Speaker 1: Welcome to STUFH you missed in history class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. For the
Speaker 1: most part, until the ninety nineties or so, a lot
Speaker 1: of times timelines of the civil rights movement in the
Speaker 1: United States marked its beginning as either brown versus Board
Speaker 1: on May seventeenth of nineteen fifty four, or with Rosa
Speaker 1: Parks refusal to give up her bus seat on December one.
Speaker 1: And it's definitely true that movements usually have multiple beginning parts.
Speaker 1: A lot of times people will note like one keystone moment,
Speaker 1: but usually there are a lot of things that happened.
Speaker 1: But these uh timelines from a couple of decades ago
Speaker 1: often didn't really pay a lot of attention to another
Speaker 1: event that happened in between those two, which was the
Speaker 1: August nineteen five five murder of fourteen year old Emmett Till.
Speaker 1: But then a couple of books came out that started
Speaker 1: to change all of that. One was a Death in
Speaker 1: the Delta, The Story of Emmett Till by Stephen J. Whitfield,
Speaker 1: which came out in Night, and the other was Emmett
Speaker 1: Till The Sacrificial Lamb of the Civil Rights Movement, which
Speaker 1: was based on Cleonora Hudson Weems doctoral dissertation UM and
Speaker 1: that second but came out in nineteen nine four. So,
Speaker 1: along with other writings, these two books really started to
Speaker 1: bring renewed public attention to the murder into the role
Speaker 1: that it played as a really powerful catalyst in the
Speaker 1: civil rights movement. Multiple other books have followed, and then
Speaker 1: includes some that were published as recently as fifteen and
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, which is the year that we're recording this episode.
Speaker 1: But the reason that Emmett Till's murder played such a
Speaker 1: consequential role in the civil rights movement is really the
Speaker 1: choices that his mother made me Till mobily made. She
Speaker 1: faced the death of her child with extraordinary bravery and
Speaker 1: clarity and grace, and for more than forty five years
Speaker 1: after his murder, she continually worked to make sure that
Speaker 1: he didn't die in vain. So she is who we
Speaker 1: are going to talk about today, and maybe Elizabeth Carthon
Speaker 1: was born on November twenty three in Webb, Mississippi. When
Speaker 1: she was about two years old, her family moved to Argo, Illinois,
Speaker 1: which is outside of Chicago during the Great Migration, and
Speaker 1: her father, wily Nash Carthon, had gotten a job at
Speaker 1: Argo Corn Products resigning company, and today Argo is actually
Speaker 1: known as Summit. Mamie's father left when she was about eleven,
Speaker 1: but even before that point she was really closest to
Speaker 1: her mother, Alma. Her upbringing was strict and disciplined and religious,
Speaker 1: and her mother helped found the Argo Temple, Church of
Speaker 1: God in Christ. Alma pushed Mamie to do well in
Speaker 1: school while also sheltering her from worldlier things. So in
Speaker 1: her memoir, Maymie tell Mobili would go on to describe
Speaker 1: herself as naive and trusting and really having a lot
Speaker 1: to catch up on once she was a wife and mother.
Speaker 1: Herself and their neighborhood in Argo was predominantly black, but
Speaker 1: the high school, Argo Community High School was predominantly white.
Speaker 1: Maymie became the first black student to make the schools
Speaker 1: a honor role and the fourth black student to graduate,
Speaker 1: and when she graduated, she was first in her class.
Speaker 1: She married Louis Till on October fourteenth of nineteen forty,
Speaker 1: when both of them were eighteen, and on July one,
Speaker 1: they had a son, Emmett Louis Till, who Maybe named
Speaker 1: after his father and her favorite uncle. But even before
Speaker 1: Emmett was born, a family friend had taken to calling
Speaker 1: him the little Bobo, and so his family and his
Speaker 1: friends generally called him Bobo or Bo for the rest
Speaker 1: of his life. Mamie's relationship with Emmett's father didn't last long.
Speaker 1: While Emmett was still a baby, Louis assaulted Maymie one night,
Speaker 1: and she defended herself with a pot of hot water. Eventually,
Speaker 1: she got a restraining order and moved back in with
Speaker 1: her mother, working as a clerk typist while Alma looked
Speaker 1: after Emmett. And after Louis repeatedly broke the restraining order,
Speaker 1: they wound up in court where the judge gave him
Speaker 1: the option of the military or jail, and he chose
Speaker 1: the former. Maybe didn't hear from Louis for several months
Speaker 1: after that, but when she did, he let her know
Speaker 1: that he had made arrangements for her to receive part
Speaker 1: of his military pay. But on July thirteenth of nineteen
Speaker 1: forty five, Maybe got a telegram that Louis had been
Speaker 1: killed in Italy. We'll go into a little more detail
Speaker 1: about this later in the episode, but for the rest
Speaker 1: of Emmett's life, the only information that Maybe had was
Speaker 1: that his father had died due to quote willful misconduct,
Speaker 1: and that for that reason they wouldn't receive survivor benefits.
Speaker 1: Emmett was just about to turn four when his father died,
Speaker 1: and the only one of Louis's possessions that made me
Speaker 1: received from the army after his death was a signet
Speaker 1: ring engraved with his initials, which she passed on to
Speaker 1: her son. Emmett grew into a funny, fearless boy who
Speaker 1: liked to crack jokes and dress well, and when he
Speaker 1: was about five, he contracted polio. He had to be
Speaker 1: quarantined at home for about a month after he recovered.
Speaker 1: The only lingering effect was that he spoke often with
Speaker 1: a stutter, and that was especially when he was nervous
Speaker 1: or excited. During Emmett's youngest years, Alma raised him while
Speaker 1: Mamie worked, and Maybe would go on to describe her
Speaker 1: relationship with her son really is very sibling like. Although
Speaker 1: Mamie was working to support the family, Alma was really
Speaker 1: the one running it, and in many ways she acted
Speaker 1: as mother for both her daughter and her grandson. But
Speaker 1: eventually Emma moved to Chicago and Mamie stayed behind in
Speaker 1: Argo with Emmett, along with a network of cousins and
Speaker 1: other family members who had moved to Illinois from Mississippi.
Speaker 1: This extended family was large and they were all really
Speaker 1: close to each other. Various members would take trips back
Speaker 1: and forth between the two states to visit one another.
Speaker 1: He eventually, Mamie decided to move to Detroit to try
Speaker 1: to reconnect with her father, who she hadn't had much
Speaker 1: contact with it all since she was young, and there
Speaker 1: she met Pink Bradley and they got married on May
Speaker 1: five of nineteen fifty one. Emmett wasn't very happy in Detroit, though,
Speaker 1: and he begged his mother to be allowed to go
Speaker 1: back to Chicago to live with his grandmother. Maymie eventually agreed,
Speaker 1: but things really just weren't working out for her in
Speaker 1: Detroit either. She was working long hours while also trying
Speaker 1: to go back and forth to Chicago to visit Emmett
Speaker 1: and her mother. So finally, after Almas sold her old
Speaker 1: house in Argo and bought a two unit building in Chicago,
Speaker 1: maybe Pink and Emmett moved into one of those two units,
Speaker 1: but not long after they moved in, Maymie discovered that
Speaker 1: Pink was seeing another woman, so she threw him out
Speaker 1: and divorced him. By the time he was eleven, Emmett
Speaker 1: Till had grown into an energetic and industrious boy with
Speaker 1: a bit of a mischievous streak. After Mamie's divorced from
Speaker 1: Pink Bradley, he became fiercely protective of his mother, and
Speaker 1: he also took on a lot of responsibilities at home.
Speaker 1: Maybe worked all day first for the Social Security Administration
Speaker 1: and then for the Air Force, so Emmett did a
Speaker 1: lot of the cooking and took care of the house.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just cooking and cleaning. When Maybe bought
Speaker 1: linoleum for the kitchen floor and then bad weather kept
Speaker 1: the people who were supposed to help install it from
Speaker 1: being able to come, Emmett worked out how to do
Speaker 1: it himself, which led to the two of them tackling
Speaker 1: a whole range of home improvement projects together. He was
Speaker 1: also fond of working to make a little extra money,
Speaker 1: doing things like running errands and delivering groceries. Maybe met
Speaker 1: Gene Mobley one day when she went to get her
Speaker 1: nails done. Jean was working at Ford Motor Company during
Speaker 1: the day and he was working as a barber at night.
Speaker 1: He seemed interested in her immediately, but she didn't really
Speaker 1: think he was her type, and she was understandably reluctant
Speaker 1: to start another relationship. But that started to change when
Speaker 1: she saw how good he was with Emmett and the
Speaker 1: summer of nineteen fifty five, Emmett wanted to go visit
Speaker 1: his family in Mississippi, and we're going to take a
Speaker 1: quick sponsor break before we talk about that. In the
Speaker 1: summer of nineteen fifty five, Maybe began planning a vacation,
Speaker 1: planned a road trip with Jeane and Emmett. First they
Speaker 1: would go to Detroit and then to Omaha. But Emmett
Speaker 1: really had a different idea. Mamie's uncle mos Right, who
Speaker 1: was a preacher and sharecropper who lived outside of money Mississippi,
Speaker 1: had come up to Chicago for a funeral, and when
Speaker 1: he went back home, he was going to take Emmett's
Speaker 1: cousin and close friend, Wheeler Parker with him for a visit.
Speaker 1: Another Chicago cousin, Curtis Jones, was going to join them
Speaker 1: in Mississippi. As well. This sounded like a tremendous adventure.
Speaker 1: It was, in Mamie's words, as close to summer camp
Speaker 1: as Emmett was going to get and Emmett was set ongoing.
Speaker 1: And this idea, though made Mamie incredibly nervous, she did
Speaker 1: finally agree to it. Before Emmett left, his mother had
Speaker 1: a talk with him, As she framed it in her
Speaker 1: memoir quote the talk every black parent had with every
Speaker 1: child sent down South back then, it was a talk
Speaker 1: about what white society expected of black people in the
Speaker 1: Deep South. She told him to speak only when spoken to,
Speaker 1: and to say yes ma'am and no ma'am, and yes
Speaker 1: or and no sir. And if he saw a white
Speaker 1: woman walking down the sidewalk, he was to step off
Speaker 1: the sidewalk and lower his head and wait until she
Speaker 1: had passed to get back on it again, without ever
Speaker 1: looking directly at her or making eye contact. Mamie hoped
Speaker 1: that this talk that she had with him, and the
Speaker 1: fact that he would be in the care of family
Speaker 1: who actually lived in Mississippi and knew all these unwritten
Speaker 1: rules intuitively would keep him safe while he was there.
Speaker 1: He left on August twenty nine. They were running late
Speaker 1: that morning, and when they got to the train station,
Speaker 1: he ran up to the platform without kissing Mami goodbye.
Speaker 1: She called him back and he gave her a kiss
Speaker 1: and his watch, saying he wasn't going to need it
Speaker 1: while he was gone, and she asked if he also
Speaker 1: wanted her to hang on to his father's ring, which
Speaker 1: he was wearing, and he said that he wanted to
Speaker 1: show it off to his cousin's. Maybe had intended to
Speaker 1: go ahead and take the vacation she'd been planning, but
Speaker 1: she couldn't motivate herself to get ready for it. She
Speaker 1: just missed Emmett terribly, and even though they'd been separated before,
Speaker 1: this was different. She was worried sick about him, and
Speaker 1: since the Rights didn't have a phone, it wasn't easy
Speaker 1: for her to check on him. The only way she
Speaker 1: could talk to him was if she called one of
Speaker 1: the Rights neighbors who did have a phone and see
Speaker 1: if they could find him. Maybe got a letter from
Speaker 1: Emment on August enclosed with a note from her aunt
Speaker 1: Lizzie Wright saying what a nice voice she had raised.
Speaker 1: Emmett's letter asked if she could please get his bike
Speaker 1: fixed before he got home. That night, Mamie hosted a
Speaker 1: meeting for her Ladies Club, which was her first real
Speaker 1: social interaction since Emmett had gone to Mississippi. Having people
Speaker 1: around felt like a welcome relief, and everybody stayed up
Speaker 1: so late talk gang and visiting that she made an
Speaker 1: early breakfast before people left, and then went to bed
Speaker 1: to try to get some sleep before church. Then about
Speaker 1: nine thirty in the morning on August Maymie got a
Speaker 1: call from her cousin, Willie May Jones that was Curtis's mother,
Speaker 1: and Willie May told Mamie that some white men had
Speaker 1: come and taken Emmett away from the Rights home in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night. Here's what had happened. On August.
Speaker 1: Emmett and his cousins had driven in some money Mississippi
Speaker 1: to buy some gum and candy at Bryant's grocery store.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of conflicting reports about exactly what
Speaker 1: happened while they were there. Caroline Bryant, the proprietor's wife,
Speaker 1: claimed that he had physically grabbed her, threatened her, and
Speaker 1: made lewd comments to her while he was in the store.
Speaker 1: In the book The Blood of Emmett's Hell was published,
Speaker 1: in which she admitted that all of that was false. Witnesses,
Speaker 1: including some of Emmett's cousins, said that at some point
Speaker 1: Emmett whistled at Caroline. His cousins theorized that it might
Speaker 1: have been to try to impress them or make them laugh,
Speaker 1: and his mother theorized that he had whistled because he
Speaker 1: was stuttering. That was a trick that he had learned
Speaker 1: that could help him get his words out when he
Speaker 1: was having trouble. Regardless, and its cousins weren't impressed or amused,
Speaker 1: they were scared. They all piled back into the car
Speaker 1: and drove away as quickly as possible, even at one
Speaker 1: point abandoning the car to cut through the fields and hide.
Speaker 1: They talked among themselves about whether they should send Emmett
Speaker 1: back to Chicago, but a couple of days later, when
Speaker 1: nothing bad had happened, they forgot about it. But then
Speaker 1: at about two thirty am on August, Caroline Bryant's husband,
Speaker 1: Roy and his brother in law J. W. Milum showed
Speaker 1: up at the right home asking for the boy from Chicago,
Speaker 1: the one who had quote done all that talk. Mose
Speaker 1: and Lizzie Wright. Both tried to reason with them and
Speaker 1: even offered them money to just leave Emmett alone, but
Speaker 1: the two men, who were armed, refused, so that was
Speaker 1: all that they only knew at that point. After she
Speaker 1: got the call from William ay Jones, Mamie called Jean.
Speaker 1: They went together to her mother's house to tell her
Speaker 1: what had happened and to wait for news of Emmett.
Speaker 1: Both women were distraught, especially since they couldn't reach the
Speaker 1: rights for an update. Soon Maymie started calling newspapers, and
Speaker 1: when reporters arrived, she told them that white men had
Speaker 1: come into her uncle's home and money Mississippi and kidnapped
Speaker 1: her son. On Monday morning, Augustin ray Field Moody, the
Speaker 1: nephew of Alma's husband, connected Mamie to the Chicago office
Speaker 1: of the N Double A c P. The N Double
Speaker 1: A CP referred her to William Henry Huff, chairman of
Speaker 1: the Legal Redress Committee. The two men began putting Mamie
Speaker 1: in touch with people and resources in both Mississippi and Illinois.
Speaker 1: Soon Illinois Governor William Stratton, Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley,
Speaker 1: and Congressman William Dawson were involved in the search for Emmon.
Speaker 1: They were making and receiving so many calls that the
Speaker 1: family added a second phone line. That same day, Roy
Speaker 1: Bryant and J. W. Milem were arrested for kidnapping Emmett Till,
Speaker 1: something they both admitted that they had done in Chicago.
Speaker 1: The family kept waiting, making calls and sending money to
Speaker 1: Mississippi to help with the search, and then on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: August thirty one, they got the news a fisherman had
Speaker 1: found Emmett's body in the Tallahatchee River. He had been
Speaker 1: badly beaten and probably shot, and his body had been
Speaker 1: weighed down with the fan of a cotton gin tied
Speaker 1: to his neck with barbed wire. His body was so
Speaker 1: badly disfigured that they were only able to identify him
Speaker 1: by his father's ring, which he was still wearing. And
Speaker 1: Mississippi tallahatche County Sheriff HC. Strider called in a black
Speaker 1: undertaker and told him to bury the body immediately, and
Speaker 1: it's cousin Curtis, called home to make sure Mamie knew
Speaker 1: what was happening. Mamie, of course, did not want her
Speaker 1: son to be buried in Mississippi. She and others started
Speaker 1: making calls adamant that Emmett's body be returned to Chicago,
Speaker 1: and they eventually contacted A. A. Rayner, a black funeral
Speaker 1: director in Chicago who took over the arrangements, and he
Speaker 1: eventually let Mamie know that they could bring the body back,
Speaker 1: but that it would cost three thousand, three hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: That was nearly Mamie's annual salary, but she agreed. Demanding
Speaker 1: that Emmett's body be brought back to Chicago and not
Speaker 1: buried in Mississippi was the first of several actions that
Speaker 1: Mamie would take that would propel her son's death into
Speaker 1: the international spotlight and then go on to spark a
Speaker 1: ground swell of civil rights activism. So we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about that more. After another quick sponsor break, Emmett Till's
Speaker 1: body arrived in Chicago by train on Friday, September two nine.
Speaker 1: When she asked to see her son, Mamie learned that A.
Speaker 1: Rayner had agreed to conduct the funeral and bury the
Speaker 1: body in the box that it had been shipped in
Speaker 1: without opening the box. That was one of the conditions
Speaker 1: that he had had to agree to in order to
Speaker 1: get the body released. Mamie said if she had to
Speaker 1: get a hammer, she would open it herself. An A. A.
Speaker 1: Rayner finally relented. He basically told her to go home
Speaker 1: and get a little rest, and he would prepare things
Speaker 1: for her to come and view the body. Mamie tell
Speaker 1: Mobile has described the experience of seeing her son's body
Speaker 1: herself in a number of places, including in her memoir
Speaker 1: The Death of Innocence, in the PBS American experience known
Speaker 1: as the Death of Emmett Till, and in the documentary
Speaker 1: The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till. In short, she
Speaker 1: was methodical, and she refused to turn away, and by
Speaker 1: the time she was done, she had resolved that Emmett
Speaker 1: should have an open casket funeral, to quote, let the
Speaker 1: world see what I've seen. She also chose to have
Speaker 1: pictures of his body published in the Chicago Defender and
Speaker 1: in Jet Magazine, to publications with a dominantly black readership.
Speaker 1: The photographs were then picked up in other publications from there.
Speaker 1: Thousands of people attended Emmett's funeral on September three, with
Speaker 1: tens of thousands more viewing the body which was under
Speaker 1: a glass in the casket, and that was in the
Speaker 1: four days that followed, and at this point the murder
Speaker 1: had become international news, but in the white Southern press,
Speaker 1: much of the media focus was on humanizing pieces on J. W.
Speaker 1: Milum and Roy Bryant, covering their past military service and
Speaker 1: the wholesome lives of their wives and children, and Sheriff
Speaker 1: Strider began spreading the word that he had doubts that
Speaker 1: the body being buried was really Emmett Tills, and that
Speaker 1: he had evidence that the murder had really been staged
Speaker 1: by the double a CP. Emmett Till's body was buried
Speaker 1: on Tuesday, September six, Then on the same day, a
Speaker 1: grand jury indited Roy Bryant and J. W. Milum for murder.
Speaker 1: In Mississippi, it was common knowledge that J. W. Melum
Speaker 1: and Roy Bryant had killed Emmett Till, but public opinion
Speaker 1: in the white community was that they did not need
Speaker 1: to face trial or go to prison over it. Businesses
Speaker 1: began putting out donation jars, eventually raising ten thousand dollars
Speaker 1: for them, even as all five attorneys practicing in the
Speaker 1: town of Sumner, where the trial was to be held
Speaker 1: signed on to represent them pro bono with Tallahatta County
Speaker 1: authorities say mean more interested in spreading rumors and undermining
Speaker 1: the case than in investigating it. The Double A CP
Speaker 1: and civil rights activists, including Medgar Evers, took on their
Speaker 1: own investigation and tried to convince the Department of Justice
Speaker 1: to make it a federal case. Medgar Evers, Ruby Hurley,
Speaker 1: and Amsey Moore, along with others, visited the cotton fields
Speaker 1: around Money, Mississippi, to try to find witnesses who were
Speaker 1: willing to risk their lives by testifying against white men.
Speaker 1: In response, Sheriff Strider said Mississippi did not need or
Speaker 1: want the help of the n Double A CP and
Speaker 1: that the trial would be quote fair and impartial, before
Speaker 1: he went on to say, quote we never had any
Speaker 1: trouble until some of our southern end words go up north,
Speaker 1: and then Double A CP talks to them, and then
Speaker 1: they come back home. The trial began on September nine,
Speaker 1: with the courtroom strictly segregated. The black reporters, witnesses, and
Speaker 1: Detroit Congressman Charles Digs were all restricted to a table
Speaker 1: in a back corner. On Mamie made her first appearance
Speaker 1: in court, she had been receiving death threats since it
Speaker 1: had been reported that she would be going to Mississippi
Speaker 1: for the trial. On her way in, white reporters asked
Speaker 1: for a number of questions that implied that she had
Speaker 1: no business being there, and then as she approached the courthouse,
Speaker 1: white boys leaned out of its windows, firing cap guns
Speaker 1: at her, with their father's egging them on. Over the
Speaker 1: course of the trial, mos Wright identified J. W. Milam
Speaker 1: and Roy Bryant as the men who had taken Emmett
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night. Willie Read, an eighteen
Speaker 1: year old sharecropper, testified he had seen a group of
Speaker 1: people in the back of a pickup truck, including somebody
Speaker 1: he later understood to be Emett till later on. He
Speaker 1: had seen that truck parked outside of a shed belonging
Speaker 1: to one of J. W. Blum's relatives, and passing by
Speaker 1: that shed, he heard quote somebody hollering, and I heard
Speaker 1: some licks like somebody was whipping somebody. Amanda Bradley, who
Speaker 1: lived nearby as well, testified that she had seen four
Speaker 1: white men entering and exiting a barn on the property,
Speaker 1: and all three of these witnesses testified at serious risk
Speaker 1: to their own lives. All three of them fled Mississippi
Speaker 1: after the trial was over because of that threat to
Speaker 1: their lives. Mamie took the stand on the fourth day
Speaker 1: of the trial, and at this point her surname was Bradley,
Speaker 1: and she's identified in court documents as Mamie Bradley. She
Speaker 1: testified as to her complete certainty that the body that
Speaker 1: had come back from Mississippi was that of her son.
Speaker 1: During the cross examination, the defense team asked her a
Speaker 1: number of questions about whether she had life insurance for Emmett,
Speaker 1: as though to so doubt about whether she might have
Speaker 1: had her son killed for the money. You will also
Speaker 1: sometimes in reading about this trial, UH see that Mamie
Speaker 1: said that they asked her questions. That was something along
Speaker 1: the lines of isn't it true that your son is
Speaker 1: really alive in Detroit. I think this was really part
Speaker 1: of the closing arguments and not of her questioning, because
Speaker 1: there's a transcript that was found um and I think
Speaker 1: two thousand and four of her questioning that doesn't include
Speaker 1: that part. So I think all of that has been
Speaker 1: kind of meshed together in her memory that trial transcript
Speaker 1: was not found until after her death. On September, after
Speaker 1: a little more than an hour of deliberating, a jury
Speaker 1: of twelve white men returned a not guilty verdict in
Speaker 1: the murder trial. Jurors would later say that they could
Speaker 1: have come back much sooner, but they were told to
Speaker 1: make it look good. Mami and several of the other
Speaker 1: people who were with her were not actually in the courtroom.
Speaker 1: They had realized what verdict was going to come back
Speaker 1: and decided they would prefer not to be present for it.
Speaker 1: Along with the murder and funeral, the trial and the
Speaker 1: not guilty verdict sparked international outrage galvanized the black community
Speaker 1: within the civil rights movement, as well as prompting an
Speaker 1: influx of donations to the Double A CP and other
Speaker 1: civil rights organizations. Other key events in the civil rights
Speaker 1: movement quickly followed, including the Montgomery bus boycott and Mamie
Speaker 1: till Mobley's words quote, when people saw what had happened
Speaker 1: to my son, men stood up who had never stood
Speaker 1: up before. After the verdict, Mamie began to travel giving
Speaker 1: speeches about the life and the death of her son
Speaker 1: and advocating for civil rights and anti lynching laws, and
Speaker 1: for a time this was under the auspices of the
Speaker 1: Double A CP, but this spell apart due to a
Speaker 1: disagreement about her accepting payments for her speeches. But even
Speaker 1: after that working relationship was over, she continued to travel
Speaker 1: and speak about her son for most of the rest
Speaker 1: of her life. Because Emmett had been kidnapped from one
Speaker 1: county and killed in another, a separate grand jury was
Speaker 1: convened in the matter of the kidnapping after the murder
Speaker 1: trial had concluded, but just before that was to happen,
Speaker 1: Anti Integration Senator James O. Eastland obtained and released the
Speaker 1: details of the death of Emmett's father. This was when
Speaker 1: made Me learned that Louis had been court martialed and
Speaker 1: found guilty of murder and rape. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of questions about this case and about whether Louis Till
Speaker 1: was wrongfully accused, and they're way more than we can
Speaker 1: get into in the scope of this podcast, but they
Speaker 1: are detailed in the book Writing to Save a Life,
Speaker 1: the Louis Till File. But the implication and releasing this
Speaker 1: information to the press was that criminal behavior and sexual
Speaker 1: violence ran in the Till family. The grand jury and
Speaker 1: the kidnapping case of Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam
Speaker 1: did not return an indictment, and the case never went
Speaker 1: to trial, even though both men had already admitted that
Speaker 1: they did it. Maybe went to the Army to try
Speaker 1: to find out why a senator had been given access
Speaker 1: to records that she had not been allowed to have.
Speaker 1: She attempted to petition the President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, but
Speaker 1: he wouldn't meet with her and he didn't return her telegram.
Speaker 1: She tried to press the FBI to open an investigation
Speaker 1: to the death of her son, but Director J. Edgar
Speaker 1: Hoover wrote in a memo quote, there has been no
Speaker 1: allegation made that the victim has been subjected to the
Speaker 1: deprivation of any right or privilege which is secured and
Speaker 1: protected by the Constitution and the laws of the United States.
Speaker 1: And then after all of this, I'm January six, Look
Speaker 1: Magazine published an article in which Roy Bryant and J. W.
Speaker 1: Milum confessed to killing Emmett till Their version of the story,
Speaker 1: which they were paid about four thousand dollars to tell,
Speaker 1: described Emmett as lewd and indecent and made it sound
Speaker 1: as though they had acted alone, even though other people
Speaker 1: were definitely involved. Off Once again, people were outraged. Since
Speaker 1: the two men had already been found not guilty of murder,
Speaker 1: they could not be tried again, so people called for
Speaker 1: the kidnapping case to be reopened. Mamie tried to sue
Speaker 1: Look Magazine and reporter William Bradford Hughey for defamation, but
Speaker 1: the suit was dismissed because Emmett Till, not his mother,
Speaker 1: was the person that the article defamed. The months after
Speaker 1: the Look Magazine article were particularly hard for Mamie, not
Speaker 1: only because of the way it portrayed her son, but
Speaker 1: also because it became the source that everyone cided when
Speaker 1: talking about the case. It really made her angry that
Speaker 1: a number of black reporters had literally risked their lives
Speaker 1: investigating and reporting about her son, and at this point,
Speaker 1: all of that reporting was disregarded in favor of the
Speaker 1: confession of two white men who had horrible things to
Speaker 1: say about her son while they confessed. It was only
Speaker 1: after a reporter called her to do a follow up
Speaker 1: on her and she just sort of spontaneously said that
Speaker 1: she was going to be a teacher, that she found
Speaker 1: a new focus for her life, and soon she was
Speaker 1: enrolled in Chicago Teachers College. Mamie married Gene Mobley on
Speaker 1: June ninetifty seven while she was studying to be a teacher.
Speaker 1: She graduated coom laude in nineteen sixty and she taught
Speaker 1: until her retirement in Nree and every five years after
Speaker 1: Emmett's murder, she retold his story to reporters covering the
Speaker 1: anniversary of his death and the trial. In addition, she
Speaker 1: cooperated with multiple researchers and historians working on books about
Speaker 1: the case. She appeared in multiple documentaries, was on an
Speaker 1: episode of OPRAH on witnesses of murders during the Civil
Speaker 1: rights era. She was also on a radio program where
Speaker 1: she listened on the line as Roy Bryant talked about
Speaker 1: the case, including saying that Emmett Till had ruined his life.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy three, she founded a theater group in
Speaker 1: Chicago called the MTL Players. In nineteen seventy five, she
Speaker 1: earned a master's degree in Administration and supervision from Loyola University.
Speaker 1: She continued working with the mt CELL Players and with
Speaker 1: her church, as well as traveling and speaking and participating
Speaker 1: in ceremonies commemorating the civil rights movement for as long
Speaker 1: as her health would allow. Mamie's mother, Alma, died on
Speaker 1: November eleventh. Gen Mobley died on March eighteenth of two
Speaker 1: thousand and Mamie Till Mobley died on January seventh, two
Speaker 1: thousand three, at the age of eighty one. That was
Speaker 1: not long before the debut of the PBS American Experienced
Speaker 1: documentary The Death of Emmett Till, which she appears in.
Speaker 1: She was also working on her memoir at the time
Speaker 1: of her death, and that was published posthumously in May
Speaker 1: two thousand and four. In part because of all of
Speaker 1: this attention that came from her memoir and the American
Speaker 1: Experienced documentary, the FBI reopened the investigation into the murder
Speaker 1: of Emmett Till. It issued a lengthy report in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, but maintained that the statute of limitations
Speaker 1: had run out for federal civil rights charges. No new
Speaker 1: indictments were issued for people who had previously not been tried,
Speaker 1: and at that point most of the people who were
Speaker 1: involved had died. The FBI's investigation involved exhuming Emmett's body
Speaker 1: for an autopsy. By law, a new casket had to
Speaker 1: be used when the body was reburied, and at first
Speaker 1: the original casket remained at the cemetery. Eventually members of
Speaker 1: the family approached Lonnie Bunch, founding director of the National
Speaker 1: Museum of African American History and Culture, about preserving it,
Speaker 1: and it is now in the museum's collection. The photos
Speaker 1: of her son that she chose to share through Jet
Speaker 1: magazine and the Chicago Defender are now one of Time
Speaker 1: Magazine's one most influential pictures of all time, and in
Speaker 1: her words, quote if it can further the cause of freedom,
Speaker 1: then I will say that he died a hero that
Speaker 1: made me till mobile. She was stronger than I think
Speaker 1: I could have been in the same circumstances. I I
Speaker 1: agree with that, sincement a lot um her name is
Speaker 1: brought up a lot sometimes um as criticism of other mothers,
Speaker 1: which I don't like. The degree of grace and determination
Speaker 1: that she approached so many things with is I like,
Speaker 1: just not if that's an incredibly high bar. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: like a superhuman standard to hold up for comparison. Yeah yeah, um.
Speaker 1: And it also is really important to note that she
Speaker 1: really she the places that she chose to share the
Speaker 1: pictures of her son were places with a predominantly black audience,
Speaker 1: like that that was who she was most interested in
Speaker 1: making sure they had seen what had happened to her child.
Speaker 1: And while it did also spread outrage among white communities,
Speaker 1: um and and lead to some uh like white involvement
Speaker 1: in the civil rights movement, that overwhelmingly it was something
Speaker 1: that galvanized people and inspired people to act within black communities.
Speaker 1: Um Like when you look at pictures of the funeral,
Speaker 1: the people who who came to see the body into
Speaker 1: the funeral, like, it's a it's an overwhelmingly black crowd.
Speaker 1: I think in more recent years, sometimes on social media
Speaker 1: it gets twisted around with a weird idea that it
Speaker 1: was crucial to getting white people involved in the movement,
Speaker 1: and while that was kind of an after effect like
Speaker 1: that was not the primary source of of inspiring people
Speaker 1: to act. I'm hoping with fingers crossed, the listener mail
Speaker 1: is a little bit of a relief because this is
Speaker 1: a very heavy episode. It is very heavy episode, and
Speaker 1: unfortunately listener Mail is not not like a super fun
Speaker 1: time Tracy, I know, uh so we have gotten the
Speaker 1: same question slash comment about our recent episode, the Calicacs
Speaker 1: and the Eugenicists a number of times enough times that
Speaker 1: I wanted to address it rather than reading anyone particular
Speaker 1: one of the emails. A lot of people have written
Speaker 1: into asked why we did not talk about Margaret Singer
Speaker 1: in that episode, and overwhelmingly these have included an either
Speaker 1: implied or explicit accusation that we didn't bring her up
Speaker 1: because of her because of our personal politics, which is
Speaker 1: not the case. Long story short, that episode was really
Speaker 1: focused on the Calicac family study and the role that
Speaker 1: it played in compulsory sterilization programs. So that episode was
Speaker 1: not about reversible contraception like diaphragms and sperm sides, or
Speaker 1: on the eugenics movement in general, And if it had
Speaker 1: been about either of those things, we definitely would have
Speaker 1: talked about Margaret Singer. But there is a huge difference
Speaker 1: between permanently sterilizing somebody without their concern and fitting them
Speaker 1: for a diaphragm and teaching them how to use it.
Speaker 1: Um If if it had been about birth control, or
Speaker 1: if it had been about the eugenics movement in general,
Speaker 1: we certainly would have talked about Margaret Sanger, and we
Speaker 1: did in fact talk about Margaret Singer in our episode
Speaker 1: on Katherine Dexter McCormick and the development of oral contraception
Speaker 1: because it was relevant to what we were talking about. Basically,
Speaker 1: Margaret Sanger's work and legacy are also really complicated and
Speaker 1: messy and full of nuance, and getting into that would
Speaker 1: have been a just huge and lengthy, uh digression in
Speaker 1: an episode that was really focused on something else. So
Speaker 1: to be clear, it's definitely true that Margaret Singer bought
Speaker 1: into an advocated eugenics and thought that through contraception, humanity
Speaker 1: could quote weed out the unfit, just in her words,
Speaker 1: But unlike what we were talking about in the Calacac episode,
Speaker 1: her work was overwhelmingly focused on choice. She thought that
Speaker 1: people should be able to us not to get pregnant.
Speaker 1: And when she was doing the part of her work
Speaker 1: that was like really focused on birth control advocacy, it
Speaker 1: was illegal to publish or distribute information about contraception, and
Speaker 1: a lot of in a lot of places, contraceptives were
Speaker 1: either illegal themselves or really hard to get, so her
Speaker 1: work was really focused on changing that. She thought that
Speaker 1: preventing pregnancy would help lift people out of poverty and
Speaker 1: help improve their quality of life. And she also thought
Speaker 1: that birth control was the key to reducing the number
Speaker 1: of abortions, which were also illegal and very dangerous. And
Speaker 1: so even when she talked about sterilization, she usually, but
Speaker 1: to be clear, not universally, described it as a choice,
Speaker 1: not as something that would be done in a compulsory way.
Speaker 1: So her work was just focused in a different way
Speaker 1: from the things that we were talking about in that show,
Speaker 1: people also brought up her work with the black community.
Speaker 1: It is also true that Margaret Sanger worked on a
Speaker 1: program specifically to bring contraception into black communities starting in
Speaker 1: about nineteen thirty nine. This was known as the Negro Project,
Speaker 1: and there were and still are people who think that
Speaker 1: this was a covert effort at genocide. But while she
Speaker 1: was definitely pretty paternalistic and how she talked about race,
Speaker 1: which is also two of how she talked about disability,
Speaker 1: she outlined reasons for the Negro Project and the same
Speaker 1: way that she outlined the need for birth control among
Speaker 1: poor white communities, which is that it would help people
Speaker 1: lift themselves out of poverty if they had the option
Speaker 1: of having fewer children up. She also thought that having
Speaker 1: a program that was targeted specifically at black communities would
Speaker 1: help counteract the fact that most black people were excluded
Speaker 1: from public health clinics which were only for white patients.
Speaker 1: So in this whole project, she had the support of
Speaker 1: a lot of black leaders and activists, but she also
Speaker 1: wrote an observation that black clergy could help gain the
Speaker 1: trust of black communities in a really poorly phrased way,
Speaker 1: like if you read this center, it's like just terribly worded.
Speaker 1: And that wasn't a letter in nineteen thirty nine, And
Speaker 1: this one sentence from that letter, combined with some other
Speaker 1: quotes that are actually fabricated, have led to a persistent
Speaker 1: belief that she went around being like, you know, what
Speaker 1: we could do is just stop having black people if
Speaker 1: we got them out birth control, and like that's that's
Speaker 1: not the case. Um, there are definitely people who who
Speaker 1: believe that, like, white efforts to introduce birth control into
Speaker 1: black communities are an effort at genocide, and like, I don't,
Speaker 1: I feel like that's beyond the scope of what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. But a lot of the points that people
Speaker 1: made about this particular aspect of her work are are
Speaker 1: based on things that were not actually true. So rather
Speaker 1: than raising up all the various other points that people
Speaker 1: made in their emails about this um in order to
Speaker 1: refute them, because people said a lot of false things
Speaker 1: to us in these emails, we are going to link
Speaker 1: to a few fact checks about Margaret Singer in the
Speaker 1: show notes um for this episode. So yeah, long story short,
Speaker 1: we have never turned away from the fact that Margaret
Speaker 1: Singer was into eugenics, but like Margaret Singer was not
Speaker 1: really quite so relevant to this story that we were
Speaker 1: telling in that particular episode. And there you have it. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: if you would like to write to us about this
Speaker 1: or any other podcast or at history podcast at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, or also on Facebook at Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash miss in history and on Twitter at
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Speaker 1: dot tumbler dot com, or on pinterest pinterest dot com
Speaker 1: slash miss in history. Our instagram is that missing History. Also,
Speaker 1: you can come to our parent company's website, which is
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com and find all kinds of
Speaker 1: information about anything your heart desires. And then you can
Speaker 1: come to our website, which is missed in History dot com.
Speaker 1: You will find show Notes. You will find the links
Speaker 1: to some fact checks that we just talked about in
Speaker 1: the show notes of this episode. Also a searchable archive
Speaker 1: every episode we have ever done, so you can do
Speaker 1: all that and a whole lot more how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com or missed in history dot com. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
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