Mississippi Trial, 1955

by Chris Crowe

  I closed my eyes and squeezed the armrests of my chair; I didn’t want to think about the awful stuff that had happened to Emmett.

  Mr. Chatham thanked him and sat down. Then Mr. Breland said to Sheriff Strider, “Sheriff, sounds to me like you know more about undertaking than some folks around here.” The courtroom audience laughed, and Judge Swango pounded his gavel again. Mr. Breland looked up at the judge with a kind of “I couldn’t help it” smile, and then asked the sheriff to describe the body.

  “Well, he sure was dead,” he said with a grin, then seeing that no one laughed, continued. “Shot to the head. Looked to have been in the water at least ten days, maybe a couple weeks or more. A big old cotton gin pulley had been tied round his neck with barbed wire. Whoever dropped that body in the river sure didn’t want it floating up any time soon.”

  “Did you notice anything in particular about this corpse, anything that could help identify it?”

  “All I could tell about that body was that it was human; it was in such bad shape, I couldn’t even be sure if it was white or Negro.” He looked at Mr. Breland, waiting for another question, but Mr. Breland said nothing, so the sheriff continued. “You know, there’s some folks, some groups, rabble-rousers and the kind, that would do anything to stir up trouble down here. They’re bent on disrupting our way of life, and I wouldn’t put it past them killing somebody, sticking some boy’s ring on him, and throwing his body in the river. Could be that Till boy is right now sitting in Chicago or somewhere up north having a good old time with all this trouble going on down here.

  “No, sir, that body’d been in the water a good two weeks, long before that Negro boy got himself kidnapped. The corpse they pulled out the Tallahatchie was no more Emmett Till than I’m a jackass.”

  When Emmett Till’s mother walked up to the witness chair, I was afraid people in the courtroom were going to jump out of their seats and knock her down. Looks of hate, pure meanness, followed her all the way to the stand, and I wondered, if we hadn’t been in a courtroom full of police, would some people have hauled her out and lynched her?

  She spoke clearly, and she didn’t look either scared or mad, just kind of sad, like she was still hurting something awful for Emmett.

  “Emmett was born and raised in Chicago,” she told Mr. Chatham, “so he didn’t know how to be humble to white people. I warned him before he came down here; I told him to be very careful how he spoke and to say ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, ma’am’ and not to hesitate to humble himself if he had to get down on his knees.”

  Mr. Chatham looked sympathetic. “Mrs. Bradley, when your son’s body arrived in Chicago, were you able to identify it as him?”

  “Yes, sir, positively.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “A mother knows her child, has known him since he was born. I looked at the face very carefully . . . I just looked at it very carefully, and I was able to find out that it was my son, Emmett Louis Till.”

  Mr. Chatham went to his table, picked up a large photograph, and walked back in front of Emmett’s mother. “Mrs. Bradley, I have a photograph here, taken at the Century Burial Association, of the body that was removed from the Tallahatchie River on August thirty-first. I’d like you to look at it and tell me if you can identify this body.”

  He handed her the picture. Her face became even more somber as she looked at it and nodded; then handed it back to Mr. Chatham. “That’s my son,” she said softly, “my son, Emmett Till.” Her voice broke, and she took off her glasses to wipe away tears.

  “Are you sure?” Mr. Chatham asked gently.

  “If I thought it wasn’t my boy, I would be out looking for him now.”

  I could hardly stand to look at Emmett’s mother, and I prayed she wouldn’t look at me. I was afraid if she did that, I’d just fall apart crying, that I’d confess all the things I didn’t do, things I might have done that could’ve saved Emmett. I’d stand up and shout to the judge, jury, and everybody in the courtroom that R. C. Rydell had been a part of this, that he told me he was going to do something. But she never did look at me, never even glanced in my direction.

  The next witness was Willie Reed, a Negro kid about my age. He was so scared that he could hardly talk, and Judge Swango had to keep telling him to speak up so the jury could hear. It looked to me like Willie didn’t want anybody to hear him, didn’t want anything at all to do with this trial, but as I listened to him tell what he had seen and heard after Emmett had been kidnapped, I admired him. As a Negro testifying against two white men, he’d never be able to stay in Mississippi, probably never even be able to visit here again. He had a lot more guts than I did.

  When Willie said that he saw some white men in a blue Ford pickup with Emmett Till in the back, Grampa’s breathing started getting noisy. His face turned fish-belly white, and sweat poured off his forehead. He didn’t even notice me looking at him, so I touched his arm and said, “Grampa, you okay? You didn’t forget your medicine this morning did you?”

  Grampa looked at me glassy-eyed, like he’d just come out of a dream.

  “Are you feeling all right?” I asked. It looked like maybe his diabetes was acting up; I hoped it wasn’t another stroke. “Do you need a drink or something?”

  “That Sunday morning, you fixed us breakfast,” he said, his voice raspy, “and we played cards, remember?”

  “Yessir. Stayed home all morning because neither one of us felt any good.”

  “That’s right. Yes, of course, that’s right.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but whatever had hit him must have passed, because the color came back into his face. “I’m fine, son,” he said quietly. “Just been sitting in this hot old courtroom for too long.” He sat up straighter and looked at the witness stand real serious, like he was trying to hear every word.

  Willie Reed was talking about how he saw some white men come out of a barn, a barn on the plantation owned by Leslie Milam, J.W.’s brother. “I heard someone getting licked pretty good inside there, and lots of crying. After some more licking, he cried, ‘Mama, Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy!’ and I went running to my aunt’s house to ask who was gettin’ beat over in the barn.”

  “Did you recognize any of the men?” asked Mr. Chatham.

  “Mr. J. W. Milam. I saw him leave the barn and get a drink from the well and then go back inside.”

  “Objection!” shouted Mr. Breland. “Your Honor, I object to this witness!”

  “Grounds?” asked the judge.

  “This testimony does not officially connect my clients with whatever was going on in that barn. This witness is merely speculating about what might or might not have happened.”

  “Overruled,” said the judge. “Continue your questioning, Mr. Chatham.”

  Mr. Chatham nodded to the judge. “Willie, did you notice anything else about Mr. Milam when you saw him outside that barn?”

  “He was wearing a pistol, had it strapped in a holster on his hip.”

  “Objection! Objection!” Mr. Breland was on his feet this time. I didn’t hear all that he said, because I was still worried about Grampa. His breathing had gotten easier, but he was fidgeting in his chair now; he couldn’t seem to get comfortable. The judge overruled whatever it was Mr. Breland had been complaining about, and Mr. Chatham asked Willie Reed another question.

  “What did you do next?”

  “I went to the country store to get some things; then I went home and got ready for Sunday school.”

  “On the way back, did you see or hear anything or anybody?”

  “Nosuh.”

  “Was the pickup gone?”

  “Yessuh.”

  When Mr. Breland had his turn to ask Willie questions, he looked like a bull about to rip into a poor old farmer, and Willie looked scared. “Do you know Mr. J. W. Milam?” he asked.

  “Nosuh, but I’ve seen him round the plantation three or four times.”

  “Have you seen that blue Ford pickup before?”

  “Nosuh.�
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  “Then you can’t say for sure that it belongs to either of my clients, is that right?”

  “Yessuh.”

  “Did you see Mr. J. W. Milam driving the truck?”

  Willie shifted in his chair, looking more and more nervous. “I don’t know, suh.”

  “You wouldn’t say Mr. Milam was inside the truck?”

  “Nosuh, I wouldn’t.”

  Hearing that made Mr. Breland loosen up a little. “Willie, how far were you from the barn when you saw who you thought was Mr. Milam?”

  “Don’t know, suh. . . . A ways away.”

  “A ways? How far exactly is ‘a ways’?”

  Willie didn’t answer.

  Mr. Breland turned and pointed to the back of the courtroom. “Is ‘a ways’ from where you sit to the courtroom doors?”

  “Nosuh.”

  “Farther?”

  Willie nodded.

  “Twice as far?”

  “Don’t know, suh. I wasn’t thinking about the distance at the time.”

  “Well, boy, what were you thinking about? If you weren’t thinking, how in the world can you be so sure you saw who you claim you saw?”

  Again Willie said nothing.

  “Think hard, boy. From where you were standing when you heard the licking and the hollering, how far is it to the barn? One hundred yards? Two hundred? Three hundred? Think, boy! You’re sitting in a court of law, sworn to testify in front of these good people, and we’re all waiting for your answer. C’mon, Willie!”

  Willie mumbled something too softly to be heard.

  “Speak up, boy,” said Mr. Breland.

  Willie looked embarrassed and confused. “Guess maybe it was round four hundred yards.”

  “Four hundred yards?” Mr. Breland whistled. “That’s nearly a quarter of a mile. You’ve got yourself a damn good set of eyes, boy. Better get yourself off to Korea and let the Army use you as a sharpshooter.”

  Willie tried to say something more, but Mr. Breland wouldn’t let him. “You’re done. Just go set down for a while.”

  Looking relieved, Willie left the witness chair and walked straight out of the courtroom without once looking up. After Willie was gone, Mr. Chatham looked down at the papers spread out on the table in front of him like he was hoping to find something he’d forgotten or overlooked.

  “Does the state have any more witnesses?” Judge Swango had to ask him twice before he finally looked up. Mr. Chatham rose slowly and glanced around the courtroom. Then he looked at the judge and said, “No, Your Honor. The state rests.”

  Mr. Breland and his lawyers smiled when they heard that. A couple of his assistants even patted him on the back.

  “Does the defense have any witnesses?” asked Judge Swango.

  “Mrs. Carolyn Bryant,” said Mr. Breland.

  Mrs. Bryant, a pretty young woman, patted her husband on the shoulder and stepped around him to walk up to the witness seat. Mr. Breland made a big show of acting like a gentleman and helped her get seated; then he asked her to tell what had happened to her at her husband’s store in Money on the night of August 24.

  Before she could start talking, though, Judge Swango dismissed the jury. “This event happened too long before the abduction of Emmett Till,” he said. “It is not immediately relevant to this case and may prejudice the jury’s deliberations. However, I will direct that it be entered into the court record.”

  Mrs. Bryant smiled shyly at the judge and waited until the jury had left the room. She kept shifting in the witness stand, not sure where to put her hands, not sure where to look. When she made eye contact with her husband, she nodded and stopped fidgeting, and that’s when I remembered what the paper had first reported about the kidnapping; there had been three men and a woman in the car that night.

  She told Mr. Breland that she had been working in their store alone because her husband was on a business trip. “While I was working, a Negro boy came into the store and stopped at the candy counter. I noticed that he spoke with a Northern brogue. He ordered some bubble gum, and when I held out my right hand for some money”—she shivered—“he caught my hand and wouldn’t let go. I tried to pull my hand away, and he said, ‘How about a date, baby?’”

  The courtroom had been deadly silent, but then a woman gasped, and I heard muttered swearing. A man behind me said, “No wonder that nigger ended up in the river. I hope they made him pay good before they tossed him in.” The evil emotion in the room almost choked me. Didn’t these people know they were talking about a fourteen-year-old boy?

  “I shook my hand loose and started to the back of the store. He caught me at the cash register . . .” Her voice shook. “And he put both hands around my waist. He said, ‘What’s the matter, baby, can’t you take it?’ I pulled myself away from him, and all the while he was saying filthy, unprintable words, words which I will not repeat. Then he said, ‘I’ve been with white women before.’”

  The murmur in the courtroom grew louder, and Judge Swango banged on his desk to quiet everyone down. Mrs. Bryant waited until the judge signaled her to continue.

  “Then another Negro came in and pulled him out of the store. I started to go to the car to get my pistol, and he was still on the front porch of the store. He smiled and whistled at me, then ran off with his friends, got in a car, and drove away.”

  “Was this Negro man who accosted you Emmett Till?” She paused and looked at her husband a moment before answering. “I don’t know Emmett Till. I’ve never known Emmett Till, or any other Negroes, for that matter.”

  CHAPTER 15

  A huge thunderstorm woke us early Friday morning. Lightning lit up the sky, and rain pounded our roof and windows. I had hoped that the morning rain would make the courtroom more bearable, but the rain stopped early, and the humidity it left behind only made the air in Sumner hotter and heavier.

  The courtroom was packed that morning. Grampa figured this would be the last day of the trial, and I guess so did everyone else in Mississippi. Deputies brought in extra cane-bottomed chairs and squeezed them in wherever there was floor space. Spectators, newsmen, and photographers jammed the foyer outside the courtroom, and everybody was waiting for something big to happen.

  Mr. Breland called a bunch of character witnesses to testify, and each of them said about the same thing. Milam and Bryant had been born and raised in Mississippi. Milam was a war hero. They were good boys, hard workers, and never caused anybody a bit of trouble. When the seventh witness finished, I was just about asleep. Then I heard Mr. Breland tell the judge, “Your Honor, the defense rests.”

  A few people started clapping until Judge Swango stared them down. He looked at Mr. Chatham and asked, “Is the state prepared for its final argument?”

  Mr. Chatham nodded, walked to the jury seats, and faced them, looking at each juror one at a time. When he finished making eye contact, he started speaking so loudly that it made me and Grampa jump in our seats.

  He reviewed all the details: the eyewitness testimony of Mose Wright and Willie Reed, the prior confession of Bryant and Milam to kidnapping, the positive identification of the body by Emmett’s mother and others. Then he became very serious. He stopped pacing in front of the jury, took a deep breath, and continued with the last part of his speech.

  “The first words that entered this case, ‘I want the boy from Chicago who did the talking at Money,’ were dripping with the blood of Emmett Till. As far as the state of Mississippi is concerned, this is not about race, it’s just another murder. But I want to say to you that the murder of Emmett Till was a cowardly act and a brutal and unnecessary killing of a human being. His abduction at gunpoint was unjustified. This was a summary court-martial with the death penalty. That child had done nothing that would cause the defendants to invade the privacy of that home.

  “When Bryant and Milam took Emmett Till from the home of Uncle Mose Wright, they were absolutely and morally responsible for his protection. I was born and bred in the South, and the very worst punishm
ent that should have occurred—if they had any idea in their minds that this boy did anything wrong—was to take a razor strap, turn him over a barrel, and whip him. I’ve whipped my boy. You’ve whipped yours. A man deals with a child accordingly as a child, not as a man to a man.

  “The killing of Emmett Till was a cowardly act committed by the two defendants you see sitting before you. I know what you are and where we are, but I beg you to put aside race, tradition, and prejudice, and consider the facts of this case that we have so clearly presented. This is not an issue of Negro versus white. This is not an issue of North versus South. This is a simple issue of law: Two men murdered a child. You have no other choice but to convict them for murder.”