Emmett Till's Lynchers Set Free - September 23, 1955
Left photograph: On left is J.W. Milam and his wife Juanita, and on right is Roy Bryant and his wife Carolyn Bryant Donham, celebrating after an all-white jury acquitted the two men of the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till on September 23, 1955 after a Mississippi jury deliberated 67 minutes. One juror told a reporter that they wouldn’t have taken so long if they hadn’t stopped to drink a Coke.
Photograph credit: Ed Clark/ Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Right photograph: Emmett Till’s mother Mamie Bradley spoke to the press after her son’s kidnapping and murder.
Photograph credit: Ed Clark/ Life Pictures-Shutterstock
September 23, 1955, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant were acquitted of murdering Emmett Till after a Mississippi jury deliberated 67 minutes. Milam and Bryant stood before photographers, lit up cigars and kissed their wives in celebration of the not guilty verdict. Months later, the half-brothers admitted to Look magazine they had indeed killed Till.
Shared from Jerry Mitchell
Posted 9.23.19
August 24, 1955, 14 - year old, Emmett Till enters Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market to purchase bubble gum, where he encounters the store owners' wife Carolyn Bryant.
Emmett Louis Till was born July 25, 1941, in Chicago, Illinois. Emmett Louis Till died from being lynched by racist White supremacists on August 28, 1955 (aged 14) in Money, Mississippi.
Till was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. During summer vacation in August 1955, he was visiting relatives near Money, in the Mississippi Delta region. He spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the white married proprietor of a small grocery store there. Although what happened at the store is a matter of dispute, Till was accused of flirting with or whistling at Bryant. In 1955, Bryant had testified that Till made physical and verbal advances.
August 28 in 1955, two white men abducted and murdered Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi.
The jury did not hear Bryant's testimony, due to the judge ruling it inadmissible. Decades later, Bryant disclosed that she had fabricated part of the testimony regarding her interaction with Till, specifically the portion where she accused Till of grabbing her waist and uttering obscenities; "that part's not true," Bryant stated in a 2008 interview with historian Timothy Tyson.
Till's interaction with Bryant, perhaps unwittingly, violated the strictures of conduct for an African-American male interacting with a white woman in the Jim Crow-era South. Several nights after the incident in the store, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam were armed when they went to Till's great-uncle's house and abducted the boy.
They took him away and beat and mutilated him before shooting him in the head and sinking his body in the Tallahatchie River. Three days later, Till's body was discovered and retrieved from the river.
The Hawley Museum is passionately committed to uncovering and sharing the fascinating family stories that have influenced our state's and nation's history. We believe that every family has a unique story to tell, one that adds depth to the rich tapestry of North Carolina and U.S. History.
We encourage you to reflect on your own family narrative—did your ancestors play a pivotal role in these historical events? We invite you to become a part of our family curator team by sharing your family's history, whether it be through photos, videos, articles, or documents.
Let’s work together and weave a more comprehensive narrative that honors the roles families have played in our collective past to inspire future museum visitors.
The Hawley Museum is passionately committed to uncovering and sharing the fascinating family stories that have influenced our state's and nation's history. We believe that every family has a unique story to tell, one that adds depth to the rich tapestry of North Carolina and U.S. History.
We encourage you to reflect on your own family narrative—did your ancestors play a pivotal role in these historical events? We invite you to become a part of our family curator team by sharing your family's history, whether it be through photos, videos, articles, or documents.
Let’s work together and weave a more comprehensive narrative that honors the roles families have played in our collective past to inspire future museum visitors.