It was the shock heard around the world. The newspaper headlines only echoed the public outcry over that Sumner jury’s verdict. They told of one hundred thousand people who turned out across the country to protest, to demonstrate their outrage. New York Congressman Adam Clayton Powell called for an economic boycott of everything from the state of Mississippi. There were demands for antilynching legislation, the end to racial segregation, black voting rights. Some even suggested sending federal troops down to Mississippi. In Chicago, NAACP attorney William Henry Huff announced that he would file a civil suit against Roy Bryant, J. W. Milam, Carolyn Bryant, and Leslie Milam, seeking $400,000 in damages.
There were demonstrations as far away as France, where Josephine Baker led a protest rally. In Germany, an editorial writer commented that a black life in Mississippi wasn’t “worth a whistle.” Ten thousand people turned out at a rally in Chicago to hear journalist Simeon Booker and others. As many as sixty-five thousand people rallied in Detroit, where Congressman Charles Diggs and Medgar Evers talked about the trial. In Baltimore, nearly three thousand came to hear Dr. T.R.M. Howard. I was brought fresh from Mississippi to New York, where about fifteen thousand people came to a rally headed up by Roy Wilkins and A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
People were energized, they were angry. They were moved to action in ways they hadn’t been before. It had been a little more complicated sorting Supreme Court decisions, as people began to realize that “all deliberate speed” meant just the opposite of what it sounded like it meant. That took a little more thought.
The message of the Emmett Till story was a lot simpler. And it only took feeling. In New York and in so many other cities where I would appear, I spoke from the heart about what it meant to send a boy away on vacation and bring him home in a box. I spoke of what it meant to have to examine every inch of a body to even recognize it as a human being, let alone your own flesh and blood. I spoke about the pain a mother feels when she learns about the suffering of her baby. And I spoke about a murder trial that was really a farce. I spoke about Mississippi justice, where the laws seemed to be turned inside out. Where innocent people were punished and guilty people went free. I spoke about just how close Mississippi really was to Chicago and to New York. How I once had believed that the problems of the people of Mississippi and the rest of the South were not my problems. I knew better as a result of my great loss. As a people, we had to see that what happened to any of us, affected all of us. Which is why I urged people not to give up on our fight for justice, equal justice and equal rights. I had come to see that Emmett had died for a reason. That’s what I had learned from my own reflection, and from listening to all those dedicated black people back in Mississippi. I had come to realize that we had to work together to turn the sacrifice of Emmett’s life into some positive gain. As I had heard the NAACP leaders in Mississippi say, we, as a nation, had to work as hard at breaking through the “Cotton Curtain” of the Deep South as we were working at breaking through the Iron Curtain of Eastern Europe. I would not harbor any hatred toward whites. But I could no longer accept their hatred of me or black people. I had learned what their hatred had cost us. As important as anything else, of course, I urged people to contribute money to help finance the fight that we could see ahead of us.
Oh, and those contributions just rolled in. Thousands and thousands of dollars, I was told. It had started at Emmett’s funeral, when huge tubs of money were collected, as one minister had said, to help the NAACP. Rayfield Mooty had arranged other public appearances for me before the trial through his labor contacts and organizations. There was always a collection. At the rallies following the trial, tens of thousands of dollars were collected. NAACP membership also increased dramatically, I was told. As I understand, the organization had been strapped following the costly school desegregation fight. But following Emmett’s death and the trial, contributions would hit new highs.
Apart from the fund-raising, the New York stop had been important to me for another reason. That meeting with Roy Wilkins led to discussions about my public speaking. From the very beginning, it had been so hard for us to manage all the requests that came in. Rayfield Mooty had done a pretty good job with many of the early arrangements. But we would get so many more requests following the trial. And there were quite a few groups that would announce my appearance even when they had no confirmation, sometimes misrepresenting that I would appear when they had never contacted us.
Rayfield also was concerned about being able to screen the groups that were asking for appearances. There was so much concern back then about communism. I heard that J. Edgar Hoover said that I was a little “pink.” I didn’t even know what that meant when I first heard it. But it was chilling when I finally realized how even little things like that “Cotton Curtain” remark I would make in my speeches might be misconstrued in ways that could be used against me. And to think, if Mr. J. Edgar Hoover had spent more time trying to build a federal case against Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam, and less time trying to make Communists out of law-abiding citizens, then maybe there would have been at least two more cold-blooded killers taken off the streets. Anyway, with public appearances, we weren’t always sure when we’d get requests whether there was some connection that might have been embarrassing. We had to be careful. There was too much at stake.
Beyond all this, we had questions about what was going on behind the scenes of some of the events at which I was being asked to speak. We had been noticing that so much money was being collected through contributions at my early appearances; it was hard not to, with all the buckets and pails and tubs being passed around. But we weren’t sure exactly what was happening to all that money. We were blessed to have received enough to handle the funeral expenses for Emmett, and there were contributions to help with travel to Mississippi. But some people told us that so many thousands more had been collected to help the NAACP, and it wasn’t clear whether all that money was making its way to the organization. I remember one appearance I made at a large church in Detroit where people were just packed in like sardines in a can. They were even standing around outside, listening on loudspeakers. Great sums of money were collected there. I mean, when it came time for collection at this service, they didn’t pass the plate. They didn’t pass the bucket. They passed around big waste-baskets. I mean, garbage cans. And the people were filling them up. It was just amazing. After I finished my remarks, I asked to see the pastor, a prominent, respected man. I hadn’t seen him since I started speaking. I was told that he was indisposed, or something like that. But I kept insisting and finally barged into his office, just broke past the people out front, opened the door, and went in to find him standing there, putting on his suit coat. Well, on the desk between us there was a satchel, just sitting there wide open, filled to the brim with greenbacks. I mean, that bag was stuffed. My first thought was to wonder how on earth he would even get it closed. But it definitely looked like he was on his way out, and he was not leaving without that money. That church gave me $175 for my efforts that day. But I’ll never forget that satchel and I always wondered what happened after I left.
Now, that was only one situation I happened to see. People were telling me all the time about other cases much like that one. Money was being raised, money was being diverted. There were so many good people who wanted to help us back then, and organizations did all they could to make sure people’s intentions were fulfilled. But, obviously, there also were good reasons for us to raise questions about whether Emmett’s name was being used by some people for their own gain. During the murder trial, Ruby Hurley had issued a statement for the NAACP confirming that it had not participated in any fund-raising activities tied to Emmett’s death and that it had not received any funds that were collected. Well, you can just imagine how alarming that would be. So, there were many reasons for us to try to get some help in managing these public appearances. To make sure there was no overbooking, to make sure we were not being used by the wrong groups, and to make sure that the money would wind up at the NAACP, where it would do the most good.
Rayfield worked something out with A. Philip Randolph, who arranged a meeting with Roy Wilkins in New York. We met to discuss it all. Roy Wilkins seemed like a very serious and determined man, but different from the other NAACP people I had spent time with in Mississippi. He seemed cooler than people like Medgar Evers and Ruby Hurley, who were always so passionate about the work they were doing on the front lines. But, of course, they would be different. The frontline officers deal with people. The generals deal with battle plans. He had come up from the front lines, though. In fact, I had heard about the stirring address he had given at the funeral service for Reverend George Lee in Belzoni. But, unlike the people out in the field, Roy Wilkins had to think about an entire organization as well as all the people in it. He had to think about an agenda. He made that clear in our meeting. And it was with that in mind that he told me at first that he had reservations about working with us to manage a public speaking tour. He had been executive secretary for less than six months, but he had been in important positions at the NAACP for quite a few years before that. He said he felt that some people in the past had used the organization, only to abandon it once they had gotten what they wanted. We talked it through and told him that would never be the case with me. And, besides, we thought there would be benefits for the NAACP. There would be a chance to raise money and increase the NAACP’s membership at a time when the organization needed both. Finally, he agreed and we worked out the terms. I would receive a fee for speaking, and the NAACP would manage a tour that also would bring in contributions and memberships.
It seemed like a very good arrangement and I could move forward with peace of mind, not worrying about whether I was being used. There would be so many appearances over the coming weeks. It was important to me to be able to share my message with the huge crowds.
It had been awkward at first, being in the spotlight. My family had always had such a quiet, normal existence, and I had been so happy to lead an ordinary life. I didn’t ask for everything that was happening to me. Lord knows, I didn’t ask for any of it. But I acted on what I was given. There were decisions I had made without really thinking much about them at all. It had been as if something was working through me, guiding me through a mission I never would have recognized before. I had made a choice to share my loss with the public, to share my pain in a way that would energize and motivate people to take action.
This activity came with a price. Behind every public exposure, there was a flurry of telephone calls, letters. Thousands of letters. Some were very unkind, some even worse. It just brought on a whole lot of trauma, really. I kept going, because it was important. I felt that. But there was something else, something very personal about this public experience. I needed it. In so many ways I could never have explained back then, I needed to continue talking. I needed it so very much. I don’t know what I would have done if I had been all alone during this period or if I had tried right away to go back to the normal life I had always thought I would live. I doubt that I could have survived it all. There was just too much sorrow for one person to endure, too much pain for one person to absorb, too much anger for one person to express. So the crowds helped me get through it. They listened as I talked about Emmett and his trip and the brutal murder and the horrible injustice that I had suffered, that black people were suffering every day in so many ways. We connected. I talked, they listened. But, in a way, it was a dialogue. Just by being there, they were saying something to me. Something very important. They were saying that people cared about what had happened. That’s what I needed to know, especially after spending a week at the Sumner trial, where it didn’t seem that people cared at all. I am so thankful for the crowds that turned out to listen to me, and to communicate with me in the process. Indeed, they helped me find a reason to keep going. Talking helped me sort through the horror. The more I talked about it, the more relief I felt, relief from the agony. Something deep inside me was just boiling up, and if I hadn’t been able to talk about it, I would have exploded. I was getting it out. I was grieving by talking. In the process, I was finding my voice and finding some meaning. It was cathartic.
Papa Mose had lived in Mississippi all of his life and had never really wanted to live anywhere else. There had been a good crop that year. He had expected to pick about thirty bales of cotton. But now, with the help of Dr. Howard and Medgar Evers, he would leave. Aunt Lizzy had been begging him to do it, to join her in Chicago. The time had come, and he wouldn’t wait, couldn’t wait, until the end of the year to settle up. That’s how families had always done it before they left Mississippi for a better life up North. Wait until the end of the year, settle up, move in December or January. But Papa Mose was leaving even that behind, settling as best he could right then and there. He had survived the most difficult experience of his life, sold all his farm animals, given away his dog, Dallas, told his brother to pick up that forty-six Ford, the one with the stripped first gear, just pick it up at the train station, sell it. He would come back only one more time, in November, for the grand jury in Greenwood, the one that would consider indicting Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam for kidnapping.
Amanda Bradley had to flee to her mother’s house. Even there, she was not safe. A white mob came looking for her and she saved herself by hiding under her mother’s bed. The mob left, but not before warning Mandy’s mother that if they found her, she would never testify at another trial. She made sure they weren’t going to find her. She made her way to Mound Bayou and to Dr. Howard, who arranged to get her on a train to Chicago. She would have liked to have been able to settle up with Leslie Milam before she had to leave, before Milam evicted her husband, who stayed behind for a while. They had been sharecropping on the Sheridan Plantation for three years and had never done better than break even, she told the Chicago Defender. In fact, the year before, they wound up owing eleven dollars to Leslie Milam after it was all said and done. At least, according to his calculations. It was going to be hard in Chicago, but at least there was some hope. At least she was alive and could try to do better than just breaking even.
Willie Reed made a run for it. With only the clothes he was wearing, an extra pair of pants, and a coat, he traveled by foot about six miles to the special meeting place that had been set up. He was picked up and driven to Mound Bayou, where Dr. Howard arranged for his safe transit, too. Medgar Evers drove Willie and Congressman Diggs to Memphis, where they boarded a plane to Chicago. Willie would join his mother and other relatives. His grandfather Add Reed planned to stay in Mississippi, Willie told the Defender. His grandfather, like Uncle Crosby, was not afraid. There was only a small amount of relief for Willie when he arrived and was greeted by an uncle who would take him to his new home. His whole world had been set on edge and it was hard for him to feel at ease. He was still distracted by what he had left behind.
Willie and his uncle probably should have noticed the two men. After all, the men kind of stood out in that neighborhood. But they didn’t notice, not until they were noticed.
As Willie and his uncle made their way up the steps, they heard the voice. “Willie? Willie Reed?”
It was a moment of terror for Willie and his uncle. The people back in Mississippi had promised to get him out of danger. They had flown him all the way to Chicago to guarantee that he would not be harmed. They had promised he would be protected. When Willie and his uncle turned to see who was speaking, they were greeted by two plainclothes Chicago officers. The police would be assigned to protect Willie for the next couple of months.
For Willie, the relief would not last long, though. Soon, he was rushed to Michael Reese Hospital. He had suffered a nervous breakdown.
I also collapsed. The pressure had been incredible. I felt like I had been carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders and it was pure adrenaline that had helped me carry that weight. But it simply got to be too much for me. I was exhausted and had to be put under a doctor’s care.
So many lives were changed by what happened there in Tallahatchie County. In fact, the whole county went through changes. Nearly a quarter of the entire population had left by the end of the 1950s. But there was something else that was transforming.
I’m no historian. But you don’t have to be a historian to tell about the history you have lived. You just need a long memory. There are things that happened to me a long time ago that I will never forget. There are things that happened because of the things that happened to me that I will always consider.
There was no justice for me in Mississippi. Nothing about that trial was even remotely related to justice. I had a door slammed in my face. To add insult to injury, there were Southern papers and Southern politicians who had the nerve to suggest that things would have been different if we had kept our mouths shut. If only I hadn’t let the world see Emmett the way they had sent him home to me. If only the NAACP hadn’t demanded justice in a little country courthouse down there in Mississippi. If it hadn’t been for us, there could have been a different outcome in the murder trial of Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam. So, it was our fault, the “outside agitators.” But what did they base that opinion on? You didn’t have to look that far to find other cases where whites had gotten clean away with murder. In fact, the same week the Sumner jury acquitted Bryant and Milam, a grand jury in Brookhaven failed to indict any of the three white men accused of murdering Lamar Smith in broad daylight. No witnesses would come forward.
I never felt that I had done the wrong thing by exposing what was going on down there. And I never will. It was the outside agitators who revealed to the world, not only the injustice I had suffered, but also the unfairness blacks were suffering every single day of the year. Even so, it would take time for me to realize everything that had happened down there in Sumner, Mississippi. Those lawyers, J. J. Breland and John Whitten and the rest, hadn’t really defended Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam so much as they had defended a way of life. Tallahatchie County was like so many other places in the Delta. The places they had always been. Tallahatchie County had a population of eleven thousand whites and nineteen thousand blacks. Almost twice as many blacks as whites, but not a single black person in that entire county was registered to vote. It was only through intimidation that white folks were able to hold on to their power and all that their power brought them. That must have been clear to somebody like Sheriff H. C. Strider. I can’t imagine that he ever would have come into office if the black majority down there had just been allowed to vote. So, the last thing people like Breland and Whitten wanted was to have the spotlight shine on their dirty little secret, to have anyone coming in from the outside telling them they couldn’t do the only thing they were used to doing: stay in power.
That’s not to say that racism wasn’t a factor. The murder of my son, after all, was a hate crime. And the acquittal of Bryant and Milam had as much to do with racism as anything. That point would be made crystal clear in an unpublished master’s thesis produced in 1963 by Hugh Stephen Whitaker at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Whitaker was sixteen years old at the time of the murder trial. As a white Tallahatchie County resident, he was able to talk to a lot of the key people involved in the trial, including jurors, defense attorneys, and Special Prosecutor Robert Smith. What Whitaker found might shock some people, but it wouldn’t surprise those of us—the black reporters and civil rights workers and witnesses—who sat in that courtroom and felt the heat.
Whitaker would write that the defense team felt they had won the case once the jury was selected. They had relied on Strider and the newly elected sheriff, Harry Dogan, who would replace Strider. These men helped the defense lawyers screen prospective jurors, since these men knew just about everybody in the county. As a result, the defense team knew more about the jury than the prosecutors did. The jurors weren’t really affected at all by the pretrial publicity, according to Whitaker. And, even though the jurors had been instructed by the judge not to talk about the case with anyone, there were wide rumors around Sumner that they were contacted by members of the White Citizens Councils to vote “the right way.” Still, even this did not have an effect on them. In fact, the evidence didn’t move the jurors one way or the other. According to Whitaker’s interviews, they were unaffected by the evidence, by their peers, by the pressure of the press and the “outside agitators.” It was like they lived in a cocoon, insulated by their own racism. They had heard Carolyn Bryant’s fantastic account long before she gave it in court, long before that testimony made it around town on the rumor mill. Whitaker would write that the jurors didn’t doubt that Bryant and Milam had killed Emmett. They didn’t doubt that at all. The jurors heard one thing that was important to them, and that was a white woman’s claim that a black boy had insulted her. That was all they needed to hear. It was all they needed to know. In the end, according to Whitaker, it was all they would consider in making up their minds.
So it looks like the jury would have voted the same way even if the NAACP and I hadn’t made all that noise in the days and weeks leading up to the trial. The outcome would have been no different even if I had chosen to stay quiet, as thousands of other black people had done when their loved ones were lynched. But there would have been one very important difference if I had not done anything, or said anything about Emmett’s murder: No one else would have known about it, and no one else would have been moved to action because of it.
I had to consider all of that, as I went through the lineup of speaking appearances arranged by the NAACP that October. I was on the cusp of my thirty-fourth birthday, on the brink of being reborn. I had been so naive for so much of my life. I had lost my darling son and my own innocence all at the same time. But I hadn’t been alone. The entire country had been forced to open its eyes, too.
Emmett represented so many things to so many people. To Bryant and Milam, he had represented everything they had refused to recognize in black people. He was confident and self-assured, and he carried himself with a certain dignity they felt they had to beat down, beat back, beat to a bloody pulp. To little black children who gazed upon the images of my son in the pages of Jet magazine, Emmett was the face of a harsh reality that left no place to hide. To all black people, he was a reminder of the common problem we faced in this country, whether we lived in the North or the South. He was a unifying symbol. And his name would be spoken at so many rallies and fund-raisers and even in congressional hearings.
We were in the television age now, and the media had seen the light. Many of the reporters who covered that travesty in Mississippi had been awakened to the great social and legal injustices confronting us. These were hard things to forget. And injustice would be a recurring theme playing out in the months and years to come. Those people down there in Mississippi thought that they could stage-manage a trial, and force people to accept their warped version of reality. They thought wrong. Those lawyers down in Mississippi figured they had stopped the NAACP in its tracks. They miscalculated. They might have won a battle, but they were about to lose the war.
Things would never be the same again. No one could plead ignorance. Everyone had to take responsibility for what our society had become. Anybody who did anything to make it happen. Anybody who did nothing to stop it from happening. There could no longer be any innocent bystanders. For an entire nation, the murder of Emmett Till marked the death of innocence.