Getting Away with Murder by Chris Crowe

Author:Chris Crowe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US

CHAPTER 5

SETTING THE STAGE

The announcement of the murder indictment and the trial date triggered widely publicized reactions from the North and the South.

Roy Wilkins, head of the NAACP, condemned the killing and the killers, calling the murder another example of white supremacist violence in the South. Civil rights supporters wrote to the governor of Mississippi demanding vigorous prosecution in the case, and the mayor of Chicago called on federal officials to join the investigation. Mrs. Mamie Till Bradley told reporters in Chicago that she was going to seek legal assistance to support the prosecution of the killers and that “Mississippi is going to pay for this.” Southern newspapers reported only the latter part of her statement, making it look like Emmett’s mother blamed the entire state of Mississippi for her son’s murder. In a television interview just before the trial, Mrs. Bradley also demanded support from President Eisenhower: “It’s my opinion that the guilt begins with Mrs. Bryant, and I want to see Mrs. Bryant, her husband, and any other persons that were in on this thing. And I feel like the pressure should start with the president of the United States and be channeled all the way down to the township of Money, Mississippi.”

In Mississippi, Sheriffs Smith and Strider received letters and phone calls threatening them and Bryant and Milam; as a precaution, Smith called on National Guard troops to patrol the Leflore County jail. Strider reported rumors that thousands of Blacks were on their way to Mississippi to “tear up the jail and take the two men,” but the threats didn’t worry the Southern sheriff. He told The Greenwood Commonwealth, “These folks seem to think they are coming down here to take over—I don’t think they are.”

Robert Patterson, founder of the White Citizens’ Council, said the Emmett Till murder couldn’t be blamed on the Councils or any other segregationist group. “One of the primary reasons for our organization,” he said, “is to prevent acts of violence. We are doing our best in spite of constant agitation and inflammatory statements from the NAACP and outside agitators.” Defending his state against these outside agitators, Mississippi’s governor, Hugh White, sent a telegram to the NAACP with this message: “Parties charged with the murder are in jail. I have every reason to believe that the court will do their duty in prosecution. Mississippi does not condone such conduct.”

Before the widespread condemnation of Mississippi, local authorities looked forward to prosecuting the two brothers for Emmett’s murder, and the sheriffs’ offices in Leflore and Tallahatchie counties had been gathering evidence for the prosecution. Despite the state’s violent racist culture, the vicious murder horrified many white residents, and they supported a conviction of Bryant and Milam. Neither of the killers was well liked in the community, and many people felt the brothers had overstepped their “white” authority in kidnapping and killing the boy. Initial public reaction in the Delta was so negative that no lawyer in the county would agree to defend the two men.

But

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