A First-Hand Account of Events Leading to the Murder of Emmett Till
The story of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old African American youth from Chicago who was murdered Aug. 1955 while visiting with relatives in Money, Miss., is one that for years haunted his family and the entire African American community and, some would say, helped galvanize the Civil Rights Movement.
Over the years, however, Till’s cousin, Simeon Wright said inaccurate accounts and information related by various individuals as to what occurred Aug. 24, 1955, the day Till entered the Bryant Grocery & Meat Market in Money, Miss., now exist as factual references in the annals of history.
Titled “Simeon’s Story: An Eyewitness Account of the Kidnapping of Emmett Till,” a compelling read, edited by author Herb Boyd, was written to dispel and correct the inaccuracies about what happened leading up to the day of, Aug. 28 at approximately 2:30 a.m. when Till was taken by two white men from the four-bedroom house where Wright and his family resided on Dark Fear Road and what occurred after Till’s murder.
When asked how his family coped with such a huge tragedy immediately following and the years after what Till’s murder, Wright, who was 13 years old at the time and shared a bed with Till, said “There was of course tremendous sadness and grief. When tragedy strikes, life goes on but not like before. I had never witnessed anything like this. My eyes had been opened to a new world. The greatest weight was when he was missing and we didn’t know where he was.”
In his book, Wright, recounts how the two white men Roy Bryant, husband of Carolyn Bryant—the woman at whom, Till whistled that day--and J. W. Milam, Bryant’s half-brother took Till from the home that early morning telling him to ‘get up and put his clothes on.’
Wrights’ account paints with chilling details--a picture of the terrible thing that happened to a young black boy is Mississippi.
Till arrived in Mississippi on Saturday, Aug. 20 happy and ready for whatever the Mississippi town had to offer in the way of fun.
“He was quite big for a 14-year-old. He must have weighed about 140 pounds and was a little over 5’6… I weighed about 90 pounds and was just 5’ tall,” Wright points out in his book.
According to Wright, on Wednesday, Aug. 24, there was no change in their established daily routine where Till stayed home from the cotton fields because he could not endure the hot Mississippi sun while the rest of the boys headed for the cotton patch.
“When we returned from another hard day in the field, Bobo again was jubilant…With the day behind us and dusk settling in, we all sat down to a scrumptious meal, exchanging stories about our time spent apart. Once more, to satisfy a restless Bobo (Till's nickname), we were going to go out.”
Six total, brothers, cousins and a neighbor drove to the Bryant store that day where Till ended up in the store alone for what Wright said was just a brief time, alone with Carolyn Bryant who was in her early 20s. He recounts that Till did nothing inappropriate such as grabbing the Bryant woman by the wrist or put his arms around her or asked her for a date—a story he said she later told the court.
“We had been outside the store only a few seconds when Mrs. Bryant came out behind us, heading straight to her car. As she walked, Bobo whistled at her. I think he wanted to get a laugh out of us or something. He was always joking around, and it was hard to tell when he was serious. It was a loud wolf whistle, a big-city “whee, wheeee! And it caught us all by surprise. We all looked at each other, realizing Bobo had violated a longstanding unwritten law, a social taboo about conduct between blacks and whites in the South. Suddenly we felt we were in danger...After seeing our fright, it slowly dawned on him that he’d done something wrong.”
After fleeing the scene, Wright said Till, asked the boys not to tell Wright’s dad, Moses Wright what happened and that they did not.
Till’s body was found Aug. 31 floating in the Tallahatchie River about twenty miles north of where the Wright family lived, near the town of Philipp in Tallahatchie County.
“It was devastating news to my family and me…For the first time in my life, I thought about shooting a gun at another person.”
Wright said after the trial where the two men were acquitted of murdering Till, he realized just how vulnerable he was living in the house on Dark Fear Road.
“Even my bedroom was not a safe haven, because killers had walked into it and snatched Bobo from us.”
The family moved away from the home to a Chicago suburb.
Haunted by that night’s horrific events, Wright questioned whether or not things would have turned out differently if they had told that Emmett whistled at the white woman.
Roy Bryant died of cancer Sept. 1, 1994 and J.W. Milam died of the same disease on Dec. 31, 1980. Carolyn Bryant is still alive according to Wright.
According to an FBI report, several people were listed as part of their investigation into Till’s murder, including: Roy Bryant; William Milam, also known as J.W. Milam; Leslie F. Milam; Melvin L. Campbell; Elmer O. Kimbrell; Hubert Clark; Levi Collins, also known as Too Tight Collins; Johnny B. Washington; and Otha Johnson, Jr.
Though it is in no way justice for Till and his family, President George W. Bush, Oct. 7, 2008, signed the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act into law.
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