1
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
" I know the one thing that we did right 
was the day we started to fight. Keep

2
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
"your eyes on the prize. Hold on. Hold on.
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.."

3
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- On August 21st, 1955 two teenagers from 
Chicago boarded a train and traveled south

4
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
to visit family in Mississippi.

5
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- We was going down there to pick some 
(inaudible). I'd never picked any

6
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
(inaudible) before and I was looking 
to do that because I told my mother

7
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that I could pick 200 pounds 
and she told me I couldn't ,

8
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
you know.

9
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
So you usually go down there 
looking for a good time, you know.

10
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- For more than a year, racial tensions 
in the South had been higher than

11
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
usual. Since the Supreme Court
ruled in Brown Vs. Board of

12
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Education, that segregated 
schools were unconstitutional.

13
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
The decision touched a raw nerve 
in the white South and many

14
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
organized to preserve white supremacy.

15
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
For years groups like the Ku 
Klux Klan practiced terrorism.

16
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Despite national black protests, 
public murders of blacks were

17
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
common and the (inaudible) who 
committed them went unpunished.

18
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
In the previous seventy years, there had 
been more than five hundred documented

19
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
lynchings in Mississippi alone.

20
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Coming from Chicago, Curtis Jones 
and his cousin Emmett Till had little

21
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
sense of the world they were entering 
when they arrived in Money, Mississippi.

22
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Emmett Till at the time, he was fourteen 
years old, had just graduated out of

23
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
grammar school.

24
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
He had some picture of white kids 
that he had graduate from.

25
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
That was you know, female and male.

26
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
So he told the boys down there,
hey you know, (inaudible) the store.

27
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
So it must have been around about
maybe ten to twelve, you know

28
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
youngsters around there. That the 
girls was his girlfriend, you know.

29
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
So one of the local boys said
hey, there's a girl in that store

30
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
there.

31
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
He said " I bet you won't go in 
there and talk to her." You know.

32
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
So he went in there 
to get some candy.

33
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
So when he was leaving out the store,
after buying the candy, he told her

34
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
"Bye baby".

35
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And the next thing I know, one of the
boys came up to me and say, "Say man,

36
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
"you got a crazy cousin. He just went in 
there and said bye to that white woman."

37
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And that's when this man I was 
playing checkers with-this older

38
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
man- I guess he must have been around
about sixty or seventy. He jumps straight

39
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
up and say "Boy, say y'all about to get 
out of here, say that lady'll come out of

40
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
"that store and blow your brains off."

41
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- This is Moses Wright. I am 
the uncle of Emmitt Lewis Till.

42
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Sunday morning, about two-thirty, 
someone called at the door, and

43
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I said, "Who is it?' 
And he said "This

44
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
"is Mr.Bryant. I want to 
talk with you and the boy.

45
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And when I open this door,
that was a man standing with

46
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
pistol in one hand and a flashlight
in the other hand. And he asked me,

47
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
"Did I have two boys, that 
are from Chicago?"

48
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I told him, I have.

49
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And he said "I want it, I want the 
boy that done all that talk".

50
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Then marched him to the car, 
and they asked someone there

51
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
"Well this is the right boy?"
And the answer was "Yeah."

52
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And they drove toward Money.

53
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- Four days later, Emmitt Till's body 
was found in the Tallahatchie River.

54
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- His body was so badly damaged
that we couldn't hardy just tell

55
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
who he was. But he happened to 
have on a ring with his initial.

56
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And that set it up.

57
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- The body was shipped home,
back north to Chicago, where

58
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Mamie Till Bradley insisted 
on an open casket funeral.

59
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
"So all the world can see," she said.
"What they did to my boy."

60
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
“♪ (upbeat music) ♪”

61
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Jet Magazine showed Till's 
corpse. Beaten, mutilated,

62
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
shot through the head.

63
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
An entire generation of young,
black people would remember

64
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
the horror of that photo.

65
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
“♪ (somber music) ♪”

66
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Roy Bryant, husband of the woman
in the store. And J.W, MIlam, her

67
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
brother in law, were arrested 
for the murder of Emmitt Till.

68
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
The trial was held in 
nearby Sumner Mississippi.

69
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Black organizations like the NAACP and 
The Black Press worked especially hard.

70
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
To keep the case in the news, to make 
an example of southern racism for

71
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
the world.

72
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- I cover the courts in many 
areas of this country, but

73
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
the Till case was unbelievable.
I mean I just didn't get the sense

74
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
of being a courtroom.

75
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
It was, first place segregated.

76
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
The Black Press sat at a bridge table
far off from the court. And the

77
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
boys mother came down. 
They sat her there, at the

78
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
bridge table with us.

79
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- What do you intend to do here today?

80
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- To answer any questions that the 
attorneys might ask me to answer.

81
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- How do you think it's possible 
to be of help to them?

82
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- I don't know. I mean just by answering 
any questions that they ask me.

83
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- Do you have any evidence 
bearing on this case.

84
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- I do know that this is my son.

85
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- The defense argued that the body found
tied to the cotton gin fan in the river

86
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
was so disfigured that it could
not be identified as Emmett Till.

87
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
The trial took five long, hot days.

88
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
The prosecution star witness
was Till's uncle, Moses Wright,

89
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
who testified despite 
threats to his life.

90
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- He was called up on too.

91
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Could he see anybody in the courtroom
identified anybody in that courtroom

92
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that come to his house that night
and got the (inaudible) out.

93
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
He stood up and there was a
tension in the courtroom

94
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and he says in his broken language,
"Dar he."

95
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- Dar he. There he is.

96
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- I really didn't realize how brave
my grandfather Moss Wright was,

97
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
you know, but after I got older
I realized that he was a brave man.

98
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
He was a mighty brave man to
travel back down there, you know,

99
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
among all those hostile peoples
and testify, get up in court

100
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and point his finger at a white man 
and accuse him of murder.

101
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- As the trial ended, a defense lawyer
told the jury he was quote,

102
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
"Sure every last Anglo-Saxon one of you
has the courage to free these men."

103
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
It took the jury an hour to 
find the man not guilty.

104
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
(clapping and cheering)

105
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Months later, for a fee of $4,000,
Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam

106
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
told their story to reporter 
William Bradford Huie.

107
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- Milam was startled at the belligerent 
attitude or the fact that young Till

108
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
didn't appear to be afraid of him.

109
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
He'd gone and gotten him out of bed
and had him in the back of the truck

110
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and young Till never realized 
the danger he was in.

111
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I'm quite sure that he never thought
these two men would kill him.

112
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Or maybe he just in such a strange 
environment, he really just

113
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
doesn't know what he's up against.

114
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And it seems to the rational minded
today that it seems impossible

115
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that they could have killed him.

116
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
But (inaudible) looked up at me 
and said, "Well when he told me

117
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
"about this white girl he had he says
my friend this war's about done

118
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
"In now, he says, that's what we
have to fight to protect."

119
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I just looked at him and I said,
"Boy you ain't going to ever see

120
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
the sun come up again."

121
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- I believe that the whole 
United States is mourning with me.

122
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And if the death of my son could 
mean something to the other

123
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
unfortunate people all over the world
then for him to have died a hero

124
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
would mean more to me than
for him to have just died.

125
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
- The fact that the Emmett Till 
young Black man could be found

126
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
floating down the river in Mississippi
as indeed many had been done

127
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
over the years just set i concrete the
determination of people to move forward.