Emmett Till's Family Gets Autopsy Report

[Hissyspit]

Source: Associated Press

Mar 30, 11:33 PM EDT
Emmett Till's Family Gets Autopsy Report

By CARLA K. JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO (AP) -- A 464-page FBI report released Friday contains gruesome details from the autopsy of Emmett Till, but it is so highly redacted that it doesn't shed much light on the teen's killing, which helped galvanize the civil rights movement.

The report found that Till, killed in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman, died of a gunshot wound to the head and that he had broken wrist bones and skull and leg fractures. When the 14-year-old's body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River in the summer of 1955, the report said, "the crown of his head was just crushed out ... and a piece of his skull just fell out."

The FBI report is part of an 8,000-page file investigators amassed during its three-year investigation into the killing, opened at the request of the district attorney in Greenwood, Miss. The local prosecutor recently announced that a grand jury had declined to return an indictment in the case.

Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, who are deceased, were acquitted of the crime by an all-white jury. They later confessed in a 1956 interview with Look magazine. Nearly 100,000 people visited Till's open casket during a four-day public viewing in Chicago. A graphic photo of his face appeared in Jet magazine, sparking national outrage.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EMMETT_TILL?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

[Sadie4629]

1. There was a really good documentary on this some years ago

I remember the segment in which his mom talked about viewing his body. She was advised not to look at it, but she felt she had to. Seeing his body and deciding to have an open casket was probably the most difficult decision a person could ever make, but she was brave, and her courage made a difference. She's a real hero.

[EFerrari]

8. A different kind of documentary by Gwendolyn Brooks

A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother burns bacon

From the first it had been like a
Ballad. It had the beat inevitable. It had the blood.
A wildness cut up, and tied in little bunches,
Like the four-line stanzas of the ballads she had never quite
understood--the ballads they had set her to, in school.


Herself: the milk-white maid, the "maid mild"
Of the ballad. Pursued
By the Dark Villain. Rescued by the Fine Prince.
The Happiness-Ever-After.
That was worth anything.
It was good to be a "maid mild."
That made the breath go fast.


Her bacon burned. She
Hastened to hide it in the step-on can, and
Drew more strips from the meat case. The eggs and sour-milk biscuits
Did well. She set out a jar
Of her new quince preserve.


. . . But there was something about the matter of the Dark Villain.
He should have been older, perhaps.
The hacking down of a villain was more fun to think about
When his menace possessed undisputed breath, undisputed height,
And best of all, when history was cluttered
With the bones of many eaten knights and princesses.

more at link: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-bronzeville-mother-loiters-in-mississippi-mean/

[mopinko]

10. mamie mobley was not just advised- she was ordered not to

look. the coffin arrived in chicago with several large padlocks. the funeral director did everything he could to prevent her from opening it. she insisted that she had to make sure it was her son. she got a crowbar, and broke the locks off herself. she said she had to examine every inch of his body in order to be sure.

an amazing piece of radio= studs terkel interview with emmett's mom- mamie mobley

http://www.studsterkel.org/results.php?keywords=mobley

[Judi Lynn]

11. So sad to learn that the uncle who testified against the two torturer/murderers

never slept in his own house at night, after that, and moved from place to place in the area, to for safety's sake.

Too damned bad the two men who did this fiendish crime didn't have to worry about their safety every night of their lives, instead. What a pity.

Thank you for posting that link.

[salin]

2. sometimes the vitriol hurled by rw talkingheads (radio esp) will

spark a new era of such awful hate-inspired violence. Such a horrid chapter (long chapter) of our history.

Have to wonder why, after all of this time, the report is so heavily redacted.

[annabanana]

3. Why, at this late date, is it "heavily redacted"?

What could there be about this case that still cannot be revealed?

[Solly Mack]

4. That was my first thought

[Judi Lynn]

7. Probably the evidence of his unbearable suffering is more than any living human beings

could accept. There are photos of his image reclaimed and made as "presentable" as possible for his funeral scattered in google images:



There's not enough forgiveness in the universe, to cover what the two demons did to this young man.

I read in the material with one of the photos that a relative of young Mr. Till's said he learned one of the men confessed to his preacher from his death bed.

There is a photo of the jury which found the two "men" not guilty at the bottom right of page #4.

http://images.google.com/images?q=Roy+Bryant+and+J.W.+Milam&ndsp=20&svnum=10&hl=en&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-37,GGLD:en&start=0&sa=N

[hlthe2b]

5. Redacted to protect the guilty, powerful, and still living....

enablers of the coverup.....what an abomination...:mad:

[Evergreen Emerald]

6. 14 years-old.

That makes me nauseous. He was just a baby.

[uppityperson]

9. 14 years old. RIP Emmett.

[DanWithAngel]

12. Why is this coming up now?

to help heal rifts?

[Judi Lynn]

13. A new investigation was opened in 2004. Did you know that?

It has been discussed at DU at length.

Here's an article which covers why it got underway in 2004:

Justice, Delayed But Not Denied
60 Minutes Confirms Two Are Focus Of Emmett Till Murder Probe
Oct. 21, 2004

~snip~
The Justice Department says the case has been re-opened largely because of Keith Beauchamp, an amateur filmmaker from Louisiana. Like a lot of people in this country, he was moved by the shocking photograph of Till’s corpse that he saw while looking through old magazines when he was just 10 years old.

And ever since, Beauchamp has devoted much of his life to uncovering the truth about what happened to Till. "After seeing the photograph, it shocked me tremendously and my parents came in and sat me down and explained to me at that time the story of Emmett Till. And it hit me hard. It really hit me hard," he says.

"Everyone has a story when they first saw that photograph, but it stuck with me that how could this person be killed this way, a youth that was like me. It was amazing to me that something like that could happen."

Beauchamp said that after reviewing thousands of old documents and talking to numerous witnesses with knowledge of the crime, he believes that at least 14 people may have been involved in the kidnapping and murder of Till and that five of them are still alive.
(snip)

Beauchamp said that after reviewing thousands of old documents and talking to numerous witnesses with knowledge of the crime, he believes that at least 14 people may have been involved in the kidnapping and murder of Till and that five of them are still alive.

He's described much of this to federal and state investigators: "Their reaction was overwhelming. They couldn't believe that a person this young would be so interested in finding out the truth. I guess they were really stunned that I did so much research on this case."

So was Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has oversight of the Justice Department. After meeting with Beauchamp and his attorney Ken Thompson, and examining the research Beauchamp was gathering for a documentary film he was working on, Schumer urged the department to re-open the Till case, saying it was never fully investigated 50 years ago.

"It is a stain and will be a stain on both the Mississippi law enforcement officials, and the United States Justice Department that it took a young filmmaker to bring to light what they should have brought to light," says Schumer.
(snip/...)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/21/60minutes/main650652.shtml

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When EVERYONE knows the men were GUILTY, which they admitted, as the orginal article says both did, to a magazine, and one of the men confessed to his preacher from his death bed, and if it appears there are other people who were also involved in this lynching, then, by god, every effort should have been made, no matter how long it takes, to find out who the people were who tortured and murdered this child.

The incovenience to racists is not a consideration among the sane.

[DanWithAngel]

14. i was thinking of the families involved and increasing racial tensions

of course any and all racists should get no consideration except incarceration.