Death of Innocence : The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (9781588363244) (26 page)

One report showed that more than twenty-five thousand people would view Emmett’s body that afternoon and evening. As many as one hundred thousand people would file past Emmett’s glass-enclosed casket during the four days he lay there. Emmett’s Argo friends were there. His Chicago
friends, too. They would serve as pallbearers. There were so many people there. So many people who had known Emmett, so many more people who would come to know him only like this. I was told that every fifth person or so had to be assisted. Nurses were on hand to help. People were falling out, fainting. Extra chairs had been set up outside to assist the people who didn’t have the strength to go on. I could only imagine the reaction if they had seen what I had seen. On the one hand, as a mother, I couldn’t bear the thought of people being horrified by the sight of my son. He had always been such a fine young boy and I was so very proud of him. But, on the other hand, I felt that the alternative was even worse. After all, we had averted our eyes far too long, turning away from the ugly reality facing us as a nation. I know, because I was guilty of the same thing. But to let that continue, to think that even one more mother, one more mother’s son, would have to suffer, well, that was too much for me to bear. People had to face my son and realize just how twisted, how distorted, how terrifying, race hatred could be. How it had menaced my son during his last, tortured hours on earth. How it continued to stalk us all. Which is why people also had to face themselves. They would have to see their own responsibility in pushing for an end to this evil.

People had to consider all of that as they viewed Emmett’s body. The impact was like being hit by a sledgehammer. I knew how it had hit me that first time and how it kept slamming into me each time I would see that image of my son, and I would see that image forever. How else could I have made people understand something like that? Even after the viewing, so many people were left speechless. That’s not surprising. We’re taught to describe things by comparison. Something we’ve seen, something we’ve done. But what did we have to compare to Emmett? Nothing in our experience. Nothing in our expression. The English language is so rich with contributions from so many other languages around the world, yet it was inadequate for us when we needed it the most. We just did not have the vocabulary to describe the horror we saw, or the dread we felt in seeing it. Emmett’s murderers had devised a form of brutality that not only was beyond measure, it was beyond words.

Bennie Goodwin, Jr., was among the many people who came. He was the son of my pastor, Elder Goodwin, at Argo Temple Church of God in Christ, where I was still a member and where Emmett attended the service on the last Sunday before leaving for Mississippi. Like so many others, Bennie was shocked by what he saw. But he also was comforted in a way no one else might have recognized at that moment. As he gazed down at the casket, he could only wonder what had become of Emmett’s body, but he knew what had become of his soul. He remembered his encounter
with Emmett on that streetcar from Argo one Sunday night, when they prayed together, when Emmett accepted Jesus Christ, when my son had the most incredible aura. Emmett was so calm, at peace, as he was when those men took him away. That experience on a streetcar from Argo would be the way Bennie would recall Emmett for years to come, and for that memory, for that awareness, he felt truly blessed.

When I stood at the casket, as I looked at Emmett, I felt a deep loneliness, like I was in a vacuum. There were no tears at first. I was reminded of what I had thought when news had reached me that Emmett’s body had been found, just after that initial shock, when I realized that I would have to take charge. I had a vision of my heart encased in glass—for protection, for preservation—so that nothing more could harm it. I gazed down at the casket, and there, encased in glass, I saw Emmett, my son, my child, my heart. At that moment, though, I began to feel my own resolve cracking. So much of my energy had been consumed by handling all the little things that had to be handled. All the details, keeping track, taking notes, making arrangements. I had lost myself in all those details. That had been part of my own defense. But, as I stood there, I had no activity to hide behind, no little detail to handle. I was defenseless. Something started coming over me. I couldn’t take it. I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t get it through my head that this was a human being, let alone my child. I became hysterical, weak, and had to be carried back to my seat. I had no idea how I could make it through. But I knew that I had to do it. And I knew that it wasn’t going to get any easier as we prepared for what was ahead.

During the better part of the next two hours, a number of ministers and politicians made that point, and they told people about their responsibility in the struggle we were about to face. The funeral service became sort of a forum. At least in part. How could it not be? Illinois State Senator Marshall Korshak was there to represent Governor Stratton. He called Emmett “a young martyr in a fight for democracy and freedom, in a fight against evil men.” One minister, the Reverend Cornelius Adams, urged people to contribute “fighting dollars” to help with the legal efforts, the political organizing. Money would be collected throughout the viewing of Emmett’s body, and on into the weeks and months ahead. Bishop Ford questioned how this country could be a world leader if it couldn’t lead at home, if it couldn’t protect its own citizens and guarantee full equality. He recommended that President Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon work on this Southern problem. Archibald Carey, a former alderman and a former alternate delegate to the United Nations, urged people to allow the legal system a chance to work. He cautioned everyone against
trying to seek revenge. “A mob in Chicago,” he said, “is no better than a mob in Mississippi.”

There came a point, in the middle of everything, as I was listening to the speakers, when I had a sensation. It was something I could just barely make out. Something fluttering somewhere. It seemed like it was in the corner of my eye, at the edge of my awareness. As my eye darted to get a better look and as my head turned to follow, the image seemed to move, just ahead of my glance, always just a flutter ahead like that, always on the borderline between conscious and subconscious. It would happen like that over and over again. And it looked to me like a dove. I wanted to see it fully, but never could. It would always move away just when I’d turn my full attention to it. I came to realize that it was a sign. The dove. A sign of peace. A sign from God.

Finally, with that, I was able to take a deep breath and draw in some measure of peace, place everything in the hands of God. Bishop Ford would reflect that feeling in his sermon, based on Matthew 18:6: “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and
that
he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

Bishop Ford did a masterful job. I will always be grateful for that.

Things had begun to heat up right away. Even while thousands of people were turning out in Chicago to view Emmett’s body, the press coverage of his death was spreading the word and the pictures around the nation, and people everywhere were outraged. The pressure had started coming down on the state of Mississippi even before the funeral service.

I had said that Emmett’s death was part of an oppressive pattern in Mississippi, “an everyday occurrence.”

My words echoed across the country in waves of headlines. The papers also carried the words of other people who condemned the killing and called on Mississippi for swift justice. Mayor Richard J. Daley had said it was a “brutal, terrible crime” and had sent a telegram to President Eisenhower calling for a federal investigation. Governor Stratton urged Mississippi authorities to investigate thoroughly. And the NAACP, through Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins, issued a blistering attack: “Mississippi has decided to maintain white supremacy by murdering children.” The NAACP statement said Emmett’s murderers “felt free to lynch him” because of the racist climate that state leaders there had accepted.

These voices were heard in Mississippi, where officials started digging in. What began to take shape was just unbelievable. Even Mississippi officials
had to admit that the murder of my son was a horrendous crime. Who couldn’t see that? But, when the pressure began to build from outside the state, the people in the state began to build up their defenses. Mississippi’s governor—with the ironic name Hugh White—shot back a telegram to the NAACP to argue that Emmett’s killing was not a lynching, but a “straight out murder.” What a strange debate this was turning out to be. Lynching or murder. As if defining it one way or the other would make a difference. This was the vicious torture/killing of a defenseless boy, by men who had seemed to turn it into a good time. Blood sport. And the only reason Emmett was killed was because he was black. That sure sounded like a lynching to me, and to every other reasonable person who would come to see my son’s killing as part of a pattern. But what difference did it make what it was called, anyway? That was my first reaction to what seemed like a silly little diversion. I have learned, though, that it could make a big difference. And, although they would not be called to testify about the matter, Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam ultimately would answer that question for the entire nation.

Meanwhile, some members of the Southern press tried to turn these heartless murderers into heartwarming human-interest stories. They were veterans, we would learn. J. W. Milam was thirty-six and had served in Europe in World War II. Roy Bryant was twenty-four and had served more recently as a paratrooper. Milam had been a lieutenant, given a field commission. He was known as the man who could be counted on to deal with German prisoners, a harsh but efficient interrogator who would not hesitate to use his Colt .45 automatic. He had taken shrapnel and had won a Purple Heart. He was a celebrated killer. The papers also gave a full presentation on the wives and the kids. Each of these men had two sons. And there was a story on the mother of Bryant and Milam, creating public sympathy for her plight. She was proud of her boys, and so troubled by the murder trial.

Meanwhile, one Mississippi newspaper writer called Emmett’s funeral a “Congo circus” and Roy Wilkins a “witch doctor.” Oh, it was getting ugly, and that was not to be the worst of it in what some began to call a new war between the North and the South, a new Civil War, a war of words that was anything but civil. In a statement that showed just how twisted the logic of racism can be, a spokesman for the segregationist White Citizens Councils took the opportunity to point to the murder of my son as yet another justification for keeping the races apart. Emmett wouldn’t have been killed if he hadn’t been allowed to have contact with whites.

The war of words, though, was beginning to have consequences. It was
beginning to look like it would have an effect on the course of events. Even while we were sitting in the Saturday funeral service, Tallahatchie County Sheriff H. C. Strider, the man who was supposed to enforce the law, the man who was supposed to investigate the murder, the man who was supposed to assist the prosecution, that man was sending a signal, an indication just where this trial was headed. He really wasn’t sure, he said, that the body pulled from the river was, in fact, the body of Emmett Till. The body might have been in the water too long to have been Emmett’s. Strider said he didn’t even know whether the corpse was black or white, because of the deterioration. Never mind what Strider had done, what he
would
do. What he
had
done was to release the body to a black undertaker, which he never would have done if he thought the victim might not be black. What he was
about
to do was to permit the death certificate to be formally certified by the county with information that contradicted everything he said. The death certificate showed Emmett’s full name, his race, his age, the names of his parents, the date of death, the cause of death. Sheriff Strider signed the certificate affirming all these things on September 1, two days before he gave his outrageous statement to the press. But I didn’t know that at the time. The death certificate wouldn’t be delivered to me for some time to come.

Strider didn’t stop there. “I’m chasing down some evidence now that looks like the killing might have been planned and plotted by the NAACP,” he said. So, instead of doing his duty, chasing down evidence against my son’s killers, he was going way beyond the call of duty to make it impossible to convict these murderers in his county. It was reported that he was concerned about the safety of Bryant and Milam sitting in a Charleston jail. He had seen hate mail with Chicago postmarks. He said there were people planning to drive down to Tallahatchie County and take the law into their own hands. A black lynch mob, I guess. He felt there was a need to call out the National Guard to prevent that kind of mob action. Mississippi newspapers picked up on that one, too, and published stories on why local citizens didn’t need to panic, stories that only drew more attention to the rumors about bands of angry black men riding down from Chicago to seek revenge. Imagine that. My son was the one who was brutalized and murdered, and I was the one getting hate mail in Chicago, all those threatening letters about my call for justice. But here in the inside-out world of Mississippi, it was the white murderers who felt they were being victimized. It was the white people who needed protection from the angry hordes. Of black folks. Incredible. They were going to turn the murder of my son into a case of self-defense—defense of the Mississippi way of life. The state of Mississippi had become the mirror
image of the rest of the world. Normal at a glance, until you realized it was all completely backward.

Even Mississippi’s native son William Faulkner had to speak out on how ridiculous things were becoming. He wrote a commentary from Rome that was featured in publications all over the United States, including
The Crisis
, the NAACP’s magazine. If people cared at all about holding on to our unique way of life in America, if they valued our special form of democracy, he wrote, they were going to have to think about how this country fit, how it would advance, how it would be judged by the rest of the world, a world where whites were in the minority. “Because if we in America have reached that point in our desperate culture when we must murder children, no matter for what reason or what color, we don’t deserve to survive, and probably won’t.” Faulkner’s was a lonely voice warning other white Mississippians about the rumble that was on the way. Nobody in the Delta, it seems, was listening.