1 00:00:05,551 --> 00:00:12,827 " I know the one thing that we did right was the day we started to fight. Keep 2 00:00:12,827 --> 00:00:26,350 "your eyes on the prize. Hold on. Hold on. Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.." 3 00:00:33,445 --> 00:00:40,107 - On August 21st, 1955 two teenagers from Chicago boarded a train and traveled south 4 00:00:40,107 --> 00:00:42,138 to visit family in Mississippi. 5 00:00:42,858 --> 00:00:46,368 - We was going down there to pick some (inaudible). I'd never picked any 6 00:00:46,368 --> 00:00:50,281 (inaudible) before and I was looking to do that because I told my mother 7 00:00:50,281 --> 00:00:53,541 that I could pick 200 pounds and she told me I couldn't, 8 00:00:53,541 --> 00:00:54,445 you know. 9 00:00:54,890 --> 00:00:57,971 So you usually go down there looking for a good time, you know. 10 00:00:58,413 --> 00:01:02,420 - For more than a year, racial tensions in the South had been higher than 11 00:01:02,420 --> 00:01:06,279 usual. Since the Supreme Court ruled in Brown Vs. Board of 12 00:01:06,279 --> 00:01:09,661 Education, that segregated schools were unconstitutional. 13 00:01:16,370 --> 00:01:19,358 The decision touched a raw nerve in the white South and many 14 00:01:19,358 --> 00:01:21,890 organized to preserve white supremacy. 15 00:01:28,634 --> 00:01:32,598 For years groups like the Ku Klux Klan practiced terrorism. 16 00:01:33,687 --> 00:01:37,396 Despite national Black protests, public murders of Blacks were 17 00:01:37,396 --> 00:01:40,207 common and the mobs who committed them went unpunished. 18 00:01:41,322 --> 00:01:45,299 In the previous seventy years, there had been more than five hundred documented 19 00:01:45,299 --> 00:01:47,197 lynchings in Mississippi alone. 20 00:01:49,719 --> 00:01:53,919 Coming from Chicago, Curtis Jones and his cousin Emmett Till had little 21 00:01:53,919 --> 00:01:57,705 sense of the world they were entering when they arrived in Money, Mississippi. 22 00:01:57,705 --> 00:02:02,902 Emmett Till at the time, he was fourteen years old, had just graduated out of 23 00:02:02,902 --> 00:02:04,049 grammar school. 24 00:02:04,049 --> 00:02:08,789 He had some picture of white kids that he had graduate from. 25 00:02:08,789 --> 00:02:11,235 That was you know, female and male. 26 00:02:11,235 --> 00:02:14,789 So he told the boys down there, you know, that gather around the store 27 00:02:14,789 --> 00:02:19,420 so they must have been around about maybe ten to twelve, you know 28 00:02:19,420 --> 00:02:23,589 youngsters around there. That the girls was his girlfriend, you know. 29 00:02:23,589 --> 00:02:28,458 So one of the local boys said hey, there's a girl in that store there. 30 00:02:28,458 --> 00:02:31,992 He said " I bet you won't go in there and talk to her." You know. 31 00:02:31,992 --> 00:02:33,977 So he went in there to get some candy. 32 00:02:33,977 --> 00:02:39,536 So when he was leaving out the store, after buying the candy, he told her 33 00:02:39,536 --> 00:02:40,675 "Bye baby". 34 00:02:41,706 --> 00:02:49,878 And the next thing I know, one of the boys came up to me and say, "Say man, 35 00:02:49,878 --> 00:02:55,241 "you got a crazy cousin. He just went in there and said bye to that white woman." 36 00:02:56,213 --> 00:03:01,370 And that's when this man I was playing checkers with-this older 37 00:03:01,370 --> 00:03:04,584 man- I guess he must have been around about sixty or seventy. He jumps straight 38 00:03:04,584 --> 00:03:10,696 up and say "Boy, say y'all about to get out of here, say that lady'll come out of 39 00:03:10,696 --> 00:03:13,010 "that store and blow your brains off." 40 00:03:19,409 --> 00:03:24,454 - This is Moses Wright. I am the uncle of Emmitt Lewis Till. 41 00:03:24,454 --> 00:03:31,931 Sunday morning, about two-thirty, someone called at the door, and 42 00:03:31,931 --> 00:03:35,293 I said, "Who is it?' And he said "This 43 00:03:35,293 --> 00:03:43,202 "is Mr. Bryant. I want to talk with you and the boy. 44 00:03:43,935 --> 00:03:50,336 And when I open this door, that was a man standing with 45 00:03:50,336 --> 00:03:57,994 a pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other hand. And he asked me, 46 00:03:57,994 --> 00:04:02,408 "Did I have two boys, that are from Chicago?" 47 00:04:02,408 --> 00:04:04,256 I told him, I have. 48 00:04:04,256 --> 00:04:08,624 And he said "I want it, I want the boy that done all that talk". 49 00:04:08,624 --> 00:04:13,971 Then marched him to the car, and they asked someone there 50 00:04:13,971 --> 00:04:18,342 "Well this is the right boy?" And the answer was, "Yeah." 51 00:04:18,342 --> 00:04:20,834 And they drove toward Money. 52 00:04:21,941 --> 00:04:26,473 - Four days later, Emmitt Till's body was found in the Tallahatchie River. 53 00:04:27,676 --> 00:04:32,073 - His body was so badly damaged that we couldn't hardy just tell 54 00:04:32,073 --> 00:04:36,136 who he was. But he happened to have on a ring with his initial. 55 00:04:36,136 --> 00:04:37,591 And that set it up. 56 00:04:38,467 --> 00:04:41,967 - The body was shipped home, back north to Chicago, where 57 00:04:41,967 --> 00:04:45,225 Mamie Till Bradley insisted on an open casket funeral. 58 00:04:45,819 --> 00:04:50,109 "So all the world can see," she said, "what they did to my boy." 59 00:04:50,109 --> 00:05:21,401 ♪ (somber music) ♪ 60 00:05:21,401 --> 00:05:25,494 Jet Magazine showed Till's corpse. Beaten, mutilated, 61 00:05:25,494 --> 00:05:27,266 shot through the head. 62 00:05:29,438 --> 00:05:32,433 An entire generation of young, Black people would remember 63 00:05:32,433 --> 00:05:34,073 the horror of that photo. 64 00:05:34,073 --> 00:05:48,574 ♪ (somber music) ♪ 65 00:05:50,336 --> 00:05:54,665 Roy Bryant, husband of the woman in the store and J.W, Milam, her 66 00:05:54,665 --> 00:05:57,952 brother in law, were arrested for the murder of Emmitt Till. 67 00:05:58,391 --> 00:06:01,467 The trial was held in nearby Sumner, Mississippi. 68 00:06:03,547 --> 00:06:08,581 Black organizations like the NAACP and The Black Press worked especially hard 69 00:06:08,581 --> 00:06:11,059 to keep the case in the news, to make an example of 70 00:06:11,059 --> 00:06:13,085 southern racism for the world. 71 00:06:16,055 --> 00:06:20,368 - I cover the courts in many areas of this country, but 72 00:06:20,368 --> 00:06:26,346 the Till case was unbelievable. I mean I just didn't get the sense 73 00:06:26,346 --> 00:06:28,727 of being a courtroom. 74 00:06:29,192 --> 00:06:32,330 It was, first place segregated. 75 00:06:33,330 --> 00:06:41,373 The Black Press sat at a bridge table far off from the court and 76 00:06:41,373 --> 00:06:44,830 the boy's mother came down. They sat her there, at the 77 00:06:44,830 --> 00:06:46,278 bridge table with us. 78 00:06:47,530 --> 00:06:49,937 - What do you intend to do here today? 79 00:06:50,497 --> 00:06:55,486 - To answer any questions that the attorneys might ask me to answer. 80 00:06:57,070 --> 00:06:59,395 - How do you think it's possible to be of help to them? 81 00:06:59,395 --> 00:07:04,090 - I don't know. I mean just by answering any questions that they ask me. 82 00:07:05,566 --> 00:07:07,891 - Do you have any evidence bearing on this case. 83 00:07:09,588 --> 00:07:12,049 - I do know that this is my son. 84 00:07:14,911 --> 00:07:18,830 - The defense argued that the body found tied to the cotton gin fan in the river 85 00:07:18,830 --> 00:07:22,267 was so disfigured that it could not be identified as Emmett Till. 86 00:07:24,114 --> 00:07:27,078 The trial took five long, hot days. 87 00:07:27,078 --> 00:07:30,703 The prosecution star witness was Till's uncle, Moses Wright, 88 00:07:30,703 --> 00:07:33,441 who testified despite threats to his life. 89 00:07:34,268 --> 00:07:36,433 - He was called up on too. 90 00:07:37,608 --> 00:07:43,483 Could he see anybody in the courtroom identified anybody in that courtroom 91 00:07:43,483 --> 00:07:47,794 that come to his house that night and got the Emmett Till out. 92 00:07:49,032 --> 00:07:53,397 He stood up and there was a tension in the courtroom 93 00:07:53,397 --> 00:07:56,861 and he says in his broken language, "Dar he." 94 00:07:58,234 --> 00:08:00,346 - Dar he. There he is. 95 00:08:01,547 --> 00:08:07,107 - I really didn't realize how brave my grandfather Moss Wright was, 96 00:08:07,107 --> 00:08:13,053 you know, but after I got older I realized that he was a brave man. 97 00:08:13,053 --> 00:08:17,583 He was a mighty brave man to travel back down there, you know, 98 00:08:17,583 --> 00:08:22,962 among all those hostile peoples and testify, get up in court 99 00:08:22,962 --> 00:08:27,941 and point his finger at a white man and accuse him of murder. 100 00:08:28,906 --> 00:08:33,205 - As the trial ended, a defense lawyer told the jury he was quote, 101 00:08:33,205 --> 00:08:38,016 "Sure every last Anglo-Saxon one of you has the courage to free these men." 102 00:08:43,030 --> 00:08:46,129 It took the jury an hour to find the men not guilty. 103 00:08:46,129 --> 00:08:51,673 (clapping and cheering) 104 00:08:51,673 --> 00:08:56,927 Months later, for a fee of $4,000, Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam 105 00:08:56,927 --> 00:09:00,124 told their story to reporter William Bradford Huie. 106 00:09:02,135 --> 00:09:10,017 - Milam was startled at the belligerent attitude or the fact that young Till 107 00:09:10,017 --> 00:09:11,884 didn't appear to be afraid of him. 108 00:09:12,367 --> 00:09:15,881 He'd gone and gotten him out of bed and had him in the back of the truck 109 00:09:16,352 --> 00:09:20,874 and young Till never realized the danger he was in. 110 00:09:20,874 --> 00:09:24,123 I'm quite sure that he never thought these two men would kill him. 111 00:09:26,099 --> 00:09:29,487 Or maybe he just in such a strange environment, he really just 112 00:09:29,487 --> 00:09:31,635 doesn't know what he's up against. 113 00:09:32,409 --> 00:09:35,705 And it seems to the rational mind today that it seems impossible 114 00:09:35,705 --> 00:09:37,344 that they could have killed him. 115 00:09:38,061 --> 00:09:42,862 But J. W. Milam looked up at me and said, well when he told me 116 00:09:42,862 --> 00:09:47,632 about this white girl he had he says, "My friend this war's about done 117 00:09:47,632 --> 00:09:50,040 in now," he says, "that's what we have to fight to protect." 118 00:09:50,535 --> 00:09:53,800 And he says, I just looked at him and I said, "Boy you ain't 119 00:09:53,800 --> 00:09:56,540 going to ever see the sun come up again." 120 00:09:57,760 --> 00:10:01,371 - I believe that the whole United States is mourning with me. 121 00:10:01,371 --> 00:10:05,092 And if the death of my son could mean something to the other 122 00:10:05,092 --> 00:10:10,764 unfortunate people all over the world then for him to have died a hero 123 00:10:10,764 --> 00:10:14,313 would mean more to me than for him to have just died. 124 00:10:14,695 --> 00:10:17,908 - The fact that the Emmett Till young Black man could be found 125 00:10:17,908 --> 00:10:22,271 floating down the river in Mississippi as indeed many had been done 126 00:10:22,271 --> 00:10:28,317 over the years just set in concrete the determination of people to move forward.