CBS Transcript - The Murder of Emmett Till; Justice Department reopening case
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CBS News Transcripts October 24, 2004 Sunday
The Murder of Emmett Till; Justice Department reopening 50-year-old case of murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, who was tortured and murdered in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman
ED BRADLEY, co-host:
For many of you, the name Emmett Till may not sound familiar. But what happened to him in 1955 stunned the nation. Emmett Till was a young black boy who was murdered in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman. And his death was a spark that ignited the civil rights movement in America. Two white men were put on trial for killing him, but in spite of strong evidence against them, they were acquitted in about an hour by an all-white jury. Why are we telling you this now? Because this past spring, the US Justice Department opened a new investigation based on evidence suggesting that more than a dozen people may have been involved in the murder of Emmett Till and that at least five of them are still alive. Those five could face criminal prosecution. And before we tell you about them, let us tell you what happened to Emmett Till.
(Footage of Emmett Till's tombstone; men accused of murder; men carrying casket; Chicago Daily Tribune and Le Monde newspapers; policemen frisking blacks; lunch counter; drinking fountain labeled "colored"; Bates Hotel for colored; photo of till; sign for Greenwood, Mississippi; black people picking cotton; photos of relatives)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) He was 14 years old when he was kidnapped, tortured and killed. The two men who were acquitted of his murder were Roy Bryant and his half brother, J.W. Milan. The failure to punish anyone for the crime made headlines across the country and around the world, exposing the racial hatred and unequal justice of blacks that was pervasive in the segregated South, where laws dictated where blacks could eat and drink and where they could sleep.
But Emmett Till wasn't from the South, he was from Chicago, and just visiting relatives in Mississippi in August of 1955 when his nightmare began. Emmett's 16-year-old cousin traveled to Mississippi with him. The family was reluctant to let Emmett take the trip, afraid his free-spirited nature could get him into trouble in the deep South. That cousin who traveled with him is Wheeler Parker, Jr., now 65 years old.
Mr. WHEELER PARKER Jr.: He was the center of attraction. He loved pranks, he loved fun, he loved jokes. You know, he just was there in the center of everything. He was kind of a natural-born leader.
BRADLEY: Why would that be a problem?
Mr. PARKER: In Mississippi, why would it be a problem? It would be a problem because the Mississippians, what he thought was just fun or a joke, wasn't funny to them.
BRADLEY: So before you went down, did anybody say, `Look, here are the dos and the don'ts about going to Mississippi? You do this, you don't do that'?
Mr. PARKER: Oh, yes. That's routine. You always prepare to go to Mississippi to stay alive. Because, you know, once you got to Mississippi, you had no protection under the law. You couldn't call anyone for help, once you were there, if you got in trouble.
(Footage of Bryant's Meat Market)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) For Emmett Till, the trouble started here, at Bryant's Meat Market and Grocery Store in Money, Mississippi.
Back then, most of the customers at this store were black workers from nearby cotton plantations. The store was owned by a white couple, Roy Bryant, and his 21-year-old wife Carolyn, who was behind the counter the afternoon that Emmett Till and his cousins came in to buy some candy. As he was leaving the store, Emmett Till whistled at Carolyn Bryant, and she went to get a gun.
(Footage of photo of Simeon Wright)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Simeon Wright, Emmett Till's cousin who lived in Mississippi, was 12 years old on that day when they went to Bryant's Grocery Store. Today, at 62, he says the sound of Emmett whistling is as vivid to him now as it was 50 years ago.
Mr. SIMEON WRIGHT: When we whistled, we all--we ran, we jumped in the car and we got out of there.
BRADLEY: Just because he whistled?
Mr. WRIGHT: Oh, yes. It's--it's like if you--if you're a kid and you throw a rock and break a window, you don't hang around to see what's going to happen.
BRADLEY: And you knew that in Mississippi, at that time, 1955, that was something you didn't do?
Mr. WRIGHT: That was something you didn't do.
(Footage of photo of Emmett Till; Roy Bryant and J.W. Milan; Mose Wright home)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Emmett Till and his cousins raced home that day and hoped nothing would come of what Emmett had done. But three days later, Carolyn Bryant's husband Roy and his half brother J.W. Milan went looking for Emmett Till in the middle of the night and found him and his cousins at the home of Reverend Mose Wright, Emmett's late great uncle, who recounted what happened next.
Mr. MOSE WRIGHT: (From file footage) Sunday morning about 2:30, I heard a voice at the door and I asked who was it, and it `This is Mr. Bryant. I want to talk to you and the boy.' And when I opened the door, there was a man standing with a pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other.
(Footage of photos of Simeon Wright and Wheeler Parker)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Emmett Till and Simeon Wright, Mose Wright's son, were asleep together in one room, and Wheeler Parker was in another room, awakened by the sounds of angry voices.
Mr. WHEELER PARKER: Fear just gripped me because in my heart, I say, `I'm getting ready to die.' And at 16, I wasn't ready to die. And I could just feel like the whole bed was shaking. And in these guys come with a pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other. And for some reason, I closed my eyes and I opened them and they just passed right on by me and went to the next room.
Mr. WRIGHT: I woke up and I--I looked, I saw two men standing over the bed with their--one had a gun, which was J.W. Milan. I saw Roy Bryant. They ordered me to lay back down and go back to sleep. And they ordered Emmett to get up and put his clothes on. And my mother was pleading and begging with them not to take him. My dad was pleading with him. And my mother then, at that time, offered to give them money to leave Emmett alone. And Roy Bryant kind of hesitated. But J.W. Milan, he didn't hesitate at all. He didn't even think about taking money. He came there to take Emmett, and that's what he proceeded to do.
(Footage of photos of Emmett Till and relatives)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Before taking Emmett Till out of the house, Simeon Wright says J.W. Milan threatened his father, Reverend Mose Wright.
Mr. WRIGHT: Before they left my room, he turned and asked my daddy how old was he. My daddy told him that he was 64. And J.W. Milan said, `If you tell anybody about this, you won't live to get 65.'
BRADLEY: Well, what did you think then?
Mr. WRIGHT: This man wasn't afraid of the law. Here he'd marched into my home, take out my cousin, and wasn't afraid the law was going to bother him.
BRADLEY: This must have been terrifying for you. I mean, you were just--you weren't 13 yet.
Mr. WRIGHT: No.
BRADLEY: You were 12 years old.
Mr. WRIGHT: Twelve years old.
BRADLEY: Lying in bed in the middle of the night. Two white men come in, one with a gun, and tells your cousin to get up and get dressed?
Mr. WRIGHT: Yes, yes.
BRADLEY: I'd have been scared to death.
Mr. WRIGHT: Not only afraid, but there was a sorrow, a sadness over the whole house, you know, like you can--you could cut the grief in the house. Because after they left, no one said anything, hardly. All I could hear my dad say was, `Um, um, um.'
(Footage of photo of Emmett Till; Tallahatchie River)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) On August 31st, 1955, three days after he'd been abducted, Emmett Till's mangled body was found by a boy fishing in the waters of the Tallahatchie River, not far from Money.
His body had been weighted down by a 75-pound fan from a cotton gin attached to his neck by barbed wire. He'd been badly tortured. An eye was detached, an ear cut off, and he appeared to have been shot in the head. His death was the birth of a powerful and lasting symbol of Southern racism in the 20th century.
(Footage of photo of H.C. Strider; cemetery; photos and news footage of Mamie Till surrounded by men)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) The local sheriff, H.C. Strider, a plantation owner and ardent segregationist, tried to have the body buried immediately in this small cemetery in Money, Mississippi, hoping no one in the outside world would ever find out what happened to Emmett Till. But Emmett's mother Mamie battled with Mississippi authorities and was able to have her son's body returned to Chicago so she could identify him before she buried him. Mamie Till was determined never to let anyone forget the brutal way in which her son was killed. She described the chilling story in one of the final interviews she gave before her last year at age 81.
Ms. MAMIE TILL: I looked at the bridge of his nose, and it looked like someone had taken a meat chopper and chopped it. And I looked at his teeth, because I took so much pride in his teeth. His teeth were the prettiest things I'd ever seen in my life, I thought. And I only saw two. Where were the rest of them? They'd just been knocked out. And I was looking at his ears, and that's when I discovered a hole about here, and I could see daylight on the other side. I said, `Now, was it necessary to shoot him?'
(Footage of crowd at Emmett Till's funeral; photo of Emmett Till's corpse; protests)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Some 50,000 people, nearly all of them black, turned out for Emmett Till's funeral in an enormous public display of grief and solidarity. Mamie Till ordered the funeral director to place her son in an open casket, and permitted this shocking photograph of Emmett's corpse, which was published in Jet magazine and seen across the country. It ignited protests, civil disobedience and backlash that would consume the South through the '60s.
Ms. TILL: I said, `I want the world to see this.' Because when people saw what had happened to this little 14-year-old boy, they knew then that not only were men, black men, in danger, but black children as well.
(Footage of casket being carried by pall bearers; Bryant and Milan; boys on street; sign for Sumner, Mississippi; Mose Wright in court; photos of Emmett Till and Willie Reed; Bryant and Milan getting into a car; barn)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) The same day that Emmett Till was buried, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milan were indicted of charges of kidnapping and murder. Their trial was held in the small Mississippi town of Sumner, billed as a good place to raise a boy. The star witness was Emmett Till's late great uncle, Mose Wright, who bravely stood up in the courtroom and pointed his finger at Milan and Bryant as the ones who had come to his home and abducted Emmett Till at gunpoint. Another key witness was an 18-year-old sharecropper named Willie Reed, who said that on the morning after Emmett Till was abducted, he saw Emmett on a truck with six people, Roy Bryant, J.W. Milan, two other white men, and two black men who worked for Milan. Soon after, Reed said he saw the same truck parked in front of a barn managed at the time by Milan's brother, and heard the screams of a young boy he presumed was Emmett Till. Today, at age 67, Reed says he still cannot get those sounds out of his mind.
Mr. WILLIE REED: I heard this screaming, beating, screaming and beating. And I said to myself, I said, you know, man, they're beating somebody in the barn. I could hear the beating. I mean the licks, I could hear it.
BRADLEY: Because you could hear the licks?
Mr. REED: Yes, you could. You could.
(Footage of Milan)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) According to Willie Reed and another witness, four white men came out of the barn, including Milan, who walked right up to Reed carrying a .45 caliber pistol.
Mr. REED: Milan was coming out of the barn, so he asked, he said, `Listen,' he said, `Did you all hear anything?' And I said, `No. I haven't heard anything.'
BRADLEY: Why would you say that? I mean you had heard something. You had heard screaming. You had heard somebody being beaten.
Mr. REED: Yeah, somebody was being beaten. But then you see Milan come out with, like I say, khaki pants on and green shirt and .45 by his side, then he asks you, what are you going to say?
BRADLEY: You didn't hear anything.
Mr. REED: I didn't hear anything.
BRADLEY: You knew that's what he wanted to hear.
Mr. REED: Right.
BRADLEY: When they found the body, did you put two and two together and think that what you had heard going on in that barn that that was Emmett Till being beaten?
Mr. REED: I was sure. I was sure then.
(Footage of Reed)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Fearing for his life after testifying against Milan and Bryant, Willie Reed was smuggled out of Mississippi. He went to Chicago, where he suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized.
You're a good man. You had a lot of courage for 18-year-old. I think a lot of people would have walked away from it, wouldn't have said a word.
Mr. REED: No, I--I--I couldn't--I couldn't have walked away from that like that because Emmett was 14, probably had never been to Mississippi in his life, and he come to visit his grandfather and they killed him. I mean, that's not right. And I saw--when he--in the pictures, I saw his--his--his body, what it was like, then I knew that I couldn't say no.
(Footage of jury and accused; accused celebrating with their wives)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) As the trial drew to a close, attorneys for J.W. Milan and Roy Bryant warned the all-white jury that if they voted to convict, quote, "Your forefathers will turn over in their graves." It took the jury just an hour and seven minutes to return a verdict of not guilty. One juror said it wouldn't have taken that long but they stopped to take a soda pop break to make it look good. Milan and Bryant were congratulated by their many supporters and kissed their wives in celebration.
(Beginning of file footage)
Unidentified Reporter: How do you folks feel now that it's all over? Roy, how about you?
Mr. ROY BRYANT: I'm just glad it's all over with.
(End of file footage)
(Footage of Bryant and Milan with their wives; Look magazine story; photo of Emmett Till; footage of Milan; Simeon Wright)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Four months after the trial, knowing that double jeopardy protected them from being tried again, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milan admitted to a reporter from Look magazine that they had, in fact, tortured and murdered Emmett Till. They were paid $4,000 for their story. In it, Milan said, "I just made up my mind. `Chicago boy,' I said, `I'm tired of 'em sending your kind down here to stir up trouble. Damn you, I'm going to make an example of you.'"
Emmett Till's family has had to live with that for nearly 50 years, that his killers confessed and nothing ever happened to them. Now, with a new government investigation under way, Simeon Wright hopes someone will finally be held accountable for the murder of his cousin.
Mr. WRIGHT: J.W. Milan and Roy Bryant confessed that they killed Emmett. The people of the state of Mississippi say they didn't We need to reconcile that statement and we need to send a message to those who are committing crimes against blacks like this that you can get by, but you can't get away, that justice eventually is going to find you.
(Footage of Bradley knocking on front door of a home)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover)
The US Justice Department says a number of other people who may have been involved in the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till are still alive today. We spent much of the past five months tracking them down. When we come back, we'll tell you who they are and what they, and in one case, a family member, have to say.
Mr. FRANK BRYANT: I said goodbye.
BRADLEY: Goodbye?
Mr. BRYANT: Yes, sir.
(Announcements)
BRADLEY: When the US Justice Department announced recently that it was opening a new investigation into the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, it said the case was a, quote, "grotesque miscarriage of justice" and that it is examining evidence pointing to the possible involvement of more than a dozen people in the crime. Roy Bryant and J.W. Milan, who were tried and acquitted, are dead. But a number of others are still alive and could face criminal charges for their role in Emmett Till's abduction, beating, murder and attempts to cover it up.
(Footage of Bradley walking with Keith Beauchamp; photo of Till's corpse; Beauchamp working at a computer)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) The Justice Department says it is largely because of this young man that the case has been reopened. His name is Keith Beauchamp, an amateur filmmaker from Louisiana. Like a lot of people in this country, he was moved by the shocking photograph of Emmett Till's corpse that he saw while looking through old magazines when he was just 10 years old. And ever since, Beauchamp has devoted much of his life to uncovering the truth about what happened to Emmett Till.
Mr. KEITH BEAUCHAMP: After seeing the photograph, it shocked me tremendously. And my parents came in and sat me down and explained to me at that time the story of Emmett Till. And it hit me hard, it really hit me hard.
BRADLEY: I heard the same story. I mean, I remember seeing this picture in that Jet magazine when I was a kid. I think Emmett Till and I were about the same age in 1955, 14 years old. And growing up in--in Philadelphia, you knew vaguely about the South. Like others, my parents had protected me from the realities of the South. When I saw that picture and I said, `Hey,' that's when I got my first lesson about the South.
Mr. BEAUCHAMP: Everyone has a story when they first saw that photograph. It stuck with me that how could this person be killed this way, a youth, you know, that was like me? It was amazing to me that something like that could happen.
(Footage of Beauchamp going through documents; photo of Emmett Till)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Keith Beauchamp told us that after reviewing thousands of old documents and talking to numerous witnesses with knowledge of the crime, he believes that at least 14 people may have been involved in the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till, and that five of them are still alive.
You've described much of this to--to federal and state investigators?
Mr. BEAUCHAMP: Absolutely.
BRADLEY: And their reaction to that information?
Mr. BEAUCHAMP: Their reaction was overwhelming. They couldn't believe that a person this young would be so interested in--in finding out the truth. I guess they were really stunned that I did so much research on this case.
(Footage of Senator Schumer; Keith Beauchamp; Justice Department building)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) So was Senator Charles Schumer, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has oversight of the Justice Department. After meeting with Keith Beauchamp and his attorney, Ken Thompson, and examining the research Beauchamp was gathering for a documentary film he was working on, Senator Schumer urged the department to reopen the Emmett Till case, saying it was never fully investigated 50 years ago.
How would you characterize the conduct of the federal law enforcement agencies, the 50 years of this Emmett Till case?
Senator CHARLES SCHUMER: Oh, federal law enforcement back then, and even many years later, reflected the attitude of America. Oh, these things happen. This is how it is down there. It is a stain and will be a stain on both the Mississippi law enforcement officials and the United States federal Justice Department that it took a young filmmaker to bring to light what they should have brought to light.
(Footage of Mamie Till; telegram; documents; President Eisenhower; Beauchamp; Henry Lee Loggins; documents; news story; cotton gin fan; Tallahatchie River)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) In 1955, Emmett Till's mother Mamie tried to get her government to bring the truth to light. She sent a telegram to President Dwight Eisenhower urging that justice be meted out to all persons involved in the beastly lynching of her son. In spite of FBI records and news reports at the time citing specific individuals, President Eisenhower didn't take any action. Emmett Till's mother died before the government reopened the case this past spring. The case based largely on the search of Keith Beauchamp Among his discoveries was Henry Lee Loggins, now 81 years old and living in Ohio. At the time of the murder, Loggins was working for J.W. Milan. FBI files from 1955 refer to witnesses who claim they saw Loggins on the truck with Emmett Till after he was abducted. One respected black newspaper at the time even reported that Loggins allegedly held Emmett Till down as Milo and Bryant tortured him. Loggins was also reportedly ordered by them to attach the fan from a cotton gin around Till's neck just before tossing him into the Tallahatchie River. Henry Lee Loggins is now under investigation by the Justice Department. When we talked to him recently, he denied the allegations that have dogged him for half a century.
Mr. HENRY LEE LOGGINS: I wouldn't sit here and tell a lie. I wasn't with them people. I ain't saw nothing.
BRADLEY: How do you think your name came up? I mean, not just in newspaper articles but also with the FBI? Why did people that Henry Lee Loggins was there?
Mr. LOGGINS: I don't know. I can't figure that out. I can't figure that out to today.
BRADLEY: Henry Lee, how do you explain all these stories that just won't go away?
Mr. LOGGINS: Such as--such as what?
BRADLEY: Such as you were there on the back of the truck.
Mr. LOGGINS: Which I wasn't.
BRADLEY: That you participated in the--in the abduction, the kidnapping and the murder of Emmett Till.
Mr. LOGGINS: Which I wasn't.
BRADLEY: That you tossed his body in the river.
Mr. LOGGINS: Which I wasn't. What's your name?
BRADLEY: Ed.
Mr. LOGGINS: Ed, Mr. Ed, I wouldn't sit here and tell you no lie. I don't know nothing about that kid.
BRADLEY: What are you going to do when the FBI comes knocking on the door?
Mr. LOGGINS: I'll tell them the same thing, that I wasn't there. And that's the truth. The Lord knows I wasn't there.
(Footage of Emmett Till's grave)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Five other black men, now dead, have also been implicated in some way in the abduction and murder of Emmett Till. If any of the allegations are true, the question is why.
Mr. BEAUCHAMP: Knowing now that black men could possibly have been involved, I just keep thinking, you know, about what could have been going through Emmett Till's mind, you know, seeing this.
BRADLEY: And how do you explain that? That we would turn on one of their own?
Mr. BEAUCHAMP: Well, we know that they--we believe that they were forced to participate in the crime. It was going to either be them or Emmett Till. It was shocking at first, because for so long you've heard, you know, white men were involved. And that's--that was it. It was a white and black thing. You couldn't help but, you know, be amazed.
(Footage of casket; Mose Wright; Milan and Bryant; Carolyn Bryant in court; front of Bryant's store; photo of Mose and Simeon Wright)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) It seems clear that black men were involved. Emmett till's late great uncle, Mose Wright, said there was a black man on the porch when J.W. Milan and Roy Bryant came to take Emmett Till. He also said he heard a woman's voice that night coming from a truck parked outside. He believed it was Roy Bryant's wife Carolyn, the woman Emmett Till had whistled at several days earlier inside her husband's grocery store in Money, Mississippi. Mose Wright's son, Simeon, Emmett's cousin, says his father told him the same thing.
Mr. WRIGHT: Oh, yes. It was another man standing on the porch my dad talked about it. There was another person in the truck, because when they marched Emmett out to the truck and they asked the person inside the truck, `Is this the one,' my dad say he heard a woman's voice identifying him as the boy that did the whistling.
BRADLEY: So that must have been Bryant's wife, Mrs. Bryant?
Mr. WRIGHT: At that time, we believed it was Bryant's wife. And after 48 and some-odd years, there's--nothing as arisen to dispel that belief.
(Footage of courthouse; FBI document; Carolyn Bryant; Bradley knocking on door, walking up driveway)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Apparently, the local authorities back then believed it, too, and, according to FBI communiques, issued an arrest warrant for Carolyn Bryant on suspicion of kidnapping. But she was never arrested or charged. Today, we've learned that Carolyn Bryant is a focus of the Justice Department's new investigation, suspected of having assisted her husband Roy and J.W. Milan in the abduction of Emmett Till. She was divorced in 1979, and has since remarried and moved several times. She had all but disappeared from public view until we found her, now age 70 and known as Carolyn Donham, living in Greenville, Mississippi.
While our cameraman was able to take these pictures of her, when I went to her house, she wouldn't answer the door. Moments later, her son, Frank Bryant, arrived, and we tried to talk to him.
Can we talk to Mrs. Donham?
Mr. BRYANT: You can talk to me.
BRADLEY: Can you get her to come out?
Mr. BRYANT: No.
BRADLEY: I have some questions I'd like to ask her about Emmett Till.
Mr. BRYANT: Emmett Till.
BRADLEY: Sorry.
Mr. BRYANT: That's too bad.
BRADLEY: Will she come out and talk to us?
Mr. BRYANT: What did I just tell you?
BRADLEY: Tell me again.
Mr. BRYANT: No.
BRADLEY: She won't.
Mr. BRYANT: No. Goodbye.
BRADLEY: I'm back?
Mr. BRYANT: I said goodbye.
BRADLEY: Goodbye?
Mr. BRYANT: Yes.
BRADLEY: You're leaving?
Mr. BRYANT: No, you are.
(Footage of Frank Bryant getting out of a truck and going inside his mother's home; Department of Justice building)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) We called the house later in the day and neither Frank Bryant nor his mother Carolyn would discuss the Emmett Till case any further. We've learned that the Justice Department could complete its investigation within a year, and criminal charges against at least five people could follow. But the Justice Department and the FBI decline to comment.
What would justice be in this case?
Sen. SCHUMER: In my opinion, there ought to be a full trial, and if there are convictions, even though the people are old who did it, they ought to go to jail.
(Footage of Simeon Wright and Wheeler Parker; photo of Emmett Till)
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) While that may finally bring a measure of justice to the family of Emmett Till, it also brings back the pain.
These memories are still sharp after 50 years.
Mr. WRIGHT: Oh, yes. They'll never go away. I'm still saying, how could that happen? Why would anyone hate anyone to beat him, to kill him and to torture him like that? How--how can a human being do that to another, all because of a whistle?
(Announcements)
