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UC Riverside UC Riverside Previously Published Works UC Riverside UC Riverside Previously Published Works Title Emmett Till, Justice, and the Task of Recognition Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6bk3j01s Journal The Journal of American Culture, 29(2) ISSN 1542-7331 Author Baker, Courtney Publication Date 2006-06-01 DOI 10.1111/j.1542-734x.2006.00323.x Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Emmett Till, Justice, and the Task of Recognition Courtney Baker 111 EmmettTill,Justice,andtheTask of Recognition Courtney Baker The murder of the African American teenager apart from others. As this article will demon- Emmett Till in 1955 and the acquittal of his con- strate, the exceptional invocation of the power of fessed murderers constitute watershed events in the visual in this event illustrates a key concept in the American Civil Rights movement whose leg- play on both sides of the civil rights argument— acy continues into the present. Many people can namely, how the mechanics of visual recognition vividly recall their first viewing of Emmett Till’s are central to a concept of humanity. postmortem picture, which shows a bloated and This article examines three major sites wherein disfigured body lying in an open casket or on the Emmett Till’s body was figured as a spectacle— coroner’s slab, and cite it as a consciousness- the funeral home/morgue, the funeral, and the altering moment in their lives. The power of those trial. Taking into account how each of these ven- images and the story leading up to them continues ues might position the spectator in a specific way, into the present. In a 2004 press release in which the article analyzes how issues of distortion and the Department of Justice announced the reopen- misrecognition are negotiated in relation to an ing of the nearly 20-year-old case, Assistant overarching notion of humanity. As I will dem- Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, onstrate, these visually oriented events derive R. Alexander Acosta, is quoted as having stated, their power in part by appealing to the same rhe- ‘‘The Emmett Till case stands at the heart of the torical and ideological features of traditional American civil rights movement . This brutal memorial photography, the memento mori. murder and grotesque miscarriage of justice out- Nevertheless, in the representation of a disfigured raged a nation and helped galvanize support for the body, the spectator’s visual encounter is signifi- modern American civil rights movement. We owe cantly different than that of the memento mori’s it to Emmett Till, and we owe it to ourselves, to viewer. In this case the visible dead body not only see whether after all these years, some additional instructs the spectator on issues of mortality but measure of justice remains possible’’ (USDOJ). also illustrates the sometimes frustrating relation- The remarkable feature of the Emmett Till ship between mortality and justice. case—sadly not the only incident of a racially Without denying that the images in the motivated murder in the Jim Crow South—is its Emmett Till case—especially the images of his visibility. Indeed, the visual accessibility of the dead body—are powerful because they are per- multiple stages in this case—from the body’s dis- ceived as supplying documentary evidence of a covery to its burial to its deliberate and disturbing brutal act, this article asserts that the spectacle of display at the funeral, and extending even to its Till’s body is rooted in a visual aesthetic and virtual visibility in a Mississippi courtroom—set ideology other than realism. This nonrealist logic this episode in the history of civil rights agitation is an essential misrecognition required by the Courtney Baker is an instructor in the English department at Connecticut College. The Journal of American Culture, 29:2 r2006, Copyright the Authors Journal compilation r2006, Blackwell Publishing, Inc. 112 The Journal of American Culture Volume 29, Number 2 June 2006 concept of humanity. The spectacles and images River on Tuesday, August 31, 1955 by a 17-year- of Till’s body accomplish their political work by old white boy, Robert Hodges, who spotted feet situating an unrecognizable body that is, never- sticking out of the water at Pecan Point. By that theless, recognized by the spectator as human into time local law enforcement had been made well a narrative of human suffering. After assessing the aware of Till’s abduction and disappearance. (Mo- effect produced by visually beholding the human ses Wright and his brother-in-law, Crosby Smith, body, this article concludes with the site in which had notified their local sheriff, George Smith, the the acts of recognition and narration are made morning after the abduction, and Chicago police, fundamentally political—the courtroom. contacted by Till’s mother, Mamie Till, 33, alerted A series of image-centered events punctuated Tallahatchie County Sheriff, Harold Clarence the Emmett Till lynching, funeral, and trial of Strider. There are also accounts claiming that 1955. Several elements of the story of Till’s mur- Till’s cousin, Curtis Jones, also from Chicago, der have been contested, including how many called Sheriff Strider directly to report the kid- people were involved in the actual abduction and napping.) When the body was retrieved from the murder (the case has been recently reopened in river and taken to the undertaker it was so badly hopes of resolving these questions); however, the decomposed that it could only be identified by a crux of the story is that 14-year-old Emmett signet ring bearing the initials ‘‘L. T.’’—Louis Till, Louis Till of Chicago, IL, was visiting his great- Emmett’s father. Ostensibly due to the body’s uncle Moses Wright, a share cropper, and other state of decomposition, Strider ordered that Till relatives in Mississippi on a summer vacation. Al- be buried immediately, but Jones intervened by though the details of the exchange are still debated phoning Mamie Till in Chicago and notifying her and ultimately unknown, what is known is that of Strider’s order. Mamie Till’s own assessment of Till had some interaction with a white female the situation was that, ‘‘the main thing [the police in shopkeeper, 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, at her Tallahatchie wanted] to do was to get that body in family store in the small town of Money in the ground so nobody could see it’’ (Hudson 300, Leflore County, Mississippi. Three days later, at emphasis added). She demanded that the Mississip- 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, August 28, 1955, Bryant’s pi coroner return her son’s body to Chicago. It was, husband, Roy Bryant, 24; brother-in-law, J. W. but only on the condition determined by the sher- Milam, 36; and, according to many accounts, one iff’s office that the casket never be opened. Emmett or two others (including, perhaps, Carolyn Till’s body arrived at the Illinois Central rail ter- Bryant herself ) drove to the home of Moses minal in Chicago on Friday, September 3, 1955. Wright to abduct Till. Till was taken to Milam’s Mamie Till’s remarkable response to the trag- tool shed where he was beaten. The beating was edy was to display to the world the body of her overheard by an 18-year-old black man named son. She decided to make the violence enacted Willie Reed who eventually testified at the trial. upon the body visible. In a speech delivered At some point, Bryant and Milam decided to kill shortly after the acquittal of Emmett’s murderers, Till. They found a gin fan used for processing Mamie Till explained what motivated her deci- cotton, drove to the edge of the Tallahatchie River sion. Only moments after seeing Emmett’s corpse where they say they shot Till in the head, then for the first time, secured the fan to his neck with barbed wire and threw his body into the river. I said, Roy [Mooty, Mamie’s cousin], any- The portion of the story that I want to focus body that wants to look at this, can see it. I’m tired of stuff being covered up. If some on begins with the discovery of Till’s body three of these lids had been pulled off of Missis- days later and continues with the increasing sippi a long time ago, then something like political significance that his distorted body this wouldn’t be happening today. So far as accumulated in the weeks and months to follow. my personal feelings are concerned, they Till’s body was discovered in the Tallahatchie don’t count . .. And if my son had sacrificed Emmett Till, Justice, and the Task of Recognition Courtney Baker 113 his life like that, I didn’t see why I should Emmett’s body that she offers in her memoirs is have to bear the burden of it alone. There was itself wrenching: a lesson there for everybody. (Hudson 304) When I got to his chin, I saw his tongue resting there. It was huge, I never imagined The event precipitated by these sentiments was that a human tongue could be that big . .. that Emmett’s body lay in state for four days at the From the chin I moved up to his right cheek. Roberts Temple Church of God. The church was There was an eyeball hanging down, resting thronged, mostly by black Chicagoans, who had on that cheek . .. Right away, I looked to the followed the reported kidnapping, alleged murder, other eye. But it wasn’t there . .. Dear God, and subsequent trial through the black press as well there were only two [teeth] now, but they as mainstream media outlets.
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