Posted on 05/04/2005 11:16:37 AM PDT by MississippiMasterpiece
The FBI will order the exhumation of the body of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Chicago boy who was taken from a Mississippi farmhouse in 1955 and killed for whistling at a white woman, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
Till's body, which is buried next to his mother's at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, will be exhumed within the next few weeks, and an autopsy will be conducted by Cook County Medical Examiner Ed Donahue, according to a source.
"The FBI wants to know who killed Till, and due to the brutal beating he received, an exhumation may provide the evidence they need" to make a case, said the source.
The murder of Till, an unsolved case standing at the center of the American civil rights movement, gave meaning to the term "Mississippi Justice."
Then, last year, a new chapter was added to the Till story.
Documentary highlighted case
The U.S. Justice Department reopened the case following a documentary by African-American filmmaker Keith Beauchamp, 32, who claimed to have uncovered new evidence. The documentary, "The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till," chronicled Till's nightmare death and the sham trial of his alleged murderers.
It was the lack of convictions in the face of overwhelming evidence that lead Beauchamp to make his startling documentary, which took nine years to research and produce.
Beauchamp believes five people who are still alive could lend new insight into the case and that as many as 10 people either observed or took part in the slaying.
The story began innocently enough: In 1955, Till traveled from Chicago to Mississippi to spend the summer with relatives. His mother, Mamie Till Mobley, was reportedly apprehensive about letting her outgoing son spend the summer in Jim Crow Mississippi. Her worst fears were confirmed.
In August of 1955, while at a convenience store in Money, Miss., Till apparently whistled at and "sassed" a young white woman behind the counter. Three days later, Till was abducted at gunpoint from his great-uncle's home and savagely beaten, shot dead and dumped in the Tallahatchie River. Till's decaying body, attached to a 70-pound cotton gin fan fastened to his neck with barbed wire, was found three days after his abduction.
Acquitted men later bragged
Two white men, one of whom was the husband of the woman behind the counter, were acquitted of the murder by an all-white jury despite their admission they were the ones who abducted Till. The defendants later bragged about the murder in a Look magazine article, which included gruesome details about Till's slaughter.
Neither man, both of whom are now dead, was ever convicted of Till's murder.
And in 1960, the five-year statute of limitations for federal civil rights crimes expired without any other suspects being brought to trial.
The brutal slaying and sensationalism surrounding the case caused Till's close-knit family to scatter and flee to Chicago after the defendants were acquitted. Mamie Till Mobley was widely hailed as a hero for her strong, forthright demeanor during the murder trial and for insisting that her son's body be displayed in an open casket during his funeral, showing the world just how savagely he was beaten.
Mobley, who remained in Chicago, became an outspoken crusader for civil rights, and upon her death in January 2003, she was buried near her son in the city's first African-American cemetery.
Now that the U.S. Justice Department has stepped up to the plate, the source says, the FBI intends to hit a home run.
They might be able to find forensic evidence that wasn't meaningful back at the time of the crime. Science has advanced a long way since then. It also lets murderers know that no matter how long ago their crime was, they can never really feel like they got away with it. Somewhere, somebody still cares and will do their best to see that a murderer is brought to justice.
You know how they're letting you bring the ashes of loved ones home in an urn to set on the mantle or scatter at sea or in the mountains?
Well, I've been thinking, what's to stop a person from having the ashes buried in one's own yard, or plastered into a wall, or maybe even into the ceiling of the bedroom to run off any unwelcomed guest the surviving spouse might entertain?
I'm thinking I might want to be buried either in my Vb house or in the yard. I already have a dead Colonel and Captain inhabiting the house.
ROFLMAO!
If were going to be cremated, I would like for my ashes to be mixed into an old-fashioned stink bomb and lobbed at Michael Moore.
Good idea.
Use lots of explosives and your target will become the stinky matter.
Why not keep the remaining ashes?
If they want to dig up a body for an autopsy - how bout Mary Jo Kopechne. That should make Senator Edlard Kennedy sweat.
How about we make the guilty pay for their crimes so the dead can truly rest?
Well said!
Where, pls, did you find this? Wow!
There are photos that accompany it, but they're not very good.
I'd long heard of this case, but not in any depth.
I've always heard that the south was racist 50 years ago. This kind of put it in perspective.
September 23: Milam and Bryant are acquitted of murdering Emmett Till after the jury deliberates only 67 minutes. One juror tells a reporter that they wouldn't have taken so long if they hadn't stopped to drink pop. Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam stand before photographers, light up cigars and kiss their wives in celebration of the not guilty verdict.
"Long as I'm pointed SW towards my ancestral home. Somebody plants me facing North and I WILL BE BACK!"
ROTFLOL!
I feel the same way except, if I "go" out here
(there is doubt about that), I want to be planted
facing SE, towards my beloved Mississippi.
And, I don't want to be cremated. I want to remain
intact so that, in case my instructions aren't followed,
I CAN come back! ;o)
Don't be obtuse - the cemetary was all black in 1955 when Till was buried.
If there's a way to find out what truly happened, they why not? Or are you saying that all crimes involving dead people are not worth solving?
I wasn't confining my comment to the South. Demonizing the Emmitt Till case cast conservative Republicans in a bad light everywhere, not just in Mississippi.
By the way, I grew up in MS and was a junior in high school in Jackson when this happened.
In those days there were segragated cemetaries. Blacks and whites could not be buried together. Even today in some places in the south black and white cemetaries are next to each other but they are separated. Not unusual in some parts of the country and they are not considered a hate crime it's just an understood practice by both sides.
Thanks. I was 9 years old when it happened, and my home is Cleveland, MS, where JW and Roy drove through. I just spoke with my brother, and he knows purtnear where the cotton gin is, where they lifted the fan.
I'm also going to say that I remember JW's funeral, but I need to verify some things with a much older man than I before I post anything. Cold chills, man.
Believe it or not there are still some like that today. There was a story just recently (2-3 years) in Georgia about a white lady trying to bury her racially mixed child in the "white" cemetary and she was rejected because the child had black blood. Unnfortunately it still happens.
they were referring to historical as in "long time ago first".
Yes, let him rest. But if the pursuit of justice has not been exhausted, then the investigation should continue. I'm trying to be impartial here, but I would like to know the truth about what really happened.
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