Emmett Till: Why He Still Matters

The movie “Till” opens today in wide release across the country. It’s a story that should be known and digested by everyone living in this country. It has been argued that this tragedy launched the modern Civil Rights movement. We know that it directly inspired Rosa Parks to her act of civil disobedience in Montgomery, Alabama just a few months later.

It’s the story of 14 year old Emmett Till who was visiting his uncle and cousins in the cotton picking town of Money, Mississippi in the late summer of 1955. Emmitt lived with his mother in Chicago and though he knew of racism where he lived he had no idea how different things were for blacks in the deep south. The facts are not clear but the story goes that Emmett, after a day of cotton picking in the fields, went with his cousins to Bryant's General store for a coke and some candy. On the way out of the store Emmett allegedly whistled at Carol Bryant, the 25 year old wife of the store owner who was working behind the counter. His cousins, sensing this was going to start some trouble, rushed Emmett into the their truck and sped away.

Two days later, some time after midnight, two men came to Emmett Till’s uncle's house where Emmett was sleeping and demanded that Emmett be turned over. They threatened violence unless they were given Emmett. His uncle relented. Emmett was tied down in the back of a truck and driven to a wherehouse a few miles down the road. He was beaten to death about the face and shot through the head. His body was then tied to a cotton gin motor with barbed wire and he was dumped in the Tallahatchie river. The next day Emmett’s foot was found protruding from the river by a fisherman.

Emmitt’s mother Mamie got the news and she traveled to Mississippi to retrieve the mangled body of her only child. The coroner and the town sheriff had wanted to bury the body immediately before Mamie could get to town due to it’s horrific condition. They feared that if Emmitt's mother saw the body it would create an uproar. They had no idea how right they would be. Mamie insisted that the body be untouched until she arrived. Horrified, Mamie made her way to the all black funeral home where she encountered the unrecognizable body of her son. His face bore no resemblance to her 14 year old boy. “Where are his teeth, she said”. She remembered Emmett as having the most beautiful teeth. She could see clear through his skull where the bullet hole had entered.

If Mamie had just accompanied her son's body back to Chicago for a quiet burial then this story would likely have been just another lynching death of a black person in the south. Mamie had another idea that would make this an international story and would transform the country forever.

After bringing her son’s body back to Chicago she made arrangements for a funeral with an open casket. The mortician refused but eventually agreed to dress the body up to attempt to hide the gross disfigurement. She insisted on leaving it just as it was. “The world is going to see what they have done to my son”. The funeral was held in the south side of Chicago at Rose’s temple and it has been reported that over 50,000 people filed in to see the body. A significant number of people collapsed upon seeing the open coffin. The story made the international news. The black community was shocked, outraged, and prepared for mobilization. We can all imagine how much courage it took for Mamie to display the mangled body of her son for all to witness.

It took equal courage for Mamie to make the trip down to Jackson Mississippi to attend the trial of the two men who had abducted Emmett and taken his life so savagely. Roy Bryant and his brother in law JW Milam were arrested for the murder. Mamie was taunted and threatened while in Jackson. It wasn’t horrific enough that her son was lynched but she had to arrive at the trial to hear testimony to the many virtues (and innocence) of the men who had ended her son’s life. In the end, both men were unanimously acquitted by an all white, all male jury. The evidence was overwhelming as Emmett’s uncle testified that these two men had taken Emmitt from his home and he never returned.

Just a few weeks after the acquittal “Look” magazine paid these men $4,000 each for a full confession to the lynching. By law they could not be retried for the same crime. They killed with impugnity and they ended up getting paid for it.

Rosa Parks heard of the story that took place just a few hours drive from where she lived in Alabama. As an act of support for Emmett she decided to refuse to sit in the back of the local bus. Montgomery law forbade her from sitting at the front where seats were reserved for whites only. Her arrest sparked a one year bus boycott by the black community in Montgomery which eventually changed the law to allow blacks to sit anywhere whites sit. The boycott was the seminal event that inspired MLK to become a civl rights leader.

A marker was placed at the site at the river where Emmett’s body was recovered. Over the years this marker has been repeatedly vandalized. It has been replaced numerous times after being riddled with gunshots. In 2018 a bullet proof marker was made and placed at the site. It’s breathtaking to imagine the hatred.

I made a trip to Money Mississippi in 2019 and I drove down the very quiet two lane highway into Money where I came upon Bryants General store…or, what is left of it. It closed soon after the death of Emmitt as the black community refused to spend money at the store. The walls of the store are barely intact and there are a few giant trees that are growing inside of it..Still, there is no mistaking it. It is ground zero for the civil rights movement as we know it today. There was only one other building nearby and there were still giant fields of farmland from as far as I could see. The Tallahatchie river was just a few hundred yards away.

It felt like it could still be 1955. I drove to the banks of Tallahatchie and found a place with a bridge that went across it. I walked out about halfway and listened to the stillness. I saw no one. It was as peaceful as running water could be.

Mamie Till died in 2003

Carol Bryant is alive to this day.