9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 " I know the one thing that we did right [br]was the day we started to fight. Keep 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "your eyes on the prize. Hold on. Hold on.[br]Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - On August 21st, 1955 two teenagers from [br]Chicago boarded a train and traveled south 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to visit family in Mississippi. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - We was going down there to pick some [br](inaudible). I'd never picked any 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (inaudible) before and I was looking [br]to do that because I told my mother 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that I could pick 200 pounds [br]and she told me I couldn't , 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you know. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So you usually go down there [br]looking for a good time, you know. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - For more than a year, racial tensions [br]in the South had been higher than 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 usual. Since the Supreme Court[br]ruled in Brown Vs. Board of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Education, that segregated [br]schools were unconstitutional. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The decision touched a raw nerve [br]in the white South and many 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 organized to preserve white supremacy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For years groups like the Ku [br]Klux Klan practiced terrorism. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Despite national black protests, [br]public murders of blacks were 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 common and the (inaudible) who [br]committed them went unpunished. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In the previous seventy years, there had [br]been more than five hundred documented 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 lynchings in Mississippi alone. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Coming from Chicago, Curtis Jones [br]and his cousin Emmett Till had little 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 sense of the world they were entering [br]when they arrived in Money, Mississippi. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Emmett Till at the time, he was fourteen [br]years old, had just graduated out of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 grammar school. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He had some picture of white kids [br]that he had graduate from. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That was you know, female and male. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So he told the boys down there,[br]hey you know, (inaudible) the store. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So it must have been around about[br]maybe ten to twelve, you know 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 youngsters around there. That the [br]girls was his girlfriend, you know. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So one of the local boys said[br]hey, there's a girl in that store 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 there. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He said " I bet you won't go in [br]there and talk to her." You know. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So he went in there [br]to get some candy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So when he was leaving out the store,[br]after buying the candy, he told her 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "Bye baby". 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And the next thing I know, one of the[br]boys came up to me and say, "Say man, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "you got a crazy cousin. He just went in [br]there and said bye to that white woman." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And that's when this man I was [br]playing checkers with-this older 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 man- I guess he must have been around[br]about sixty or seventy. He jumps straight 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 up and say "Boy, say y'all about to get [br]out of here, say that lady'll come out of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "that store and blow your brains off." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - This is Moses Wright. I am [br]the uncle of Emmitt Lewis Till. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Sunday morning, about two-thirty, [br]someone called at the door, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I said, "Who is it?' [br]And he said "This 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "is Mr.Bryant. I want to [br]talk with you and the boy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And when I open this door,[br]that was a man standing with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 pistol in one hand and a flashlight[br]in the other hand. And he asked me, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "Did I have two boys, that [br]are from Chicago?" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I told him, I have. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And he said "I want it, I want the [br]boy that done all that talk". 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Then marched him to the car, [br]and they asked someone there 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "Well this is the right boy?"[br]And the answer was "Yeah." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And they drove toward Money. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - Four days later, Emmitt Till's body [br]was found in the Tallahatchie River. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - His body was so badly damaged[br]that we couldn't hardy just tell 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who he was. But he happened to [br]have on a ring with his initial. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And that set it up. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - The body was shipped home,[br]back north to Chicago, where 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Mamie Till Bradley insisted [br]on an open casket funeral. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "So all the world can see," she said.[br]"What they did to my boy." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 “♪ (upbeat music) ♪” 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Jet Magazine showed Till's [br]corpse. Beaten, mutilated, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 shot through the head. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 An entire generation of young,[br]black people would remember 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the horror of that photo. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 “♪ (somber music) ♪” 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Roy Bryant, husband of the woman[br]in the store. And J.W, MIlam, her 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 brother in law, were arrested [br]for the murder of Emmitt Till. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The trial was held in [br]nearby Sumner Mississippi. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Black organizations like the NAACP and [br]The Black Press worked especially hard. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 To keep the case in the news, to make [br]an example of southern racism for 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - I cover the courts in many [br]areas of this country, but 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the Till case was unbelievable.[br]I mean I just didn't get the sense 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of being a courtroom. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It was, first place segregated. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The Black Press sat at a bridge table[br]far off from the court. And the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 boys mother came down. [br]They sat her there, at the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 bridge table with us. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - What do you intend to do here today? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - To answer any questions that the [br]attorneys might ask me to answer. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - How do you think it's possible [br]to be of help to them?