1
00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:06,800
Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain

2
00:00:06,880 --> 00:00:11,520
Speaker 1: Stuff Lauren vogebam here. Today's episode gives brief but graphic

3
00:00:11,560 --> 00:00:15,200
Speaker 1: details about the murder of Emmett Till. Listener discretion is advised.

4
00:00:16,400 --> 00:00:18,840
Speaker 1: Emmett Till was just fourteen years old in the summer

5
00:00:18,880 --> 00:00:21,720
Speaker 1: of nineteen when he traveled to visit family in the

6
00:00:21,720 --> 00:00:25,119
Speaker 1: small community of Money in the Mississippi Delta. Untill was

7
00:00:25,160 --> 00:00:27,400
Speaker 1: born and raised in a suburb of Chicago. He had

8
00:00:27,440 --> 00:00:30,800
Speaker 1: never been to the Deep South. The tragic story of

9
00:00:30,880 --> 00:00:33,360
Speaker 1: young Till's murder at the hands of white men because

10
00:00:33,360 --> 00:00:36,199
Speaker 1: he was black became too many a catalyst for the

11
00:00:36,200 --> 00:00:39,520
Speaker 1: American civil rights movement. But his story did not end

12
00:00:39,560 --> 00:00:44,240
Speaker 1: in Mississippi. It never really ended. We spoke with Florida

13
00:00:44,240 --> 00:00:47,479
Speaker 1: State University professor Davis Howe, who helped create the Emmett

14
00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:50,440
Speaker 1: Till Memory Project, and it's been instrumental in building f

15
00:00:50,520 --> 00:00:53,720
Speaker 1: s U S Emmett Till Archive. He said, I'd like

16
00:00:53,800 --> 00:00:55,560
Speaker 1: to think that if we had the trial again, that

17
00:00:55,840 --> 00:00:58,960
Speaker 1: number one, we'd have some black jurors and some women,

18
00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:02,720
Speaker 1: that in fact, justice would be done. That's the optimist

19
00:01:02,760 --> 00:01:05,560
Speaker 1: in me, But I don't want to be too optimistic,

20
00:01:05,640 --> 00:01:07,440
Speaker 1: because we're at a time in our country right now

21
00:01:07,480 --> 00:01:11,000
Speaker 1: where anything goes in terms of violence visited upon young

22
00:01:11,040 --> 00:01:13,959
Speaker 1: black boys for whistling at a white woman. Yeah, I

23
00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:16,200
Speaker 1: think we're pretty far down the road from that, But

24
00:01:16,280 --> 00:01:19,080
Speaker 1: I don't want to say we've arrived at some ideal place.

25
00:01:19,480 --> 00:01:23,399
Speaker 1: We haven't. The murder of Emmett Till could have been

26
00:01:23,400 --> 00:01:26,160
Speaker 1: lost to time, just another of the thousands of lynchings

27
00:01:26,160 --> 00:01:28,640
Speaker 1: that were perpetuated all over the United States after the

28
00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:32,039
Speaker 1: Civil War. The Equal Justice Initiative has documented more than

29
00:01:32,080 --> 00:01:35,440
Speaker 1: four thousand, four hundred lynchings in twenty states between eighteen

30
00:01:35,480 --> 00:01:40,160
Speaker 1: seventy seven and nineteen fifty. Until's murder stands out separately

31
00:01:40,200 --> 00:01:43,840
Speaker 1: from those, though not because of its sheer violence. Lynchings were,

32
00:01:43,920 --> 00:01:47,720
Speaker 1: by definition brutal, but because the particular in humanity brought

33
00:01:47,800 --> 00:01:51,240
Speaker 1: upon him was not automatically relegated to the inside pages

34
00:01:51,240 --> 00:01:54,960
Speaker 1: of newspapers as many others have been. Even in Mississippi,

35
00:01:55,000 --> 00:01:58,560
Speaker 1: shortly after his death, news accounts almost immediately condemned the

36
00:01:58,560 --> 00:02:01,040
Speaker 1: teen's murder. The for her at the state at the time,

37
00:02:01,080 --> 00:02:05,320
Speaker 1: Governor Hugh White even spoke out against it. Still, it

38
00:02:05,440 --> 00:02:08,959
Speaker 1: was not until Till's mother, Mamie Till Mobley then Mamie

39
00:02:08,960 --> 00:02:12,200
Speaker 1: Till Bradley, demanded that her son be returned to Chicago

40
00:02:12,280 --> 00:02:15,600
Speaker 1: for burial. That the entire world took notice because she

41
00:02:15,760 --> 00:02:18,480
Speaker 1: held an open casket funeral to show what had happened

42
00:02:18,480 --> 00:02:22,119
Speaker 1: to him. He was beaten, shot, had a seventy five

43
00:02:22,120 --> 00:02:24,600
Speaker 1: pound fan tied to his neck with barbed wire, and

44
00:02:24,680 --> 00:02:27,160
Speaker 1: was then tossed into the Tallahatchee River, where he was

45
00:02:27,200 --> 00:02:31,919
Speaker 1: found several days later. Bradley told documentary in Keith Bucamp

46
00:02:32,040 --> 00:02:34,040
Speaker 1: years later, in retelling the story of the day she

47
00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:37,519
Speaker 1: saw her son's body returned from Mississippi. Oh, yes, we're

48
00:02:37,560 --> 00:02:39,960
Speaker 1: going to open the casket. Let the people see what

49
00:02:40,040 --> 00:02:44,079
Speaker 1: I see. I want the world to see this. More

50
00:02:44,080 --> 00:02:47,960
Speaker 1: than a hundred thousand people attended Till's funeral. Jet magazine

51
00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:51,679
Speaker 1: published graphic photos, including one depicting Bradley standing above the

52
00:02:51,720 --> 00:02:55,200
Speaker 1: coffin containing her battered son's body, and the outrage grew

53
00:02:55,200 --> 00:02:58,359
Speaker 1: louder when the two men accused of the murder, Roy

54
00:02:58,440 --> 00:03:00,720
Speaker 1: Bryant and J. W. Millham, work fitted by an all

55
00:03:00,760 --> 00:03:04,040
Speaker 1: white jury weeks later. Anyone looking for further reason to

56
00:03:04,080 --> 00:03:06,880
Speaker 1: put an end to lynching and demand racial justice had

57
00:03:06,919 --> 00:03:11,440
Speaker 1: a rallying point. What prompted tills kidnapping and murder is

58
00:03:11,480 --> 00:03:15,360
Speaker 1: still debated, and in reality, is beside the point. The

59
00:03:15,440 --> 00:03:18,200
Speaker 1: jurors were told by Bryant's wife, Caroline, the Till had

60
00:03:18,200 --> 00:03:21,520
Speaker 1: whistled at her, come into the Bryant family store, grabbed

61
00:03:21,520 --> 00:03:23,519
Speaker 1: her by the wrist, put his hands on her waist,

62
00:03:23,760 --> 00:03:27,600
Speaker 1: and bragged about being with white women. But it wasn't true.

63
00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:31,680
Speaker 1: She recanted that story years later. What she told author

64
00:03:31,720 --> 00:03:34,800
Speaker 1: Timothy Tyson for his seen book The Blood of Emmett

65
00:03:34,840 --> 00:03:38,280
Speaker 1: Till strikes at the very truth of that night. She said,

66
00:03:38,880 --> 00:03:44,160
Speaker 1: nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him. Still,

67
00:03:44,280 --> 00:03:47,200
Speaker 1: the original retelling of the encounter between fourteen year old

68
00:03:47,200 --> 00:03:49,800
Speaker 1: Till and twenty one year old Caroline Bryant has had

69
00:03:49,840 --> 00:03:53,200
Speaker 1: remarkable staying power, despite the fact that it's been disavowed

70
00:03:53,240 --> 00:03:57,240
Speaker 1: by its creator. Nineteen fifty six Look magazine article by

71
00:03:57,240 --> 00:04:01,000
Speaker 1: William Bradford Huey, containing a confession from the murderers that

72
00:04:01,240 --> 00:04:03,960
Speaker 1: Look paid them to give, was purported to tell the

73
00:04:04,080 --> 00:04:08,320
Speaker 1: true account of the murder. Halke said that so called

74
00:04:08,360 --> 00:04:11,680
Speaker 1: confession continues in some to function as a history of

75
00:04:11,720 --> 00:04:14,440
Speaker 1: what happened to Emmett Till that night. What the article

76
00:04:14,480 --> 00:04:17,640
Speaker 1: has done. What I see is it divides Mississippi along

77
00:04:17,680 --> 00:04:20,520
Speaker 1: black and white lines. Oh, Emmett Till was kind of

78
00:04:20,560 --> 00:04:23,120
Speaker 1: this borderline rapist man child who had a coming to him.

79
00:04:23,120 --> 00:04:25,880
Speaker 1: You will hear that in Polite Company in Mississippi to

80
00:04:25,960 --> 00:04:30,120
Speaker 1: the present day. Till's story had an immediate and profound

81
00:04:30,120 --> 00:04:32,479
Speaker 1: effect on Americans at the time, both black and white,

82
00:04:32,839 --> 00:04:35,440
Speaker 1: largely because of his mother's bold decision to display his

83
00:04:35,520 --> 00:04:39,320
Speaker 1: body and Jet's decision among others, including the Chicago Defender,

84
00:04:39,520 --> 00:04:43,800
Speaker 1: to publish the pictures. A former politician and activist, Julian Bond,

85
00:04:43,839 --> 00:04:48,560
Speaker 1: who died, wrote a forward to Devere S Anderson's indispensable

86
00:04:48,560 --> 00:04:51,159
Speaker 1: look at the events Emmitt Till, the murder that shocked

87
00:04:51,200 --> 00:04:54,279
Speaker 1: the world and propelled at the civil rights movement. In it,

88
00:04:54,480 --> 00:04:57,719
Speaker 1: he wrote, the Till story was a touchstone narrative of

89
00:04:57,760 --> 00:05:01,400
Speaker 1: my generation. Among many Southern hor stories, this was among

90
00:05:01,600 --> 00:05:04,520
Speaker 1: the most morbid. The Till death picture was proof of

91
00:05:04,560 --> 00:05:08,440
Speaker 1: white Southerners malevolence. Their refusal to acknowledge the killer's guilt

92
00:05:08,480 --> 00:05:13,160
Speaker 1: was proof of their acceptance of evil. Until's story was

93
00:05:13,200 --> 00:05:15,920
Speaker 1: recounted through the nineteen sixties as a Civil Rights Act

94
00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:19,720
Speaker 1: became law. It's still widely cited by activists from Bond

95
00:05:19,800 --> 00:05:23,680
Speaker 1: to Rosa Parks and beyond, and the story of what

96
00:05:23,839 --> 00:05:27,279
Speaker 1: happened in Mississippi in August of nineteen may not be

97
00:05:27,360 --> 00:05:31,320
Speaker 1: finished either. Till's body was exhumed and positively identified as

98
00:05:31,360 --> 00:05:33,680
Speaker 1: part of a two thousand four Department of Justice reopening

99
00:05:33,680 --> 00:05:36,680
Speaker 1: of the case, which resulted in no new charges. A

100
00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:39,640
Speaker 1: Mississippi grand jury in two thousand seven found no evidence,

101
00:05:39,640 --> 00:05:42,960
Speaker 1: suggested by documentary and Beaucamp that as many as fourteen

102
00:05:43,040 --> 00:05:45,400
Speaker 1: people may have taken part in his kidnapping and murder.

103
00:05:46,200 --> 00:05:49,920
Speaker 1: In eighteen, the Department of Justice again opened up an investigation.

104
00:05:50,279 --> 00:05:55,320
Speaker 1: It's evidently still pending. Many articles, books, and documentaries have

105
00:05:55,400 --> 00:05:57,880
Speaker 1: been produced on the story. There's now an Emmett Till

106
00:05:57,920 --> 00:06:01,440
Speaker 1: Interpretive Center in Sumner, Mississippi. A few other museums are

107
00:06:01,440 --> 00:06:04,240
Speaker 1: in the works. The state of Mississippi has several road

108
00:06:04,279 --> 00:06:07,320
Speaker 1: signs that detail places in the Emmett Till story, though

109
00:06:07,360 --> 00:06:10,520
Speaker 1: many of the signs continue to be shot and otherwise vandalized.

110
00:06:11,720 --> 00:06:14,520
Speaker 1: The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, dedicated to Black

111
00:06:14,560 --> 00:06:18,200
Speaker 1: people Terrorized by Lynching opened in twenty eighteen, not far

112
00:06:18,360 --> 00:06:21,760
Speaker 1: from the Legacy Museum From in Slaveland to mass Incarceration.

113
00:06:22,360 --> 00:06:26,679
Speaker 1: Both are projects of the Equal Justice Initiative, and finally,

114
00:06:26,800 --> 00:06:30,200
Speaker 1: on February twenty six, twenty the United States House of

115
00:06:30,240 --> 00:06:34,320
Speaker 1: Representatives overwhelmingly passed the Emmett Till Anti Lynching Act four

116
00:06:34,400 --> 00:06:37,560
Speaker 1: hundred and ten to four to make lynching a federal

117
00:06:37,600 --> 00:06:41,239
Speaker 1: hate crime. This comes after lawmakers have tried and failed

118
00:06:41,279 --> 00:06:44,360
Speaker 1: more than two hundred times. The bill still needs to

119
00:06:44,400 --> 00:06:46,320
Speaker 1: be passed in the U s. Senate and signed by

120
00:06:46,320 --> 00:06:54,000
Speaker 1: the President to become law. Today's episode was written by

121
00:06:54,080 --> 00:06:56,560
Speaker 1: John Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on

122
00:06:56,600 --> 00:06:59,200
Speaker 1: this and lots of other topics, visit housetoffworks dot com.

123
00:06:59,279 --> 00:07:01,880
Speaker 1: Brainstuff is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts

124
00:07:01,880 --> 00:07:03,839
Speaker 1: from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,

125
00:07:03,880 --> 00:07:06,440
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

126
00:07:17,520 --> 00:07:17,560
Speaker 1: H