0:00:05.251,0:00:11.827 ♪ I know the one thing that we did right [br]was the day we started to fight ♪ 0:00:12.279,0:00:19.269 ♪ Keep your eyes on the prize.[br]Hold on. Hold on ♪ 0:00:19.269,0:00:26.412 ♪ Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on ♪ 0:00:29.508,0:00:33.218 ♪ (country music) ♪ 0:00:33.218,0:00:39.810 - On August 21st, 1955 two teenagers from [br]Chicago boarded a train and traveled south 0:00:39.810,0:00:42.138 to visit family in Mississippi. 0:00:42.858,0:00:45.488 - We was going down there[br]to pick some (inaudible). 0:00:45.488,0:00:49.275 I'd never picked any (inaudible) before[br]and I was looking to do that 0:00:49.275,0:00:52.516 because I told my mother[br]that I could pick 200 pounds 0:00:52.516,0:00:54.445 and she told me I couldn't, you know. 0:00:54.890,0:00:57.971 So you usually go down there [br]looking for a good time, you know. 0:00:58.413,0:01:02.420 - For more than a year, racial tensions [br]in the South had been higher than usual. 0:01:02.420,0:01:06.279 Since the Supreme Court ruled in[br]Brown v. Board of Education 0:01:06.279,0:01:09.661 that segregated schools[br]were unconstitutional. 0:01:16.250,0:01:18.788 The decision touched a raw nerve [br]in the white South 0:01:18.788,0:01:21.890 and many organized to preserve[br]white supremacy. 0:01:21.890,0:01:25.762 (applause) 0:01:28.634,0:01:32.598 For years groups like the Ku Klux Klan[br]practiced terrorism. 0:01:33.542,0:01:37.557 Despite national Black protests, [br]public murders of Blacks were common 0:01:37.557,0:01:40.207 and the mobs who committed them[br]went unpunished. 0:01:40.956,0:01:45.191 In the previous seventy years, there had [br]been more than five hundred documented 0:01:45.191,0:01:47.197 lynchings in Mississippi alone. 0:01:49.507,0:01:53.919 Coming from Chicago, Curtis Jones [br]and his cousin Emmett Till had little 0:01:53.919,0:01:57.705 sense of the world they were entering [br]when they arrived in Money, Mississippi. 0:01:57.705,0:02:02.902 Emmett Till at the time, he was fourteen [br]years old, had just graduated out of 0:02:02.902,0:02:04.049 grammar school. 0:02:04.049,0:02:08.630 He had some picture of white kids [br]that he had graduate from. 0:02:08.789,0:02:11.235 That was you know, female and male. 0:02:11.235,0:02:14.789 So he told the boys down there, [br]you know, that gather around the store 0:02:14.789,0:02:19.420 so they must have been around about[br]maybe ten to twelve, you know 0:02:19.420,0:02:23.589 youngsters around there. That the [br]girls was his girlfriend, you know. 0:02:23.589,0:02:28.458 So one of the local boys said[br]hey, there's a girl in that store there. 0:02:28.458,0:02:31.992 He said "I bet you won't go in [br]there and talk to her." 0:02:31.992,0:02:33.977 So he went in there [br]to get some candy. 0:02:33.977,0:02:38.604 So when he was leaving out the store,[br]after buying the candy, 0:02:38.604,0:02:40.675 he told her to say, "bye baby." 0:02:41.706,0:02:49.878 And the next thing I know, one of the boys[br]came up to me and said, "Say man, 0:02:49.878,0:02:55.241 "you got a crazy cousin. He just went in [br]there and said bye to that white woman." 0:02:56.213,0:03:01.259 And that's when this man I was [br]playing checkers with this older man, 0:03:01.259,0:03:03.777 I guess he must have been around[br]about sixty or seventy. 0:03:03.777,0:03:09.107 He jumps straight up and say[br]"Boy, say y'all about to get out of here, 0:03:09.107,0:03:13.010 "that lady will come out of that store[br]and blow your brains off." 0:03:13.010,0:03:17.001 ♪ (woman vocalizing)♪ 0:03:19.170,0:03:23.971 - This is Moses Wright. I am [br]the uncle of Emmitt Lewis Till. 0:03:24.454,0:03:30.898 Sunday morning, about two-thirty, [br]someone called at the door, 0:03:31.279,0:03:33.177 and I said, "Who is it?" 0:03:33.676,0:03:42.844 And he said "This is Mr. Bryant.[br]I want to talk with you and the boy." 0:03:43.935,0:03:49.790 And when I open this door,[br]that was a man standing with 0:03:49.790,0:03:57.268 a pistol in one hand and a flashlight[br]in the other hand. And he asked me, 0:03:57.268,0:04:01.788 "Did I have two boys, that [br]are from Chicago?" 0:04:02.408,0:04:03.694 I told him, I have. 0:04:04.256,0:04:08.624 And he said "I want it, I want the [br]boy that done all that talk". 0:04:08.624,0:04:13.971 Then marched him to the car, [br]and they asked someone there 0:04:13.971,0:04:18.028 "Well this is the right boy?"[br]And the answer was, "Yeah." 0:04:18.342,0:04:20.834 And they drove toward Money. 0:04:21.941,0:04:26.473 - Four days later, Emmitt Till's body [br]was found in the Tallahatchie River. 0:04:27.628,0:04:32.505 - His body was so badly damaged that[br]we couldn't hardy just tell who he was, 0:04:32.505,0:04:35.474 but he happened to have on[br]a ring with his initial. 0:04:36.136,0:04:37.591 And that cleared it up. 0:04:38.467,0:04:41.538 - The body was shipped home,[br]back north to Chicago, 0:04:41.538,0:04:45.225 where Mamie Till Bradley insisted [br]on an open casket funeral. 0:04:45.819,0:04:50.109 "So all the world can see," she said,[br]"what they did to my boy." 0:04:50.109,0:05:21.401 ♪ (somber music) ♪ 0:05:21.401,0:05:23.604 Jet Magazine showed Till's corpse. 0:05:23.748,0:05:27.266 Beaten, mutilated, shot through the head. 0:05:29.200,0:05:32.251 An entire generation of young,[br]Black people would remember 0:05:32.251,0:05:34.073 the horror of that photo. 0:05:34.073,0:05:48.574 ♪ (somber music) ♪ 0:05:50.336,0:05:54.424 Roy Bryant, husband of the woman[br]in the store and J.W, Milam, 0:05:54.424,0:05:58.084 her brother in law, were arrested[br]for the murder of Emmitt Till. 0:05:58.391,0:06:01.235 The trial was held in [br]nearby Sumner, Mississippi. 0:06:03.547,0:06:08.203 Black organizations like the NAACP and [br]The Black Press worked especially hard 0:06:08.203,0:06:10.891 to keep the case in the news, [br]to make an example of 0:06:10.891,0:06:13.085 southern racism for the world. 0:06:16.055,0:06:20.368 - I cover the courts in many [br]areas of this country, but 0:06:20.368,0:06:26.346 the Till case was unbelievable.[br]I mean I just didn't get the sense 0:06:26.346,0:06:28.492 of being a courtroom. 0:06:29.192,0:06:32.330 It was, first place segregated. 0:06:33.330,0:06:40.832 The Black Press sat at a bridge table[br]far off from the court and 0:06:40.832,0:06:44.486 the boy's mother came down. [br]They sat her there, 0:06:44.486,0:06:46.278 at the bridge table with us. 0:06:47.530,0:06:49.937 - What do you intend to do here today? 0:06:50.497,0:06:55.486 - To answer any questions that the [br]attorneys might ask me to answer. 0:06:56.810,0:06:59.395 - How do you think it's possible [br]to be of help to them? 0:06:59.395,0:07:04.090 - I don't know. I mean just by answering [br]any questions that they ask me. 0:07:05.566,0:07:07.891 - Do you have any evidence [br]bearing on this case. 0:07:09.588,0:07:12.049 - I do know that this is my son. 0:07:14.855,0:07:18.830 - The defense argued that the body found[br]tied to the cotton gin fan in the river 0:07:18.830,0:07:22.154 was so disfigured that it could[br]not be identified as Emmett Till. 0:07:23.824,0:07:26.771 The trial took five long, hot days. 0:07:27.078,0:07:30.703 The prosecution star witness[br]was Till's uncle, Moses Wright, 0:07:30.703,0:07:33.441 who testified despite [br]threats to his life. 0:07:34.268,0:07:36.433 - He was called up on too. 0:07:37.608,0:07:43.483 Could he see anybody in the courtroom[br]identified anybody in that courtroom 0:07:43.483,0:07:47.794 that come to his house that night[br]and got the Emmett Till out. 0:07:48.734,0:07:53.209 He stood up and there was[br]a tension in the courtroom 0:07:53.209,0:07:56.712 and he says in his broken language,[br]"Dar he." 0:07:58.234,0:08:00.346 - Dar he. There he is. 0:08:01.236,0:08:06.962 - I really didn't realize how brave[br]my grandfather Moss Wright was, 0:08:06.962,0:08:12.699 but after I got older I realized[br]that he was a brave man. 0:08:12.699,0:08:17.583 He was a mighty brave man to[br]travel back down there, you know, 0:08:17.583,0:08:22.962 among all those hostile peoples[br]and testify, get up in court 0:08:22.962,0:08:27.941 and point his finger at a white man [br]and accuse him of murder. 0:08:28.582,0:08:32.795 - As the trial ended, a defense lawyer[br]told the jury he was quote, 0:08:32.795,0:08:38.016 "Sure every last Anglo-Saxon one of you[br]has the courage to free these men." 0:08:43.030,0:08:45.676 It took the jury an hour to [br]find the men not guilty. 0:08:45.676,0:08:51.673 (clapping and cheering) 0:08:51.673,0:08:56.785 Months later, for a fee of $4,000,[br]Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam 0:08:56.785,0:09:00.124 told their story to reporter [br]William Bradford Huie. 0:09:02.042,0:09:10.017 - Milam was startled at the belligerent [br]attitude or the fact that young Till 0:09:10.017,0:09:11.736 didn't appear to be afraid of him. 0:09:12.367,0:09:15.881 He'd gone and gotten him out of bed[br]and had him in the back of the truck 0:09:16.352,0:09:20.589 and young Till never realized [br]the danger he was in. 0:09:20.589,0:09:24.123 I'm quite sure that he never thought[br]these two men would kill him. 0:09:26.099,0:09:28.839 Or maybe he just in such[br]a strange environment, 0:09:28.839,0:09:31.635 he really just doesn't know[br]what he's up against. 0:09:32.304,0:09:35.705 And it seems to the rational mind[br]today that it seems impossible 0:09:35.705,0:09:37.344 that they could have killed him. 0:09:38.061,0:09:42.862 But J. W. Milam looked up at me [br]and said, well when he told me 0:09:42.862,0:09:47.964 about this white girl he had he says,[br]"My friend this war's about done in now," 0:09:47.964,0:09:50.235 he says, "that's what we have[br]to fight to protect." 0:09:50.535,0:09:53.608 And he says, I just looked at him [br]and I said, "Boy you ain't 0:09:53.608,0:09:56.254 "going to ever see the sun come up again." 0:09:57.455,0:10:01.371 - I believe that the whole [br]United States is mourning with me. 0:10:01.371,0:10:05.092 And if the death of my son could [br]mean something to the other 0:10:05.092,0:10:10.764 unfortunate people all over the world[br]then for him to have died a hero 0:10:10.764,0:10:14.313 would mean more to me than[br]for him to have just died. 0:10:14.551,0:10:17.908 - The fact that the Emmett Till [br]young Black man could be found 0:10:17.908,0:10:23.004 floating down the river in Mississippi as[br]indeed many had been done over the years, 0:10:24.759,0:10:28.317 just set in concrete the determination[br]of people to move forward.