald MacLeish; Harcourt, Brace and Company; 1 edition (October 14, 1970)

Ida B. Wells-Barnett: Activist, Teacher, Suffragist and Journalist

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Ida B. Wells was one of the most vocal and active reformers of her time. Her work included fighting for civil rights for blacks and voting rights for women. She herself founded several social organizations and helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

Ida 2545957

Ida B.Wells-Barnett Was a Voice for Justice

She investigated the Race Riot in East St. Louis in July of 1918, warning in a Chicago Tribune editorial that Chicago’s simmering racism might result in a similar riot. Her predictions proved true, and as the 1919 Race Riots in Chicago raged, Ida was out collecting testimony, to collect evidence that blacks were primarily defending themselves, not instigating the violence. She later reported on the violence in Elaine Arkansas, helping to free a group of black men wrongly accused of planning to kill whites.

But her greatest work was to bring light to the brutality and injustice of lynchings. Prompted by the lynching of her good friend, Tom Moss in1892, Ida began a crusade to make lynchings a national issue. She interviewed families of lynching victims and the accusers themselves. Her findings documented that the lynched men were unjustly killed without trials and sometimes without charges, often for petty crimes, perceived slights against whites, consensual sexual relationships with white women, or for simply being successful businessmen or farmers. . She published these findings in a book (The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States) and newspapers, broadcasted the facts in speeches in America and Britain, brought the findings before governors and the President and Congress, and worked to gain fair trials and freedom for black men unjustly accused and imprisoned.

Ida’s Early Years

Born in Holly Springs, Mississippi on July 16, 1862 to slave parents, Ida B. Wells was herself a slave, but was freed before she was three years old. Her father was a skilled carpenter, so easily found employment in a South devastated from the war. Her mother, Elizabeth Warrenton, was a cook who had been beaten and sold multiple times as a slave. Both were forward thinking, bright and independent. They passed the belief on to Ida that she deserved equal rights and privileges to whites.

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The first page of the Emancipation Proclamation (National Archives)

Unfortunately, Ida lived in a time when many Southern whites did not share this belief and were determined to pass laws to chip away at black’s new independence and their rights to go to school, own property, vote and even hold public office. Ida was active in protesting these “Jim Crow” laws.

When her parents and a brother died of yellow fever in 1878, Ida supported her siblings by working as a schoolteacher while her Grandma Peggy cared for them during the week. At age 19, after her grandmother’s stroke, other relatives took in her siblings. She was free to follow her own path.

The Move to Memphis

Ida continued her own education, studying for the teacher’s exam for the Memphis city schools and reading the Bible, Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott and  Shakespeare by fire light. Similar to her first teaching job, Ida worked as a schoolteacher during the week at a country schoolhouse outside Memphis, and returned to the city on weekends to stay with her Aunt Fannie.

On one of her weekly train travels for work, a white conductor refused to take her paid first-class ticket and asked her to move from the woman’s car she always traveled in, to instead sit in the forward car for smokers and blacks. She refused and actually bit the conductor’s hand when he grabbed her.

But three men came and forcibly moved her. Ida got off at the next stop and sued the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, earning her $500. However, as racism and Jim Crow laws began to openly flourish, the Tennessee Supreme Court reheard her case, reversing the decision and siding with the railroad, costing her $200.

On April 11, 1887, she wrote in her diary:

“I felt so disappointed because I had hoped such great things from my suit for my people.” She prayed in her diary, “ O God, is there no redress, no peace, no justice in this land for us?…Come to my aid at this moment and reach me what to do.” (Welch)

Ida the Journalist is Born

It was in Memphis that Ida began writing for a black-owned newspaper, purchasing a one-third interest in Free Speech and Headlight, owned by Reverend Taylor Nightingale and journalist J.L. Fleming. Her articles highlighted racial inequities, and one critical of black schools and teachers cost Ida her teaching job.

While away on a promotional trip to other states to try to increase Free Speech’s black readership, a horrible incident occurred that profoundly impacted Ida’s life. Her friend, Tom Moss, was lynched. Moss and his two black partners had opened a black store called the People’s Grocery, taking black clientele from a white grocer in town. A group of white men had come to the back door of People’ Grocery and in a shootout, three white men were injured. Moss and the other black storeowners were arrested, dragged from the city jail and shot. When the black community gathered to discuss the incident, a judge ordered the sheriff and his men to shoot if blacks looked like they were causing trouble. Mobs of white shot at blacks, and stole food and destroyed Moss’ store.

Regarding her good friend Thomas Moss, Ida B. Wells wrote:

“A finer, cleaner man than he never walked the streets of Memphis. He was well liked, a favorite with everybody; yet he was murdered with no more consideration that if he had been a dog…The colored people feel that every white man in Memphis who consented in his death is as guilty as those who fired the guns which took his life.”

“…with the aid of the city and county authorities and the daily papers, that white grocer had indeed put an end to his rival Negro grocer as well as to his business.”

— Ida B. Wells, In Crusade for Justice, 1892

Ida went into action. In an article for Free Speech, she decided to hit where it would hurt the whites most—economically—urging blacks to leave Memphis and to go where they could own land, like in Oklahoma.

The Start of Ida’s Anti-Lynching Campaign

Because of her friend’s murder, Ida began a life-long quest to expose lynchings for what they were—a violent attempt to intimidate and control blacks. She investigated lynchings of black men accused of rape, interviewing the families and the accusers. Her findings concluded that the men were innocent and she implied in her article that the white women had been attracted to the black men, falling in love.

The idea that black men were having consensual relations with white women incensed white readers, driving a group of white men to destroy the paper’s office. Though Ida was out of town, she learned that a group of white men lay in wait and planned to hang her in front of the courthouse. She could not return to Memphis.

On to the Big Apple

Invited to write for the New York Age, a black newspaper run by T. Thomas Fortune, Ida’s first article, “Exiled”, detailed the black men lynched for rapes they did not commit. Extra copies were printed and distributed across the country, including 1,000 copies sold in Memphis. (Welch)

She spoke out about lynchings at Lyric Hall and at black women’s clubs on the East coast, and even to an all-white audience in Boston. She relayed facts from her research, including the finding that most of the black men lynched were accused of raping a white woman, even though the white newspapers themselves reported that the men murdered were only charged one-third of the time. Further, she concluded that some of the men were lynched for other reasons—robbery, arguing with a white man or making threats. One man merely talked back while drunk, costing him his life.

A lynching in Paris, Texas, where the accused had been burned alive before a cheering crowd, outraged two female Europeans, Isabelle May of Scotland and Catherine Impey of England. They invited Ida to speak overseas. Having gotten little action from white politicians, Ida felt that if Britain put pressure on the United States, Americans could no longer ignore the injustices happening at home.

Blacks and the White City

Columbian Exposition Unknown

The Columbian Exposition in Chicago

Upon her return from Europe, the Columbian Exposition opened in Chicago. She and Frederick Douglass were among black leaders who strongly objected to the lack of black representation in the planning of and participation in the grand event. She, Douglas and future husband Ferdinand Barnett created a pamphlet for foreign visitors explaining Why the Colored American is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition, which was passed out to over 20,000 visitors to the Exposition. Ida also objected to the “Colored American Day,” a day set aside by Fair organizers for blacks only, where 2,000 watermelons would be distributed. Ida boycotted attending.

Ida Moves to Chicago for Good

Ida’s new writing job was for the Chicago Conservator, the oldest black paper in Chicago. Its editor and founder? Ferdinand L. Barnett, a widower and father of two small sons, and the man she would marry in 1895. They would have four children of their own.

Ida and her children Unknown

Ida and her four children,Charles, Herman,Alfreda and Ida

 

 

The Red Record Unknown

Also in 1895, Wells published her book: A Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Cause of Lynchings in the United States. She used her scrupulous records and interviews to document the atrocities.

After a second trip to England, her anti-lynching efforts began to bare fruit. British groups condemned the murders and Brits formed the London Anti-Lynching Committee. She accepted invitations to speak in California to white and black audiences, gaining support from white ministers, but still not garnering the universal support of the black community. After attending the second meeting of the National Association of Colored Women and campaigning for Republicans during the 1896 Illinois elections, Ida retired to take care of her and Ferdinand’s sons, Charles and Herman.

Back in the Limelight

Her retirement was short-lived. In 1898, a black postmaster’s house was set ablaze killing him and his infant son inside. Whites shot his family as they raced out of the burning home.

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President William McKinley

Money was raised to send Ida to Washington, D.C. She spoke to President William McKinley about the murder, and tried in vain to get Congress to provide money for widow and remaining children, as the man was a public employee; but when war was declared on Spain, Congress and the President moved attention to the conflict.

Ida still wanted to send a strongly worded message to Washington from the National Afro-American Council, but the Council had split—some following Brooker T Washington and his approach to job training for blacks, and others, like Ida, wanting a more radical approach, protesting Southern “Jim Crow” laws. The final letter was a much more watered-down version than what Ida had recommended.

Trouble in Illinois

Ida and Ferdinand, now with four children of their own, moved into a white neighborhood in Chicago. White neighbors raced inside and slammed their doors when the Barnetts sat on their own porch. A gang of white neighborhood boys often attacked the Barnett children, until Ida stepped in. Her words stopped the gang, but the knowledge that she had a gun in the house may have been the final deterrent—a gun she’d had since the threat in Memphis.

RaceRiot Springfield Illinois

The Riot in Springfield Illinois in 1908

In Springfield, Illinois in 1908, a race riot broke out spurred by accusations that two black men had committed crimes—one murdering a white man and one raping a white women. Black homes and businesses were burned and three black men lynched, though innocent of any crimes.

The riot raised great concern for Ida, so she formed the Negro Fellowship League, and was part of the forming of another group to protect and advance life for black people: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

The Association, made up of whites and blacks, demanded civil rights be guaranteed to all people—a far cry from the urgings of Ida to demand the U.S. government condemn lynching and make it a national crime.

Another lynching in 1909, garnered the Barnett’s’ attention. A black homeless man in Cairo, Illinois named “Frog” James, was arrested and hanged after a white woman was found dead in an alley. His body was shot with 500 bullets and dragged through town. Ferdinand urged black leaders to speak to the governor to enact a law so officers of the law could be fired for allowing the murder of prisoners in their custody. No one volunteered. In the end, it was Ida who went, urged by her husband and their 13-year-old son Charles who said that if she didn’t go, who would? (Welch)

Again she went to the scene of the crimes and interviewed blacks resident and read all newspaper accounts. Her findings? The Sheriff had not protected James. The only person of color at the hearing for the sheriff, she made an impassioned speech. People were moved. The sheriff was not re-instated, and the governor denounced lynchings and moving forward, required that sheriffs call the governor’s office for troops if racially motivated mobs were forming. It was a victory for Ida and for Illinois’ blacks.

The Next Illinois Race Riot

In 1918, a race riot in East St. Louis, Illinois caused almost one million dollars in damage and cost 150 black men their lives. Again, Ida left to investigate, ignoring warnings from the train engineer who told her it was unsafe. In a guarded Red Cross truck, she accompanied black women back to their homes. Some homes had been burned to the ground; others looted, with pianos, furniture and bedding destroyed. But perhaps the most disturbing finding was that soldiers had stood by and watched as blacks were attacked.

East St. Louis Newspaper hqdefault

Upon her return to Chicago, and with the support of the Bethel A.M.E. Church, Ida and a group of church members went to the governor to report on the behavior of the soldiers. The governor wanted testimony; but, thousands of blacks had already fled East St. Louis, and the remaining were too fearful of retribution or of causing new tensions. In the end, all Ida was able to do was raise money for the defense of a black dentist, sentenced to life in prison for leading a group of black to get guns for their own defense. Bundy was eventually set free.

Tensions in Chicago

Now, racial violence was rising in her own city. Throughout white neighborhoods in Chicago, the homes of black residents were being bombed, as were the homes of realtors who had negotiated the sales. In all 25 homes were bombed, including a home just down Grand Boulevard from where the Barnetts lived.

In a letter published in the Chicago Tribune, Ida warned that Chicago was headed toward a race riot of its own unless city officials did something to quell the simmering racial tensions. Unfortunately, her warning went unheeded.

Editor Letter Ida B Wells with Date PM

The Chicago Race Riots of 1919

On Sunday July 27th, some young black men ventured into “white waters” on a raft in Lake Michigan and were stoned, causing one of the young men to drown. After a scuffle on the beach, the police arrived, but refused to arrest, the white man accused of throwing the stone. A shot was fired by a black man at police, who fired back. The riot had begun.

mob-chasing-chicago-history-museum-1311

Gangs of young white “hoodlums” attacked blacks in the streets, on streetcars and on their way home from work. Whites drove in cars, shooting into groups of blacks. Blacks attacked white storekeepers in black neighborhoods.

Some blacks defended their streets and homes. The 8th regiment came together to deter whites, taking position and sharpshooting at whites, and also shooting police as many officers had not come to their defense or had even participated in the mayhem. Many blacks stayed behind locked doors in their homes. Yet Ida walked the streets gathering facts. She was troubled that the blacks were being accused and arrested in disproportionate numbers to whites, and wanted to avoid the same inequitable outcome of the East St. Louis riots where fifteen black men had been sentenced to long prison sentences simply for defending themselves.

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The rampages went on for days, and despite pleas by Ida and other black leaders, Mayor Bill Thompson refused to send in the National Guard and the governor would not intercede. After four days of violence and the burning of homes, the Mayor finally relented, and the National Guard restored order. The ending result was the deaths of 23 blacks and 15 whites, and the injury of 342 blacks, 178 whites and 17 of undetermined race.

Dallas businessman and NAACP member Charles R. Graggs compared the northern cities to Brutus, who betrayed Julius Caesar. “Thou, too, North, an enemy of the Negro,” he lamented. (McWhirter)

The Slayings in Elaine Arkansas

The violence in Elaine was deep—about 200 hundred blacks and forty whites were killed. (Though more recent estimates put the blacks killed at over 400.) The trouble started when a group of blacks met to discuss their overdue cotton payments. Whites accused the black of plotting to murder whites and the town’s sheriff went to the church, defended by men on guard. Accounts vary as to who shot first, but a white man was killed, spurring a murderous rampage by the whites. Of the blacks arrested, twelve were sentenced to die by electric chair.

Ida interceded by leading a committee to write letters of protest to the president and to the governor of Arkansas. Letters to the governor said there’d be a movement by blacks to leave Arkansas if the men were put to death. Fearful of losing valuable labor, the governor called a group of whites and blacks together to discuss the matter, with the group concluding the men had not received a fair trial. The governor ordered a new trial.

A letter by Ida in the Chicago Defender asked for help with the men’s defense fees. Money came in from all over the country. In January 1922, Ida went to Little Rock, Arkansas, and visited the jail where the men were held by hiding in a group of wives and mothers of the accused.

The men were grateful and surprised to see her. It was still dangerous for her to be in the south after her life had been threatened if she returned to Memphis. The men told her they’d been beaten and given electric shocks to get them to admit to plotting to kill whites and take their property, though they had never made such plans. Further, a mob had tried to break into the jail to lynch them. The men sang to Ida about dying and forgiving their enemies; but Ida told them to pray to live and believe that God would set them free.

She returned to Chicago and wrote a pamphlet about the Arkansas riot. A year later, the men were freed.

The Suffrage Movement

As long as she had lived in Illinois, Ida had been a member of the Women’s Suffrage Association of Illinois. But she was the only black woman member, so she urged others to join the fight to help their race with their votes. Many husbands preferred their wives stay home, so Ida suggested that they tell their husbands they wanted to help elect a black man to the city council.1918 Low Res Nat Women's Party Demonstation Wh House c Everett Hist shutterstock_242816689

In 1913, white and black women were allowed to vote in city elections. Together, white and black women marched to protest for their right to vote in national elections. And when the National Women’s Suffrage Association planned its march on Washington, D.C. on March 3, Ida marched with the thousands of white women from Illinois, despite association leaders fearing her presence would anger the southern white women.

Susan B Anthony 1880 c Evereatt Historical shutterstock_239402281

Ida was friends with Susan B. Anthony, staying at her home on at least two occasions. Although they agreed on the Suffrage Movement, they disagreed on how to gain votes for black women. Anthony felt that the white female vote should come first, and votes for women would follow. Ida believed in attacking the issue simultaneously.

 

Ida Was Not Without Her Detractors

Some in the black community felt Ida was too radical and outspoken. Some blacks felt she had deserted the cause by marrying and having children. Others felt that protests were ineffective. She had gained a reputation as a “hothead” from the National Afro-American Council. And some were jealous, like the president of the National Association of Colored Women in Chicago, who one year refused to invite Ida to the meeting for fear Ida would steal the show and the association’s presidency.

Her ardent advocate, Frederick Douglas had died the year she’d married, and even her long-time friend and supporter, Susan B. Anthony, chided her for getting married and taking her focus from protests on blacks’ mistreatment.

Yet Ida had never given up her causes. She was passionate and vocal in her beliefs.

A Lifetime of Advocacy and Achievement

Ida B. Wells-Barnett can be credited with bringing national and international attention to the issue of lynching and in bringing about the change that helped stop these murders. She advocated for the rights of blacks and of women, helping to gain the right to vote for all American women and continuing to cite cases of injustice and discrimination in her journalism.

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Ida B. Wells-Barnett died on March 25, 1931 at the age of 69.

 

Sources

Primary

Welch, Catherine A.; Ida B. Wells-Barnett: Powerhouse with a Pen; Carolrhodabooks; copyright 2000 by Catherine A. Welch

 

Secondary

About.com; Ida B. Wells: Crusading Journalist Campaigned Against Lynching in America; http://hisotry1800s.about.com/od/10th-Century-Journalism/fl/Ida-B-Wells.htm

About.com-Womens history; Ida B. Wells Facts; http://womenshistory.about/com/od/wellsbarnett/a/ida_b_wells.htm

Heinemann, Sue; The New York Public Library: Amazing Women in American History; John Wiley & Sons/A Stonesong Press Book

Krist, Gary; City of Scoundrels: The 12 Days of Disaster that Gave Birth to Modern Chicago; Crown, 2012

Lewsi, Femi; Ida B. Wells-Barnett: Anti-Lynching Advocate; updated November 2, 2015

McWhirter, Cameron; Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America; St. Martin’s Griffin; copyright 2011 Cameron WhcWhirter

Wells, Ida B.; The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States; 1895

Lynching Sites Project Memphis; lychingsitesmem.org

 

 

 

 

 

Gibson Girls – The Epitome of Femininity in the 1890s-Early 1900s

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The original Gibson Girls artist was illustrator Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1944). He made quite a lucrative career of drawing the “New Woman” of America, with his pen-and-ink images first appearing in magazines like Life and Collier’s Magazines. Soon the drawings were everywhere, setting the standard for beauty, fashion and manners, and earning Gibson great professional and popular success.

Women clamored to be the next Gibson girl model. Gibson’s studio would be overrun with would-be models hoping for their big chance.

Irene Langhorn Gibson – His Wife

Although the Gibson Girls seemed to fit Charles Dana Gibson’s view of a kinder, gentler New Woman, Gibson’s own wife Irene Langhorn Gibson was anything but demure. Irene, who may have been the first Gibson Girls model, was a known suffragette, the chair of the Eastern Women’s Bureau of the Democratic National Committee (in support of Woodrow Wilson’s reelection in 1916) and a champion of philanthropic causes, such as co-founding Big Sisters, helping troubled girls. A feat she could accomplish with her Virginia fortune and can-do attitude.

Models Evelyn Nesbit and Camille Clifford

 Gibson’s first and favorite model was Evelyn Nesbit. While sources vary on whether she actually ever sat for Gibson, he could easily have found images of Nesbit in the press. She was involved in a love triangle, where her current husband murdered a former lover.

The most famous of his Nesbit drawings was one where Nesbit’s hair formed a question mark. Gibson entitled that image “The Eternal Question”.  It remains one of his most copied and famous illustrations.

 

Camille Clifford won a contest Gibson ran to find the ideal real-life woman for his stylized sketches. Clifford, with a ridiculously tiny waist, fit the ideal of a woman’s figure with an hourglass figure.

Camille Clifford

Women as Voters
Gibson’s Girls independence and confidence only went so far. You never saw a Gibson Girl advocating for the right to vote or being involved in social movements. It appears Gibson Girls kept their place.

The Gibson Girls were popular in the 1890s through the early 1900s, ending about the time of World War I as a more independent and socially free icon emerged. The flapper.

Sources
Library of Congress Exhibitions: The Gibson Girl’s America.
http://loc.gov/exhibits/gibson-girls-america/

https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/gibson-girls-america/the-gibson-girl-as-the-new-woman.html

They Wore What?; The Weird History of Fashion and Beauty; Richard Platt; Oxford University Press, 2007.

Why’d The Wear That?; Fashion as the Mirror of History: Sarah Albee; National Geographic

Blogs
Glamour Daze The Real Gibson Girls

The Real Gibson Girls

The Gibson Girl Eyewitness to History, http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2001)

Video
Komal Charania’s video, called Creativity and American Culture: Gibson Girls.

Why Isn’t the Book Called The Woman on the Train? Are We Demeaning Our Female Protagonists?

/ tamaratabel / 4 Comments

In past “Girl” best sellers, the protagonists actually were girls. Griet in Chevalier’s Girl with the Pearl Earring is a 16-year-old servant who ground paint and later posed for her master, Johannes Vermeer. In House Girl, the slave Josephine is just 17 when she plans her escape from the tobacco farm. Lisbeth Salender, the brilliant, edgy protagonist in Stieg Larsson’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, is 24 years old, but is under guardianship, so she and her funds are under the control of Nils Bjurman, who viscously takes advantage of her. (Don’t worry, she gets him back big-time!)

Yet, more recent best sellers use the word “girl” when actually describing grown women. Think Gone Girl And Girl on the Train.

The twisted and downright wicked Amy Dunne in Gone Girl was followed by Girl on the Train’s protagonist Rachel Watson, a drunk and lonely woman. Both women are unreliable narrators because they are, well, crazy, and not exactly women to be admired.

The Girl on the Train title played off the success of Gone Girl. I’m in marketing, so I get it. You take a successful title and push a book with a similar title, even positioning, “If you liked Gone Girl, you’ll like Girl on the Train”. Editors, and publishers, who by the way title the books, not the authors, seem to still be riding the “Girl” train. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Now Women are “Girls”

A recent trip to Barnes & Noble showed several on the “Best Seller” shelves: Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly and All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda. New just this week is The Girl Who Knew Too Much, a suspense thriller/romance about a female tabloid reporter—a grown woman—investigating the murder of a starlet, who I assume is “the girl”. Only one best seller had “woman” in the title: The Woman in Cabin 10, a mystery whose female lead witnesses a murder, but is not believed because she is obviously bereaved from her recent break-up and paranoid from her apartment’s break-in.

A perusal of the bookstore shelves produced a host of “Girl” titles:

 — Cemetery Girl – David Bell

 — The Fireproof Girl – Loretta Lost

 — The Forgotten Girl – David Bell

 — The Good Girl – Mary Kubica

 — The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane – Lisa See

 — The Silent Girls -Eric Rickstad

 — The Girl on the Cliff – Lucinda Riley

 — Vinegar Girl – Anne Tyler

 — White Collar Girl – Renée Rosen

So, what’s up with all the “Girl” titles? Do they simply sound better to the ear? Gone Woman certainly doesn’t have the alliteration of Gone Girl, and The Woman Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue.

Or is something more sinister at play here?

Mayim Bialik Encourages Us Not to Use the Word “Girl” to Describe “Women”

In a recent Facebook post called “‘Girl’ vs. ‘Woman’: Why Language Matters”, Mayim Bialik, of The Big Bang Theory and Blossom fame, implores women not to use the word “girl” to describe a grown woman due to the practice’s social implications:

[W]hen you use words to describe adult women that are typically used to describe children, it changes the way we view women – even unconsciously – so that we don’t equate them with adult men. In fact, it implies they’re inferior to men. Even if that’s not what most people intend, words have impact on our unconscious. Case in point: You would never say to someone: “Go ask that boy behind the bank counter if the notary is here today”.

Bialik references two scientists named Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf. Their hypothesis states, “the structure of a language determines or greatly influences the modes of thought and behavior characteristic of the culture in which it is spoken”. (Source: Dictionary.com.) So in other words, if language is biased, it’s likely your decisions and actions will be, too.

I asked if “girl” versus “women” in literature titles bothered my neighborhood ladies’ book club members. One brushed it off at first. Others gave it some consideration:

  •  When the book titles read Woman on the Train and The Woman with the Dragon Tattoo, then we will know that WOMEN have arrived in literature.
  • Perhaps it says something about the story, or does the word “girl” trigger a different emotional response than the word “woman” and therefore attract more attention? Hmmmmm….
  • I think you are right. The title Girl on a Train elicits tension, fear and danger because a girl is thought to be young and defenseless. When there is a Woman on a Train, you know that she is smart, fearless, a problem solver, and in command of a frightening situation.

We were all discouraged until that first club member, the one who’d given it much weight, made an interesting discovery. Although adult book titles may use the word “girl” in a slightly demeaning way, books for actual girls—picture books to young adult—have much more empowering characters, themes and titles.

The Children’s Section Showed More “Girl Power”

In a review of Sunday’s New York Times Best Seller lists over the past several weeks, we found this. Children’s Middle Grade included the title Women in Science, and new this week, a book called Wolf Hollow about “a small-town girl [who] is compelled to act when a new student starts to bully a veteran”.  Even more encouraging, the Times’ Children’s Picture Books list contained such STEM-focused titles as Rosie Revere, Engineer and Ada Twist, Scientist, by Andrea Beaty—on the Times Best Seller list for 99 weeks and 34 weeks, respectively.

Princess is Still In

A swing through the children’s section of my local B&N did have its obligatory share of Disney princess books, but I also uncovered such books as The Big Book of Girl Power, with Wonder Woman on the cover; Ladies of Liberty by Cokie Roberts; and an “American Girl” history book called The Story of America.

Further, let’s not forgot our teen/young adult heroines. Katniss Everdeen kicks ass in the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, and Veronica Roth’s equally successful dystopian Divergent series features Beatrice Prior/Tris, who, as reviewed on shmoop.com, “learns how to fire a gun and beat people up”. These “girls” act like women; or perhaps, even like men.

Our Teens May Have Better Role Models Than Adults

So what are we to make of this disparity? Are we creating greater fictional role models for our daughters than we are for ourselves?

Perhaps our adult fiction needs to take its cue from the authors for children’s, middle and young adult books. To create more female characters—protagonists who are strong, smart and independent. Woman who overcome adversity. Women who control their own destiny. Women who are not called girls.