[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 135 (Saturday, November 20, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11713-S11714]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          THE EMMETT TILL CASE

  Mr. TALENT. Madam President, I rise today to talk briefly about a 
resolution Senator Schumer and I have cosponsored in the Senate which 
we introduced yesterday. It is about the Till case.
  I want to summarize for you the Emmett Till case. I don't normally 
read things on the Senate floor, but, in reviewing the notes from our 
office for the press conference that we had the other day, I really 
could not find a better statement for the background of this case than 
the notes. So I am going to read just a couple of paragraphs.
  It is a story that I will preface by saying it has to shame every 
American. It is a hard story to listen to--a story from a time that 
thankfully was a very different time in this country but a story that 
has reached across the 50 years since it happened and is calling for 
action now.
  In August 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American was 
visiting family in Money, MS, from Chicago and allegedly whistled at 
Carolyn Bryant, a white woman. On August 28, Roy Bryant, Carolyn's 
husband, and his half brother, J.W. Milam, kidnapped Emmett from his 
uncle, Moses Wright's, home. They beat him, dragged him to banks of the 
Tallahatchie River and shot him in the head. Bryant and Milam then 
fastened a large metal cotton ginning fan and dumped his body into the 
river. Three days later, Emmett's body was pulled from the river and 
returned to his mother, Mamie Till, in Chicago. Mamie Till made a very 
courageous decision at that point. She decided to leave his casket open 
for 4 days to show the public what had happened to her son.
  Tens of thousands of people paid their respects in person and the 
press published photos of Emmett's mutilated corpse around the world. 
In September 1955, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam stood trial for Till's 
murder in Mississippi. An all white, male jury acquitted both men, 
after several women and African Americans were barred from serving on 
the jury; they reached their verdict after only 67 minutes of 
deliberation. Emmett's uncle Moses Wright, and another resident of the 
town, Willie Reed, both testified in court. As a result they were 
forced to flee to Chicago because their lives were in danger following 
their testimony. Worldwide, there was tremendous outrage at the murder 
and subsequent acquittal. In November, Wright and Reed returned to 
Mississippi and testified before a grand jury investigating the pending 
kidnapping charges against Bryant and Milam. But the grand jury refused 
to indict those men.

[[Page S11714]]

  On January 24, 1956, Look magazine published an article in which both 
Bryant and Milam described the murder in detail. They received $4000 to 
tell their story. Look published a subsequent article, where Milam 
stated that he did not regret the killing.
  Both Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam lived the rest of their lives as free 
men and died of natural causes; Milam died in 1980 and Bryant in 1990. 
Mamie Till died in January 2003. Keith A. Beachamp--a documentary film 
maker from Fort. Greene, Brooklyn--found new evidence about the case, 
including never-before-heard eyewitness accounts, while making his 
documentary which will air soon, ``The Untold Story of Emmett Louis 
Till.'' The witnesses claim that there were several other people 
involved in the murder plot and that some of these individuals are 
still alive.
  Mamie Till lived in Chicago until she died in January of 2003. She 
was rather close to Congressman Bobby Rush who was a colleague of mine 
when I served in the House. When Congressman Rush found out about this 
documentary, he introduced a resolution calling for the Justice 
Department to reopen this case and determine whether it was still 
possible to prosecute some of these other individuals who, according to 
Mr. Beachamp, were indeed involved in this crime. Since these other 
individuals were never tried, much less acquitted, it would still be 
constitutionally possible to prosecute them, especially in the Federal 
court, because there had never, unfortunately, been Federal actions or 
Federal indictments brought against any of these individuals who were 
involved.
  Senator Schumer was considering filing a companion resolution in the 
Senate earlier this year. He approached me to see if I wanted to 
cosponsor it with him. I was very interested in doing that. We both had 
contacted the Justice Department before we were able to sponsor that 
resolution. I am pleased to say the Justice Department did reopen the 
case, that was in May, and the Justice Department has been 
investigating ever since.
  This week Congressman Rush, Congressman Charlie Rangel, Senator 
Schumer, and I have sponsored in the House and in the Senate a new 
resolution calling on the Justice Department to devote whatever 
resources are necessary to investigate this matter expeditiously and 
report back to the Congress and to do justice after 50 years.
  I am sorry to say--I am ashamed to say--that Mamie Till tried over 
and over again for almost 50 years to get the Federal Government to do 
something, which she was unable to do so, particularly in the 1950s 
when this evidence was fresh, when a Federal charge could have been 
brought without violating the constitutional rule against double 
jeopardy, but it was not brought. For that, the Federal Government has 
to accept responsibility.

  We do not know what an expeditious and complete investigation will 
reveal. I suppose it is possible either other people were not involved 
in this or that a case cannot be made against them at this late date. 
What we do know is that any remaining witnesses, people who might have 
been coconspirators in this terrible tragic crime, are getting older. 
If a case is to be made, it must be made soon because witnesses may 
die, evidence may become even more stale and unusable.
  Justice needs to be done for a lot of reasons, in part because, as 
Congressman Rangel says, you have to confront these kinds of crimes, 
these kinds of tragedies, these wrongs if you are ever to get past 
them, in part because there may be murderers at large who need to be 
brought to justice, in part because it is only through the courage of 
Mamie Till and the courage of Moses Wright who, in 1955, followed their 
convictions and protested publicly about this. It took enormous courage 
for that mother to keep that casket open so the world could see what 
happened. It took enormous courage for Moses Wright to walk into that 
courtroom and testify against these white men, but he did it.
  As a result, this whole incident was one of the seminal events that 
led to the civil rights movement in the 1950s and the 1960s with all 
the progress we have achieved as a result of that.
  It is owing to these individuals and to their courage that we do the 
right thing after all this time. I certainly intend to continue doing 
whatever I can to make certain the Justice Department is held 
accountable for taking action. I know Senator Schumer feels strongly 
the same way. This is a subject I intend to bring up with Mr. Gonzales 
as his confirmation process moves through the Senate. I certainly hope 
he is confirmed and I do intend to support that. I think he will make a 
great Attorney General. But I want to make certain that he is 
personally aware of this and personally committed to devoting such 
resources as are necessary, as expeditiously as possible, to see that 
justice so long delayed is now done in this case.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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