WEBVTT

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" I know the one thing that we did right 
was the day we started to fight. Keep

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"your eyes on the prize. Hold on. Hold on.
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.."

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- On August 21st, 1955 two teenagers from 
Chicago boarded a train and traveled south

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to visit family in Mississippi.

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- We was going down there to pick some 
(inaudible). I'd never picked any

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(inaudible) before and I was looking 
to do that because I told my mother

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that I could pick 200 pounds 
and she told me I couldn't ,

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you know.

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So you usually go down there 
looking for a good time, you know.

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- For more than a year, racial tensions 
in the South had been higher than

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usual. Since the Supreme Court
ruled in Brown Vs. Board of

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Education, that segregated 
schools were unconstitutional.

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The decision touched a raw nerve 
in the white South and many

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organized to preserve white supremacy.

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For years groups like the Ku 
Klux Klan practiced terrorism.

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Despite national black protests, 
public murders of blacks were

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common and the (inaudible) who 
committed them went unpunished.

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In the previous seventy years, there had 
been more than five hundred documented

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lynchings in Mississippi alone.

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Coming from Chicago, Curtis Jones 
and his cousin Emmett Till had little

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sense of the world they were entering 
when they arrived in Money, Mississippi.

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Emmett Till at the time, he was fourteen 
years old, had just graduated out of

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grammar school.

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He had some picture of white kids 
that he had graduate from.

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That was you know, female and male.

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So he told the boys down there,
hey you know, (inaudible) the store.

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So it must have been around about
maybe ten to twelve, you know

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youngsters around there. That the 
girls was his girlfriend, you know.

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So one of the local boys said
hey, there's a girl in that store

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there.

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He said " I bet you won't go in 
there and talk to her." You know.

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So he went in there 
to get some candy.

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So when he was leaving out the store,
after buying the candy, he told her

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"Bye baby".

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And the next thing I know, one of the
boys came up to me and say, "Say man,

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"you got a crazy cousin. He just went in 
there and said bye to that white woman."

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And that's when this man I was 
playing checkers with-this older

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man- I guess he must have been around
about sixty or seventy. He jumps straight

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up and say "Boy, say y'all about to get 
out of here, say that lady'll come out of

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"that store and blow your brains off."

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- This is Moses Wright. I am 
the uncle of Emmitt Lewis Till.

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Sunday morning, about two-thirty, 
someone called at the door, and

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I said, "Who is it?' 
And he said "This

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"is Mr.Bryant. I want to 
talk with you and the boy.

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And when I open this door,
that was a man standing with

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pistol in one hand and a flashlight
in the other hand. And he asked me,

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"Did I have two boys, that 
are from Chicago?"

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I told him, I have.

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And he said "I want it, I want the 
boy that done all that talk".

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Then marched him to the car, 
and they asked someone there

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"Well this is the right boy?"
And the answer was "Yeah."

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And they drove toward Money.

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- Four days later, Emmitt Till's body 
was found in the Tallahatchie River.

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- His body was so badly damaged
that we couldn't hardy just tell

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who he was. But he happened to 
have on a ring with his initial.

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And that set it up.

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- The body was shipped home,
back north to Chicago, where

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Mamie Till Bradley insisted 
on an open casket funeral.

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"So all the world can see," she said.
"What they did to my boy."

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“♪ (upbeat music) ♪”

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Jet Magazine showed Till's 
corpse. Beaten, mutilated,

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shot through the head.

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An entire generation of young,
black people would remember

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the horror of that photo.

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“♪ (somber music) ♪”

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Roy Bryant, husband of the woman
in the store. And J.W, MIlam, her

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brother in law, were arrested 
for the murder of Emmitt Till.

NOTE Paragraph

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The trial was held in 
nearby Sumner Mississippi.

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Black organizations like the NAACP and 
The Black Press worked especially hard.

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To keep the case in the news, to make 
an example of southern racism for

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the world.

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- I cover the courts in many 
areas of this country, but

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the Till case was unbelievable.
I mean I just didn't get the sense

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of being a courtroom.

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It was, first place segregated.

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The Black Press sat at a bridge table
far off from the court. And the

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boys mother came down. 
They sat her there, at the

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bridge table with us.

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- What do you intend to do here today?

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- To answer any questions that the 
attorneys might ask me to answer.

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- How do you think it's possible 
to be of help to them?

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- I don't know. I mean just by answering 
any questions that they ask me.

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- Do you have any evidence 
bearing on this case.

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- I do know that this is my son.

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- The defense argued that the body found
tied to the cotton gin fan in the river

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was so disfigured that it could
not be identified as Emmett Till.

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The trial took five long, hot days.

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The prosecution star witness
was Till's uncle, Moses Wright,

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who testified despite 
threats to his life.

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- He was called up on too.

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Could he see anybody in the courtroom
identified anybody in that courtroom

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that come to his house that night