Back. Im sure none of you remember what happened 60 years ago. Emmett till was a 14yearold boy from chicago, spending the summer with his uncle in mississippi. He had a son who was his age. They were done in mississippi, having a good summertime, two days before this day. 60 years ago on august 24, emmett till had gone into a local Country Store called meats and grocery. He was hanging with other guys. And he goes into the store to purchase something. He was that the he was at the cash register. He sees the Grocery Store owner with her husband. Something happened at that point. Theres only one person who is alive today who knows what happened. And that is carolyn bryant. Ok . And he purchases something, and he either whistles at her in a sassy way, a wolf whistle, that construction workers and others are known to do with women walk by, or, as he is leaving, he says Something Like, bye, baby, or, as his mother says, he started to Say Something and stutters. He would blow air out, stuttering like a whistle. Whatever he did, he crossed the line in the eyes of carolyn bryant. But also her husband. A couple of days later, lloyd bryant, and his brotherinlaw, showed up late at night at the door of moses wrights house. They demand to see the boy that was in the store. All these boys are sharing a big bed. Emmett till, half asleep, goes to the door. Bryant grabs him, and they take into a truck. You can hear them say, is this the boy that did that . A woman says, yes, that is him. , not to take him away be seen for several days. That was on the 28th. Two days from now, 60 years ago. Alright . Him to milams barn where they beat him, tortured him, and shot him. They took into the tallahatchie river, where they strapped barb wire and a cotton gin fan to his neck. They threw him in the water. He is missing and people are looking for him, even before the body surfaces. The spotlight turns to bryant and milam, who say, well, yeah, we did that. We showed up, took him, roughed him up, and whatever else happened, we had no hand in. Somebody else must have done it. He surfaces. What i will show you is a gruesome picture. At the time, it was only shown in the black press. It later made its way out to the larger press. The body was bloated beyond recognition. One eyeball dangling from its socket. His tongue was extended from its mouth, swollen to eight times its normal size. There was a bullet hole behind his left ear. He was recognizable only by the ring his mother gave him. She fitted it onto his finger. It was his fathers, louis till, and it had l. T. On it. They knew it was him. This is a civil rights cold case, unsolved, unpunished. As with many cases, there are small elements of the prosecution of it. Ultimately, this is the chicago defender, the black newspaper. He was a local kid to them. The entire front page was devoted to this. It was not just a black press that was interested. He became a national story. This is the Chicago Daily tribune. You can see a column here, to go on trial, for murder, to the top left of the cartoon. The Chicago Daily news, till case goes to jury for verdict. This is what happened as it went to trial. A mere three weeks after the body is found, it goes to trial. It seems like forever now between an arrest someone goes to trial. Milam and bryant are tried. It is in a courthouse in sumner, mississippi. If you come back with this kind of detail in a piece, we will of you. Love you. Guess what the slogan of the town was . You will not guess. That was a mean trick. No one knows . A great place to raise a boy. Totally ironic. And the detailed that you as writers are not to miss when you come across Something Like that. Milam and bryant were acquitted. The jurors were out only 67 minutes. In fact, when they came back, they said they would not be out except that they stopped for a drink. The prosecution did a very effective job according to the public. The judge was fair. I wont go into that. But we can at some other time. The one thing that is interesting, milam and bryant were not even convicted of the one thing that they did do. Him ofadopting abducting him. Which they admitted to. It was a few months later in which they sat with a journalist from alabama and told the story. In effect, they confessed to the murder. It was a piece that ran in look magazine. You can read the piece and know they never spoke to the reporter. He vowed not to reveal that they admitted it. He would have to write a story in a bizarre, contorted way that would tell the story without acknowledging. He agreed that they could go out in the world and deny it. Later, the writer couldnt take it and made sure everyone knew they confessed. We have copies of the documents were he paid the money for the interviews. It was an early example of checkbook journalism, you will need to take Journalism School to go into that. Emmett till was not a civil rights activist. He was 14 years old. Back then, he was seven years from being able to vote. That was not the case. He was killed for violating what scholars referred to primly as racial etiquette. Ok . He crossed the line, the social codes, with whatever he did or was believed to have done. This is a case from a different part of mississippi. They were trying to get people to vote and did it anyway even though they were warned not to. They had been warned not to do it, and they did it anyway. Will exploreter we a case that is more similar to george w. Lee and lamar smith. That is going to be the 1948 murder of isaiah nixon and the town of alston. Montgomery county, it is about three hours from here. He was shot dead for voting. And he voted in 1948. I will come back to this in a little bit and talk about the extraordinary period of time in Georgia History between 1946 and more probably, 1944 and 1948, the highlights of which were two statewide races for governor in 1946 and 1948. 2 or 3 black men were killed for voting in that time. That we know of. I will open the floor. Why would white people go to such lengths to stop black people from voting . Sot do you think was troubling to white people that then or anytime they would murder someone for voting . Yes sir . At that point, politics was a way to voice ones opinions. There was a power structure in the south. Black people voting would most likely obstruct that. I agree with that. At the time, politics, all the mayors were white men. If you have black men voting, they could change that. They cannot let that happen. People would have to give up their power, because they would go after white men killing people. Prof. Klibanoff absolutely. Yes, megan. If you have the right to vote, politicians have to cater to your needs because they are a part of getting you elected. I think that is a big part of it, too. Prof. Klibanoff you mean that white people would never want to cater to a black man . Yes. Exactly. It was a legal equalizer. It was one of the only things at the time that could equalize what was going on in society. Prof. Klibanoff it is worth knowing. And you may know this intuitively. But the details are what makes it so extraordinary. Absolute in the 1940s. And we are talking, some people would say it was more liberal atmosphere in the 40s leading up to the brown v. Board decision of the Supreme Court that hardened people. In the 1940s, liberals never believed for a minute that segregation would end. Name four liberal editors, prominent people who later worked in the roosevelt administration. Jonathan daniels was an editor in raleigh, North Carolina who said it segregation will absolutely never end in the south. You might as well believe they night will become day in the day will become night. All the armies of the world, axis and allies combined, said mark edwards of the roosevelt administration, will never end segregation. It was absolute. When we say why people did not want black people to vote, it was just one of the absolutes. Blacks were going to be barred from. Lets get to the technical detail. You may say they didnt want them to vote because they might elect a black person. Do you think a group of blacks in these counties could ever elect a black person in the 40s . No . Why not . They didnt have the structure there to get someone into office, to win political office. It would be hugely expensive, a timeconsuming campaigning endeavor. They were in such a situation where the main concern of their daytoday life is getting food on the table rather than putting somebody into a system that has never been beneficial for them. Prof. Klibanoff thats all true. Ok. But i would remind you that white people down there were very poor, too. White people were struggling daytoday. Ok . Here is what i want you to keep in mind. In georgia, alabama, mississippi, a population was heavily africanamerican. You can go into some counties, it would be 70 africanamerican. Maybe the voting age would be 60 . And you look at the voting rolls, in some counties, maybe seven people would be registered to vote. Maybe 100 in a really aggressive county. It was the structure that barred them from voting at all, because whites feared they would be the minority. Whites were the minority. If the majority rules, they lose power. Somebody else, quickly name one other important reason why the vote matters. What happens when you register to vote . I stumped you again. Year after year, what happens . How many of you are registered . You get a call once in a while for what, jury duty. With jury duty, what does that mean . You can make decisions. Prof. Klibanoff you have an influence on the criminal Justice System. Right . A widely overlooked consequence that white people understood. So many of these cases are about criminal justice. Given the fact that all white juries were looking into that. Normally i would not start off with emmett till, but i wanted to do it for the anniversary. I wanted to do it for another reason. Let me ask you a question. This gets really personal. Me, how old is your grandfather . 88. Prof. Klibanoff someone else . 92. Prof. Klibanoff anybody else . 70. Prof. Klibanoff how old would emmett till be . 60 years ago, he would be 74 years old. 60 years ago is not that long ago. I can name one person in this room who was alive at the time. [laughter] prof. Klibanoff i want you to know we are closer in time than you might think. Yes, emily. What was the influence from chicago. Is that why it was published more . Prof. Klibanoff yes, and the fact that he was 14. It crossed the line that did not make sense outside the south , for the most part. It drew massive press coverage. This town of sumner, mississippi was overrun by the reporters. The New York Times was covering it every day. Ap, upi. The only newspapers that didnt cover it were the mississippi papers. Ok. Now, just to go further here, as we go forward in these cases, we will examine not the whodunnit as much as the why. In most cases, we know who. What conditions, what forces, what states of mind were in place, social, political, economic . What forces would come together. Ense ofe all s all religious, precepts, all acceptable behaviors that would lead them to such means of widespread murder as control. Ok. This is the website that ive asked you to look at. It is the civil rights cold cases project. This began as a joint journalism and africanamerican studies class. It expanded to include history and american studies come across listed in all those programs. Students ite a quite a few students working during the summer. We had students do senior honors theses related to this. Ok. We are examining the history of the time. Of racially driven behavior not , just the murderous activists, these are racially motivated murders. Ok . You will use primary evidence at the eye level. We will give you a big stack of them. We will get this to you. We want you to dig out naacp records. Personal archives, we discovered a mother load of stuff over at the research library. It is a marvel upstairs. Rare book libraries. This is a real gold mine of opportunities. We want you to understand history that is little known from the inside looking out. And it is long forgotten from the outside looking in. That is our goal, for you to see it from a new, fresh perspective. This is a bunch of different cases. People who were targeted because of who they were. It wasnt even their beliefs, always. Ok . In most cases, these opted no local investigations. State investigations, prosecutions, or received inconsistent investigation by the fbi. As you will see, you need to be open to all the storable realities and possibilities. Things are not always what they seem or what you would expect. This is james brazier, he was 35 in 1958. He was 31 in 1958. He was a husband. He worked three jobs. His wife worked too. He had three children. He loved, with a great passion, new cars. In 1956, he bought himself a new 1956 chevrolet from his dealership where he worked. In 1958, he bought a chevrolet impala. Ok . We have examined, in this class, why it was that was so offensive to whites in boston, georgia, terrell county. A few months before this particular day he was arrested it1958 four, who knows, didnt matter. He was beaten up on his laundry his lawn and he was taken to the jail where he was examined by doctors. In the middle of the night, he was dragged out and beaten, all but dead. Then, he dies. He had been stopped by Police Officer, and they said, why are you stopping me again, why do you keep doing this . The Police Officer says you have a lot of nerve driving a car like that when we cant hardly live. I will get you yet. By the way, we know all of this. We have the paper, the records in which that whole dialogue took place. James brazier had no news coverage, not a word. Nothing in the press. Another, willie countryman was found with a knife in him, it was never his. It was planted. They killed him in the middle of the night, no coverage. His wife spent five years trying to get his case to a federal jury. She finally succeeded, but the consequence was that the jury, and the civil case never held the Police Officers responsible death. Es braziers we found this transcript at the national archives. This is just a portion. It really enlightened us, you know . Ok. Snipes, killed in 1946. G in butler two years before isaiah nexi xon, because he voted. Here is the detail that is interesting. When you study these things, you want to glom onto these interesting moments. He gets the hospital, the doctor examines him, and he says, will ell my gosh, he is going to need a blood transfusion. The family tells us this. The family says, give me a transfusion. The doctors said i cannot do it. The doctors were white. Were atut all doctors this time. They said, we cannot, we dont have any black blood. Youve heard me talk about the mythology that people operated on African Americans at the time. They adopted a lot of myths that were hard to break, even if they wanted to. By the way, the murder of maceo snipes really upset a student at morehouse college, who was provoked to write a letter to the atlanta constitution. Do you see it . See who wrote this letter . On the far right, in the middle . Who is it . M. L. King. Martin luther king. Ok . This happened within a couple of weeks of another murder. In georgia, a mass murder of four people. Ple i will click on through. This is a story about Clarence Pickett. Georgia, maybe a bit off. He had spent six months at the statement hospital. He returns to columbus. He would wonder around, drink a little bit, maybe a little too much. Took him asofficers the village idiot. Some were deeply offended by. Ok . He gets arrested on one particular day. 1957, around christmas. He cannot break out. He is yelling and screaming, calling the Police Officers names. The officers say, hey, that is pickett. That is preacher, that is what they called it. One officer decided not to take it. He goes in the jail cell and kicks him and beaten and it stomps him to neardeath. He has to be taken to a Columbus Medical Center where a white physician sees him. I will show you what the white physician examines him. There is a Police Officer in the room at the time. The Police Officers says to the doctor, what do you think . The doctor says, i think he is putting this on. Ok . The next day, he was dead. What students were able to do was look at the medical report from one day and look at the autopsy next day. And we set with a pathologist midtown,y university they said, well gosh, based on the autopsy, here is what the doctor should have seen and done. He should never have released him to go home. Which he did. By the way the doctor, who said , he was putting on when he released him, gave him 75 milligrams of a painkiller. It is an analgesic. Clearly, there is some problem here. He tells the Police Officer he is putting on. He just wants to be a part of the boys and the team. He gives him a painkiller on the way out. Whatever it is, Clarence Pickett died the next day. I want to Say Something else about how we learn to think counterintuitively here. I told you before you need to be aware not to jump to some assumptions about things. Ok . Goodtudent we had, a very one, was determined to betray the Police Officer as this southern, racist cracker. Right . White cop, stereotypical, straight out of central casting. Well, another student was looking into it and discover ed something. Where is he from . New york. We traced him enough to know that he came south from when he was in the military to be at fort benning. Ok . You, as athis to means to challenge some assumptions going into these things. A couple of more. Penn, in 1964, he was a highranking administrator in the washington, d. C. School system. He and two other africanamericans come south in the summer of 1964 for training. It is the summer freedom in mississippi. The three civil rights workers are missing. So on and so forth. They finish up with their military service at fort benning. Theyre driving home from washington to be with their families. Little do they know they get , near athens and cross paths with a group of three klansmen just looking for trouble. Out penn takes the , wheel. And within minutes, klan car pulls up, pulls out a shotgun, and blows them away. They are killed in 1964. There are two gruesome pictures i have to show you. I am telling you, it was just breathtaking. How brutal this murder was. I want to give you a detail that we learned. Itis