Friday marks the 60th anniversary of the murder of Emmett Till, an incident that helped spark the civil rights movement, and Florida State University (FSU) is preparing to launch an archive on that incident.
Originally from Chicago, Till, then only 14, was visiting relatives in the summer of 1955 when he visited Bryan’s Store in Money, Mississippi. An incident happened at the store which remains unclear. Some witnesses said Till whistled which he often did to help his stuttering. Other witnesses claimed Till flirted and made sexual advances at Carolyn Bryant, a 21-year-old white woman. Bryant went to her car to retrieve a gun while Till and his friends left the store.
In response, late at night, Bryant’s husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother John William "J.W." Milam went to where Till was staying and took him away at gunpoint. Bryant, Milam and other men beat Till and, eventually, shot him. Bryant and Milam told the authorities they beat Till but did not murder him. The teenager’s body, almost disfigured beyond recognition, was found with an eye gouged out a few days later.
Till’s body was sent home to Chicago where his mother insisted on an open coffin funeral. The case drew national attention, especially when, in September 1955, an all-white jury acquitted Bryant and Milam after deliberating for barely an hour. While whites in Mississippi defended the decision, the case drew national attention and helped propel the fledgling civil rights movement, especially after Bryant and Miliam told Look Magazine they had killed Till. In the past 60 years, the Till case has lingered in public memory, the focus of several films and literary works.
On Tuesday, the Florida State University Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives Division and Davis Houck, a professor at the College of Communication and Information at FSU, announced plans to house a research collection on Till’s murder. Houck wrote “Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press.” The collection will contain court records, interviews, media coverage and information collected by the FBI on Till’s murder.
“We’re very excited for this project because there is just simply nothing like it,” Houck said on Tuesday. “We’ve spent 20 years accumulating this material, most of which involved travel to Mississippi and archives around the South. It’s long past due that we had a ‘one-stop-archive’ for all things Emmett Till, and with this collection, we’ll finally have that.”
The collection also includes records from Devery Anderson who wrote “Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement" and materials collected by Keith Beauchamp whose documentary “The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till” was nominated for an Emmy.
“These materials from some of the nation’s foremost Emmett Till researchers will be a great addition to our archives and an outstanding resource for students, researchers and civil rights historians worldwide,” said Katie McCormick, an associate dean for special collections and archives at FSU.
The records on Till’s murder will be housed in the Special Collections Research Center at Strozier Library at FSU and will open early next year.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN
