What Really Happened in the Bryant Grocery and Meat Market between Emmett till and Carolyn Bryant - Essay Example

? What Really Happened in the Bryant Grocery and Meat Market Between Emmett Till and Carolyn Bryant Word Count: 2075 (8 pages) I. Introduction Here, three major components of the Emmett Till murder that will be discussed are: what allegedly happened inside the Bryant Grocery and Meat market in Money, Mississippi on the evening of August 24, 1955; more specifically, what Emmett Till did to Carolyn Bryant that led to his kidnapping and murder; and finally, the aftermath of the Emmett Till murder. What makes the crime of Emmett Till’s murder so brutal is not only what was done to his body, but what was done to his soul—how his spirit was snuffed out like a light under a bushel, and all because Emmett Till was simply a Black boy in the wrong place at the wrong time. II. What Happened At the Bryant Grocery and Meat Market Emmett Till, a young, 14-year-old African-American youth, really wanted to go down South to Money, Mississippi, where Jim Crow laws were still in full effect in August of 1955. Emmett was from Chicago, in the North, where there was less discrimination—and the Jim Crow laws were not applied as harshly even though they were federal law. Emmett apparently insisted upon going to Mississippi to visit his cousins, even though Mamie Till-Mobley was dead-set against it (Till-Mobley and Benson 2004, 99). When Emmett and his family members pulled up to the Bryant Grocery and Meat Market that fateful day in August of 1955, there was an encounter between the teenager Emmett Till and Carolyn Bryant—the 21-year-old wife of Roy Bryant, the store owner. According to Carolyn Bryant’s testimony, Emmett Till put his hands around Mrs. Bryant’s waist and said some unpleasant things to her (“Transcript: Emmett Till Trial” 1955, 270). In addition, there is the famous allegation that Emmett Till ‘whistled’ at Carolyn Bryant. “It [was] alleged that Emmett Till “wolf whistled” and made some “ugly remarks” to Bryant’s 21-year-old wife” (Popham 1955, 64). In many media accounts, Mrs. Bryant is described as being attractive, or ‘pretty.’ This is emphasized when the story is told about how Emmett apparently may have physically accosted her in someway, however seemingly innocent. Mrs. Bryant testified that Emmett grabbed her hand when he asked to see the bubble gum from the showcase. Supposedly, he also asked her for ‘a date,’ and called her pet names instead of addressing her by the title “Ma’am,” which was common and the legal custom in the South. Much is debated about what actually went on at the store. There were various accounts of what happened from Emmett’s cousins and other boys in the neighborhood, one or some of which were alleged to have taunted Emmett to go into the store and ask ‘the pretty white lady’ for a ‘date.’ At any rate, Emmett had allegedly been boasting about how he had been with a white woman or women before, and showed a picture of a white girl in his wallet—whom his mother later claimed was a photo of Heddy Lamar, which came with the wallet. After Emmett came out of the store, “‘[h]e knew he had done something wrong, because he begged us not to tell daddy [Mose Wright],’ insisted [cousin Simeon] Wright in 2007. Parker agreed. ‘Everyone knew a wrong had been committed’” (Anderson 2008, 18). This wrong was just one stepping-stone which led to Emmett’s murder and his alleged murderers’ trial, which proved fruitless for the prosecution. Basically, the defense had at least five lawyers, one of which had gone to a prestigious Ivy League law school and was 71 years old. Also, besides that, basically all that the prosecution could prove was that a body had been found in the Tallahatchie River, but—even though Mrs. Till had been able to positively identify the body—the prosecution was not able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this was the same person whom J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant had kidnapped. This was enough doubt to place in the mind of the jury that perhaps the person who had turned up in the river was not the person purported to have been heretofore kidnapped. III. What Did Emmett Till Do That Led to His Murder There is controversy over what was said and how events were interpreted from various news sources. Traditionally, "‘[o]ral sources tell us not just what people did, but what they wanted to do, what they believed they were doing, and what they now think they did.’ Social scientists who study journalists believe events do not enter the public record until reporters assign them a contextual ‘home’ and give them meaning” (Tisdale 2002, 41). Without having been given meaning with photographs, Emmett’s story truly would not have come alive, so to speak. The murder of Emmett Till and the subsequent trial, in newspaper jargon, were stories that ‘had legs.’ Information spread like wildfire. Most notoriously was the journalist William B. Huie, who interviewed the alleged murderers after they had been acquitted—wherein they confessed to the murder. “If…Milam also stands behind the words printed in Look, then the ‘Shocking Story’ is not just a story; it is also a confession, that form of discourse that boasts a privileged relationship to truth and, as Peter Brooks puts it, bears ‘a special stamp of authenticity’” (Tell 2008, 159). IV. The Aftermath of Emmett Till’s Murder In the aftermath of Emmett Till’s murder, his body was sent to Chicago. Mrs. Till’s mother came to the door and told her daughter, “Bo’s comin’ home.” (Bo was a nickname for Emmett.) That was when Mrs. Till knew that her son was dead. She decided that, as a sign of protest, she would have an open-casket funeral. In fact, “…Till’s mother postponed the funeral so everyone could see ‘what they did to my boy’” (“2 Held For Trial in Slaying of Boy” 1955, 19). Photographs of Till abounded, and it led to a nation-wide Pandora’s box of race relations between Blacks and whites being blown wide open. "The photographs of Till in his casket appeared in such nationally circulated magazines and newspapers as Jet, The Chicago Defender, The Pittsburgh Courier, the New York Amsterdam News, The Crisis, and Life (in a four-page photo essay)” (Apel 2004, 179). Mrs. Till, upon seeing her son’s corpse, had received a calling. She knew that this moment had been brought to her so that she could help her people. She literally heard a (divine) Voice telling her this. “‘Instead of fainting, I realized that here’s a job that I got to do now and I don’t have time to faint; I don’t have time to cry,’ she recalled upon seeing her son’s body. I’ve got to make a decision and my decision was that there is no way I can tell the world what I see. The world is going to have to look at this. They’re going to have to help me tell the story…” (Till CBS News Interview 2004, 1). Mrs. Till recalled how she had to identify her son’s remains, and that it was a most horrifying process, but which had to be done so that she could have some peace about the situation. “[Mamie Till] tearfully told JET in 1984 that she did a painstaking analysis using photographs to identify him. ‘I started at the feet. I just couldn't start at the face. I recognized his feet, knees, and his teeth. He had one eye missing, but I recognized the color in the other one. He also had a ring on his finger with the initials, L.T.—Louis Louis Till, that was his father's’” (Jet Magazine 2003, 16). In short, Mrs. Till was appalled by what she saw before her—not whom she saw before her, because, indeed, her son had been turned into someone she didn’t even recognize or know anymore. That was how painful it was for her. “I looked at that horribly mangled monstrosity—the odor was terrible—what had been done to a human being created by God was a crime so foul, I don’t have words to describe it. No sane, decent person could do that to another, only somebody possessed by the devil…it seemed like a weird nightmare, not a part of me” (Metress 2002, 227). One of Emmett’s family members later wrote a book, saying that what was done to Emmett was unconscionable for anyone, much less an innocent 14-year-old boy who wasn’t accustomed to the harsh Jim Crow laws of the South. According to Simeon Wright’s account, “[W]hat happened…was indeed worse than murder…I felt that surely something would be done about it” (Wright 2010, 66). During the trial, Mamie Till and several Black witnesses were escorted off the premises and away from the courtroom, because it was such a racially-charged case. “After each [B]lack witness testified…NAACP officials helped them slip out of town” (Orr-Klopfer 2005, 30). The defense attorneys of Milam and Bryant were cleverly tricky and deceptive. They knew that most of the prosecution’s evidence was circumstantial, and, ultimately, that is what would get the defendants off the hook…this time. “[Defense attorney] Breland’s point was not so much about strategy [as] public opinion and expectations[, saying:] “It’s all circumstantial, which is o.k. when you’re returning and indictment but quite different when you’ve got to prove it [in court] beyond a reasonable doubt” (Houck and Grindy 2008, 61). The fact that the prosecution could not come up with anything besides circumstantial evidence—due to the fact that Emmett’s body could not be positively identified—made this the quote ‘perfect crime.’ Even though Milam and Bryant would get off on the charges with which they were indicted, they were never the same again, living in poverty until their respective deaths due to ostracism from the white community and boycotting from the Black community. According to Huie’s account, “Milam and Bryant will not be tried again; but as landless white men in the Mississippi Delta, and bearing the mark of Cain, they will come to regard the dark morning of August 28, 1955, as the most unfortunate of their lives” (Huie 1957, 68). Milam and Bryant may have indeed gotten away with murder, but the price they had to pay was their modest standing within their immediate community. V. Conclusion Years later in 2004, and only one year after Mamie Till-Mobley’s death, Emmett Till’s body was exhumed from the Burr Oak Cemetery in Chicago, where there was a scandal with graves being reused. Bones and human remains were found all throughout the cemetery, further desecrating the memory of Emmett Till. Alas, even though he was now deceased, he could still not rest in peace completely. This is evocative of disrespect to Emmett’s body, highlighting the gross inequities between Blacks and whites—and, how that, even in death—proving that Emmett could not even be at rest in death, his grave being disturbed simply to have his DNA tested to see if it was really him or not. At this point, such testing seems to be a moot point, and probably served to anger a lot of people within the Black community. It is a travesty that the hatred of two white mens’ racism still emanates from that coffin, but it does, years later after the fact. A point was made: “If the Emmett Till reopening is to have any lasting meaning…[people must see it not] as a legal task, but…surely a moral one—as is, ultimately, any search for justice” (Russell 2005, 2132). Thus, the exhumation of Emmett Till serves as a powerful lesson for everyone today that the ends of hatred is death, and the means is murderous. Not only did “Emmett Till... become a catalyst for the emerging civil rights movement,” but his death became a political statement about how hatred between races can cause evil to come about in peoples’ communities and how that changes lives forever (Alston and Dickerson 2009, 25). Emmett Till’s murder is definitely evocative of a time when the death of innocence was tolerated. What is scary is that there are still people out there who espouse these same hateful viewpoints that Milam and Bryant did—and that everyone who is an advocate for human rights should be aware and be willing to act in contradiction to such evils. What happened in the Bryants’ store, what Emmett Till did that led to his murder, and the aftermath of Emmett’s murder are the topics that were majorly covered in-depth, having reviewed much of the evidence. Emmett’s behavior, however outrageous it might have been at the time, certainly did not warrant death—but the choice was of two men to mercilessly abuse him before allegedly murdering this young, sweet boy, whom many people loved and adored. BIBLIOGRAPHY Alston AA & Dickerson J (2009). Devil’s Sanctuary: An Eyewitness History of Mississippi Hate Crimes (US: Chicago Review Press, 2009). Devery S. Anderson, A Wallet, A White Woman, and a Whistle: Fact and Fiction in Emmett Till’s Encounter in Money, Mississippi (US: Southern Quarterly, 2008). Dora Apel, Imagery of Lynching: Black Men, White Women, and the Mob. US: Rutgers University Press, 2004. Davis W. Houck and Matthew A. Grindy, Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press (US: University Press of Mississippi, 2008). William Bradford Huie, “What’s Happened to the Emmett Till Killers?” Look Magazine, January 1957: 63-66, 68. “Mamie Till-Mobley, Civil Rights Heroine, Eulogized in Chicago,” Jet Magazine, January 27, 2003, pp. 16. Christopher Metress, “From ‘Mamie Bradley’s Untold Story’: Mamie Till Bradley, as told to Ethel Payne, Chicago Defender, April-June 1956.” The Lynching of Emmett Till: A Documentary Narrative. US: University of Virginia Press, 2002. Susan Orr-Klopfer, The Emmett Till Book (US: Susan Klopfer, 2005). John N. Popham, "Slain Boy's Uncle on Stand at Trial: He Identifies in Mississippi Court 2 Accused Slayers." The New York Times, September 22, 1955, pp. 64. Margaret M. Russell, “Reopening the Emmett Till Case: Lessons and Challenges for Critical Race Practice,” Fordham Law Review, 73 (2005): 2102-2132. Dave Tell, “The ‘Shocking Story’ of Emmett Till and the Politics of Public Confession,” Quarterly Journal of Speech, 94 (2008): 156-178. Mamie Till. CBS News Interview (US: CBS News, 2004). DVD. Mamie Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson, Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (US: Random House Digital, 2004). John R. Tisdale, "Different Assignments, Different Perspectives: How Reporters Reconstruct the Emmett Till Civil Rights Murder Trial." The Oral History Review 29, no. 1 (2002): 39-58. Transcript: Emmett Till Trial (US: Publisher Unknown, 1955). BIBLIOGRAPHY (CONT’D.) "2 Held For Trial in Slaying of Boy: Mississippians Deny Guilt in Death of Negro." The New York Times, September 7, 1955, pp. 19. Simeon Wright, Simeon’s Story: An Eyewitness Account of the Kidnapping of Emmett Till (US: Chicago Review Press, 2010). Read More