The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“THE EMMETT TILL CASE” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Senate section on pages S11713-S11714 on Nov. 20, 2004.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
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.
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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