Author, students study Emmett Till murder case

Intermountain Catholic

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Chris Crowe, a professor at Brigham Young University, talks to sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students about his book, ?Mississippi Trial 1955,? which tells the story of the Emmett Till murder case and its impact on civil rights. IC photo by Barbara S. Lee

SALT LAKE CITY — Emmett Louis "Bobo" Till was just 14 years old when he was kidnapped and brutally murdered in the small town of Money, Miss. Till, an African American, had been visiting his cousins in Money from his home in Chicago, when he, in a moment of boasting and on a dare, whistled at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant. His torture and murder at the hands of the woman’s husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, has been said by many to have been "one of the leading events that motivated the American Civil Rights movement," said Chris Crowe, author of "Mississippi Trial, 1955," a book of historical fiction based on the Till case.

Three days after the kidnapping, Till’s body was found in the Tallahatchie River, weighted down with a farming implement tied around Till’s neck with barbed wire.

Crowe spoke March 12 at Our Lady of Lourdes Elementary School in Salt Lake City, where sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students had just read "Mississippi Trial, 1955."

"I saw a special television show on the Emmett Till case, and I was shocked," Crowe said. "Why didn’t I know about this case? Emmett Till was tortured and murdered, and no one was punished for the crime. I wanted to know more."

Crowe said sometime after the trial, Life Magazine told the whole story. In 1956, Look also did a story in which both men confessed to the murder. According to Wikipedia, the two men were paid $4,000 for their story.

Strangely, the court transcripts for the Till case disappeared shortly after the trial. They were not found until 1962, when a student working on his thesis came up with the transcripts. His thesis, titled, "A Case Study in Southern Justice," can be found and read in its entirety on-line, Crowe said.

"The transcripts revealed that the local white sheriff arrested two white men, which was very unusual for the time," said Crowe. "Other people were involved whom I developed into a third man in my novel."

Crowe said the trial was nothing less than sensational. "People felt the entire Southern way of life was under attack. The fivedefenders of the people who killed Emmett Till were defending their way of life."

Crowe put the circumstances in the context of the times for the students, explaining that the Emmett Till case occurred shortly after the Brown vs. Board of Education case that resulted in the end of segregation in the public schools.

"Money Mississippi was a small town of about 70 people," he said. "I went back to find the store in which Carolyn Bryant worked, and I discovered that Money is a ghost town now."

Emmett Till’s story was kept alive all these years by his mother, Mamie Till Bradley, said Crowe. "She died in 2003, and her obituary retold the whole story. Here she was, a widow with one child – Emmett. When Emmett’s body was found, people wanted him buried quickly. But she insisted that his body be brought back to the Chicago area – this horrible, tortured, grotesque body – and she insisted on an open casket so people would see what the murderers had done to her son."

In December 1955, at the height of the Emmett Till case, Rosa Parks decided she was not going to sit in the back of the bus, Crowe said. "First, there was Brown (vs. the Board of Education), then the Emmett Till Case, then, Rosa Parks and the Montgomery (Ala.) bus boycott. Emmett Till lit the stage for Rosa Parks."

Crowe, who has two biracial children, said the students at Our Lady of Lourdes School are at just the right age to learn the Emmett Till story and to learn that it is not okay to treat people like second-class citizens.

After Till’s body was found, Bryant, J. W. Milam, and the police tried to convince people the body was not Till’s – that Bryant and Milam had kidnapped him, but had let him go. Till’s mother identified his body by a ring that used to be his father’s

"The trial of Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam was the trial no one thought would take place," Crowe said. "Of course, there was an all-white jury because in order to serve on a jury you had to be registered to vote, and African Americans were not allowed to vote."

The high point of the trial, Crowe said, "was when Emmett Till’s great-uncle, 64-year-oldMose Wright, from whose house Emmett had been kidnapped, stood up in the courtroom and pointed out the murderers."

The jury deliberated for just over an hour, Crowe said, before coming back with a verdict of not guilty. Months after their aquittal, knowing they could not be prosectuted again, the two confessed to the killing in Look Magazine.

"Emmett’s mother was from Mississippi," Crowe said. "She didn’t want Emmett to go to Money, and she cautioned him not to offend any white people. But Emmett was from the big city of Chicago. He found the tiny town of Money boring, and he’d bragged about all of the white friends he had in Chicago."

Crowe Showed slides of Emmett Till, his mother, and Carolyn Bryant (who is still alive). When he got to the slide of Emmett Till lying in his casket, his tortured body distorted and swollen, Crow said, "This is what racism means to me."