[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 66 (Wednesday, May 12, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H2890-H2891]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       THE MURDER OF EMMETT TILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rush) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RUSH. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to speak on the Justice 
Department's recently announced initiative to partner with the State of 
Mississippi in investigating the brutal murder of Emmett Till in the 
sham Jim Crow trial that subsequently acquitted the perpetuators of 
this heinous crime.
  Given the significance of this tragedy in American history, I 
accepted the Justice Department's announcement with mixed feelings. On 
the one hand, I felt relief. But on the other hand, I thought to myself 
it is about time. This investigation should have been conducted at 
least 49 years ago.
  On August 28, 1955, in Money, Mississippi, Roy Bryant and his half 
brother J.W. Milam kidnapped 14-year-old Emmett Till from his uncle's 
home where he was staying for the summer. Bryant and Milam brutally 
beat Emmett Till, took him to the edge of the Tallahatchie River, shot 
him in the head, fastened a large metal fan used for ginning cotton to 
his neck with barbed wire, and pushed the body into the river. Emmett 
Till's body washed ashore some 3 days later.
  Emmett's mother, Mamie Till, insisted on leaving her dead son's 
casket open at the funeral on the south side of Chicago. She did not 
let the coroner alter Emmett's deformed face, and for 3 days his casket 
lay open for anyone and for everyone to see. Photographs of Emmett's 
body were published in newspapers and magazines around the world. And 
after an all-white, all-male jury acquitted Bryant and Milam for the 
murder, the world became outraged.
  Two years later, Milam and Bryant subsequently and candidly, and 
truthfully I might add, admitted their crime to Look Magazine and went 
into exact detail on how they committed their heinous crime.
  A hundred days after the murder of Emmett Till, Rosa Parks refused to 
give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and the American 
civil rights movement was born. In the aftermath of the trial, Mamie 
Till begged the Justice Department and President Eisenhower to 
investigate her son's death, but her pleas were ignored.
  Almost 50 years later, on February 10, 2004, I introduced a 
bipartisan congressional resolution, H. Con. Res. 360, calling upon the 
Justice Department to investigate the murder of Emmett Till and the 
sham trial that acquitted Bryant and Milam. Fifty-four Members of

[[Page H2891]]

the House of Representatives, including the entire Congressional Black 
Caucus, cosponsored my resolution with the hopes that Ms. Mamie Till-
Mobley, who died in January of last year, could finally realize her 
profound wish that Emmett's murder be investigated. It is too bad that 
she is not alive today to see the commencement of this investigation.
  The facts of this case are beyond dispute. The murder of Emmett Till 
has been the subject of numerous historical accounts, including a high-
profile documentary on PBS's ``American Experience'' series, a recently 
published book on Mamie Till-Mobley, and a yet-to-be-released 
documentary by a young African American film-maker who has been working 
on this project for some 9 years. Many of us regard the cruel and 
senseless tragedy of Emmett Till as the spark that ignited the civil 
rights movement. However, notwithstanding the facts in the history 
books, the official account of the murder of Emmett Till delineates 
Bryant and Milam as innocent men who were acquitted in a fair trial. 
Worse, it is still possible that other co-conspirators in this crime 
are still alive.
  Mr. Speaker, I call upon the Justice Department to do a thorough job 
and leave no stone unturned. If there was official misconduct by 
Federal or local officials, they should not be immune to any possible 
prosecution. Not only was Emmett Till's senseless and savage murder a 
crime, but the subsequent official trial that freed Milam and Bryant 
was also a crime.
  According to yesterday's edition of the Chicago Tribune, witnesses 
are now surfacing that suggest others may have been involved in the 
murder. Though Milam and Bryant were the two criminals on trial, some 
witnesses say they saw up to five men with flashlights and guns at the 
scene of the crime. It is important that the Justice Department 
investigate these possible leads and others as they go forward with 
Mississippi and county officials.
  Bryant and Milam have since died, but justice is never too late. 
While we will never be able to erase this inhumane and cruel episode 
from the annals of American history, we can certainly set the record 
straight. Not only may coconspirators to the crime and trial still be 
alive, we can also have an official public account of what exactly 
happened. Reopening an investigation of a civil rights era murder is 
hardly unprecedented: the murder of Medgar Evers and the bombing of the 
16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, where four innocent 
young, black girls were killed are two cases upon which federal 
authorities reopened investigations resulting in arrests, prosecutions 
and convictions. Emmett Till deserves no less.
  I call upon the Justice Department to do a thorough job and leave no 
stone unturned. If there was official misconduct by federal and/or 
local officials, they should not be immune to any possible prosecution. 
Not only was Emmett Till's senseless and savage murder a crime, but the 
subsequent official trial that freed Milam and Bryant was also a crime. 
Everyone and anyone who was involved in this criminal injustice should 
be fair game under a quality criminal investigation.

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