Study Group Details

Decades before there was George Floyd, there was Emmett Till. It is said that the modern civil rights movement began in earnest in the wake of the brutal murder of 14 year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi in 1955, the year following the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. These seven lectures retell the story of that tragic event and the five-day trial of the two men (Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam) accused and acquitted of Till’s murder. The trial transcript from the case was missing for decades; it was not found until 2004 and not publicly released until 2007. Drawing on that transcript and news accounts from the time, the lectures will examine the role of the two radically different sheriffs who warred over jurisdiction, the character of the judge who presided over the case, the prosecutors and how they presented their arguments and surprise witnesses, and the defense’s strategies (legal, rhetorical, and racial) for swaying the all-white male jury. The lectures will center on the witnesses and the alleged victim (Carolyn Bryant). It will focus as well on the two defendants—what they said and did before, during, and after the trial. Moreover, there will be an additional focus on other unindicted actors involved in the Till kidnapping and murder. The discussion also will examine the FBI’s 2004 reopening of the case to determine if other individuals were involved. The FBI investigation of the Till murder was not completed until 2020. Finally, the Till murder is a story about a series of journalistic lies perpetuated by William Bradford Huie’s Look magazine articles and how they defined the history of the Emmett Till tragedy for decades.