APNewsBreak: Government reopens probe of Emmett Till slaying

[DonViejo]

Source: Associated Press



By JAY REEVES
Today

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The federal government has reopened its investigation into the slaying of Emmett Till, the black teenager whose brutal killing in Mississippi shocked the world and helped inspire the civil rights movement more than 60 years ago.

The Justice Department told Congress in a report in March it is reinvestigating Till’s slaying in Money, Mississippi, in 1955 after receiving “new information.” The case was closed in 2007 with authorities saying the suspects were dead; a state grand jury didn’t file any new charges.

Deborah Watts, a cousin of Till, said she was unaware the case had been reopened until contacted by The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The federal report, sent annually to lawmakers under a law that bears Till’s name, does not indicate what the new information might be. But it was issued in late March following the publication last year of “The Blood of Emmett Till,” a book that says a key figure in the case acknowledged lying about events preceding the slaying of the 14-year-old youth from Chicago.

The book, by Timothy B. Tyson, quotes a white woman, Carolyn Donham, as acknowledging during a 2008 interview that she wasn’t truthful when she testified that Till grabbed her, whistled and made sexual advances at a store in 1955.

Read more: https://apnews.com/719f1c4c2daf4d72a720d56000ccacda

[Meadowoak]

1. I don't see the point in opening an old wound, we all know what happened. Just another waste of tax

Dollars that should be used re-unifying children with their parents.

[still_one]

4. Actualy, it is more important ESPECIALLY at this time with the reemergence, and legitimization of

racism and bigotry that has been going on since trump has occupied the WH, and the dismantling of the Civil Rights and voting rights act of the sixties

Reunification of parents with their children can occur whether this reopening occurs or not. It is NOT an either OR situation, and should not be framed that way

[canetoad]

14. Thank you for this post

Lately I've noticed a contingent on DU that suggest almost everything is less important than the detained children.

The children are important, but so are many other social justice issues, historical or current.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

17. Why, you're in good company!

One of the white men who killed Emmett, Roy Bryant, said basically the same thing!

"Emmett Till is dead. I don't know why he just can't stay dead."

[no_hypocrisy]

2. I told the story of Emmett Till to two classes of 14 yo African Americans in a charter school.

At 30 minutes without notes. They had no idea who Emmett Till was and his significance.

I pointed at several individuals in the class and stated they were about Till's age and any one of them could have been him in that place and time.

And I emphasized that jury finding "not guilty" to a crime(s) is NOT THE SAME THING AS "INNOCENT". It just means not enough evidence to convict.

The reading materials on this subject were wholly inadequate and I felt the need to educate these students.

[hedda_foil]

12. I just wrapped up a class on the fifties that included the key events in the civil rights movement..

Emmet Till's murder was the fulcrum for much that followed, starting with the Montgomery bus boycott soon afterwards. We spent quite a bit of time on it. My class was for older adults, both white and AA in our Lifelong Learning program, I used David Halberstam's video series "The Fifties," episode titled The Rage Within for that module. It focuses on Emmet Till and the integration of Central High School in Little Rock. Link:https://m.

&t=958s

A black woman educator in my class had the realization she shared with the group that her mother had always said she moved her family from the South to Chicago and refused to even visit her relatives back home because of Emmet Till. My student said she had never understood her mother's attitude until that video. It really hit home with everyone and might work for your young teenagers too. Check it out.

[CanSocDem]

18. Thanks for the video. n/t

[hedda_foil]

19. You're welcome.

[relogic]

3. Justice Department?

Not too long ago most non-bigoted Americans would have felt relief for such an investigation. Under B Sessions-not so much.

A little birdy asked the esteemed, unjust AT Sessions what he felt about that horrible crime-
“What crime?”

[still_one]

5. Which is even more reason why it needs to be reopened, especially in this environment

I have the same skepticism you have, but I think it is important especially based on what has been occurring under trump and the republicans with the dismantling of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act that has been occurring

[relogic]

6. Depends on

who’s doing the investigating. Just skeptical under the racist, judge inplant system we suffer under currently.

[Meadowoak]

8. That is my concern as well.

[still_one]

9. The skepticism I share with you, but the reopening presents an opportunity to remind people who are

either unaware or forgotten just who bad things were, and a warning to the direction we appear to be heading toward

[PubliusEnigma]

7. And they're going to pardon Muhammad Ali, too!

Now forget that they're racists, and vote for them.

[heaven05]

10. really

Sessions will let the KKKlansmen off again or not, which will give the RW a 'talking point' for their ignorant. I'm not fooled. Posthumously, of course. This reopening does not allay my fears of the fascists trying to take over our democracy. GOTV

[maxrandb]

11. With this DOJ

They'll blame it on Hillary

[spike jones]

15. In J Sessions' courts the new evidence

Will indicate that Emmett Till committed suicide.

[Judi Lynn]

13. And here's the photo of the little sweetie who lied about Emmitt Till

and treated him to a night on the town with her rabid, vicious, ultra-imaginative violent racist Klansman husband and his good Klansman pal. As she aged, she must have started discovering her conscience didn't seem to be hidden well enough any more, and her last ditch effort in coming "clean" was done in hope that if there is a hereafter, someone will "go easier" on her at that time, rather than treating her to a similar night on the town in the next world.





One of the Klansmen defendents receives some cordial moments of emotional support.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.2957334.1485536449!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_750/mississippi-whistle-trial.jpg

Klansman suspects, with the wife of one of them, who claimed she was sexually harrassed by the child Till.





Courtroom scene, with Klansman's family of W.A.S.P.s.



Klansmen suspects, celebrating with their wives.









Emmitt Till, before the men gouged out an eye, beat him until he was nearly dead, bound him with barbed wire to a 75
pound machine, and threw him in a river, where he remained until someone discovered what had happened long after he
was dead.

[Judi Lynn]

16. AP Was There: 2 men acquitted of murder in Emmett Till case Sam Johnson

Sam Johnson, The Associated Press Updated 4:55 pm CDT, Thursday, July 12, 2018


SUMNER, Miss. (AP) — The federal government has reopened its investigation of the 1955 slaying of black teen Emmett Till, a case that helped build momentum for the civil rights movement. The move comes a year after a book on the case revealed that a key figure acknowledged lying.

The Associated Press is republishing a version of a report that followed the acquittal of the two men in the Till case. The following AP story is from September 1955.

___

An all-white jury, composed mainly of Delta cotton farmers, acquitted two white storekeepers of the murder of a 14-year-old Chicago Negro boy yesterday, but the half-brother spent the night in the county jail.

Roy Bryant, 24, and John Milam, 36, still face charges of kidnapping Emmett Louis Till from the sharecropper shack in Leflore County where he was vacationing with his uncle, Mose Wright.

More:
https://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/AP-Was-There-2-men-acquitted-of-murder-in-Emmett-13070895.php