The trial and acquittal of Emmett Till's killers
In September 1955 an all-white Mississippi jury acquitted Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam of Emmett Till's murder in about an hour — even after Mose Wright bravely identified them in court. Months later, the two confessed in a paid magazine interview.
The trial of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam opened on September 19, 1955, in the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi, before an all-white, all-male jury in a segregated courtroom. In an act of extraordinary courage, Till's great-uncle Mose Wright stood and pointed out the two men in open court as those who had taken his nephew — among the first times a Black man had publicly accused white men of such a crime in the Delta.
The evidence was overwhelming, yet on September 23 the jury acquitted both men after roughly an hour's deliberation; one juror reportedly said it would not have taken so long had they not paused for a soda. Months later, protected against double jeopardy, Bryant and Milam confessed to the killing in a paid interview with Look magazine. The accuser, Carolyn Bryant, whose claim set the murder in motion, is reported to have recanted key parts of her account decades later. The acquittal — Jim Crow justice staged for the world's cameras — helped turn national outrage into a movement.
Resources
The web
Connections to other moments, systems, and investigations — the links rarely drawn together.
- connects to·EventThe murder of Emmett Till
The trial that followed the murder and ended in acquittal.
- part of·ThreadJim Crow
Jim Crow justice performed openly for the world's cameras.
- part of·ThreadPolicing & the Courts: Instruments of Control
A rigged, all-white-jury acquittal — the courts as an instrument of caste.