THE
MURDER OF EMMETT TILL: NEW DEVELOPMENTS by DAVID HOLMBERG: (MaximsNews
Network)
Emmett Till
Emmett Till's funeral
photo published in Jet Magazine that ignited the Civil Rights
Movement
David
Holmberghas
covered major stories for newspapers in New York, Washington, Miami,
Philadelphia and other cities for 30 years. He currently teaches journalism at New York University and is a
Contributor to www.MaximsNews.com.
He
has been a senior editor for The Village Voice, where he covered the
investigation of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination. He has written
about the Emmett Till Case for The Nation, Newsday, The Daily News, and The
Palm Beach (Fla.) Post.
UNITED
NATIONS -- 12 May 2005 / www.MaximsNews.com
/ The historic
re-investigation of the Emmett Till case is on track, with indictments of five
suspects still a strong possibility fifty years after Till's murder.
That's
a reasonable conclusion based on the latest development in the case last week: the
FBI announced that the body of the 14-year-old Chicago youth will be exhumed.
Till is buried next to his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, in the Burr Oak Cemetery
in Alsip, Illinois.
Brooklyn
filmmaker Keith Beauchamp -- one of three documentarians who've probed
the case -- has been advocating the exhumation for some time, and once
again the FBI heeded his suggestion.
An
early showing of Beauchamp's film on the case drew some criticism
for its sketchiness, and according to Beauchamp a later version -- due
to open in New York in August -- will not focus on the new
investigation.
But
given the apparent progress in that investigation, and the prospect of more
evidence emerging from the exhumation, Beauchamp's cautious approach to
his film seems increasingly to be the correct one.
His
fundamental concern has been to protect the investigation.
He
was a principal source for the probe, and he didn't want to compromise that
role by making premature revelations in the film.
For
instance, based on documents he uncovered a while back, Beauchamp told
the FBI they should push for the indictment of Carolyn Bryant, whose
husband was one of Till's confessed killers.
Her
claim that Till "wolf-whistled" at her in the Bryants' grocery store
in Money, Mississippi, in August, 1955 was the triggering mechanism for the
murder.
Beauchamp
informed the FBI that documents he found demonstrated that investigators
were on the verge of seeking an indictment of Carolyn Bryant, along with her
husband, in 1955.
But
for unknown reasons, they backed off.
"They
had a warrant out for her (Carolyn Bryant) at the time," Beauchamp said
last week.
"I
told the FBI, 'these are your records showing she was a target.'"
With
that in mind, the FBI has pursued Carolyn Bryant, now 70 years old, in the new
investigation, and, Beauchamp said, "I believe she and Henry Loggins are
going to be indicted."
Loggins
is an elderly black man, now living in Dayton, Ohio, who worked for the other
confessed murderer of Till, J.W. Milam, and who witnesses have said was
present during Till's abduction.
Beauchamp
tracked down Loggins early in his own investigation, and elicited an emphatic
denial of any involvement.
But
Beauchamp and others close to the case now believe that the racial factor with
Loggins -- and the fact that if he was a co-conspirator he was probably an
unwilling one -- will not save him from being indicted.
"I
think we've gotten past the racial aspect of the case with Loggins," said
Beauchamp, 33, a Louisiana native from a black, middle-class family.
While
Beauchamp as a fledgling filmmaker has played a major role in re-opening the
case, a well-known documentarian, Stanley Nelson, also produced a Till film,
which ran on PBS.
Beauchamp,
in fact, has become competitive with Nelson, an older filmmaker who's taken a
broader, historic view of the case than Beauchamp.
A
third filmmaker, Gode Davis, is the wild card in the cinematic sweepstakes
surrounding the emotional, enduring Till story.
Occupied
for years with an ambitious film on lynching in America, Davis, who's based in
Rhode Island, says that while working on that film he stumbled on three men
who in subsequent interviews indicated their possible involvement in Till's
murder.
Davis
has been close-mouthed about his reporting on those three men, saying he
fears involvement in the Till case could jeopardize his larger account of
lynching in America.
He's
been concerned, for instance, that some of his lynching film footage might be
subpoenaed by Till investigators.
But
according to Beauchamp, Davis is also cooperating with authorities now, and
Beauchamp predicts that the men allegedly discovered by Davis may be the
other three targets of a possible indictment.
Authorities
have said Till's body will be exhumed in a few weeks.
The
50th anniversary of Till's death is on August 28th.
And
the final chapter in this country's most notorious and significant racial
murder of the 20th century may be written sometime this year.
David
Holmberghas
covered major stories for newspapers in New York, Washington, Miami,
Philadelphia and other cities for 30 years.
He
covered the AIDS crisis for New York Newsday -- including an
international AIDS conference in Stockholm -- and the war in El Salvador for
the Philadelphia Daily News.
He
was on Newsday's investigative team for the Donald Manes affair, the
major crisis of the Koch administration, and won first prize in the New
York City Press Club's annual awards for his coverage of the homeless.
He
covered the Mumia Jamal case for the Philadelphia Daily News, and as
national correspondent for that newspaper he also reported on vote fraud in
Mississippi and the trial of Miami police officers growing out of the Liberty
City riots.
While
in Miami, he wrote about anti-Castro bombings and the treatment of Haitian
immigrants in the Bahamas.
He
has been a senior editor for The Village Voice, where he covered the
investigation of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination.
He
has written about the Emmett Till Case for The Nation, Newsday, The Daily
News, and The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post.
For
the Post; he obtained the last interview with Roy Bryant, the confessed
murderer of Till.
He
was a Ford Foundation fellow in African studies at Columbia
University, and has written three novels.
His
short story, "History," dealing in part with 9/11, was
published in The Paterson Literary Review in 2003.
He
currently teaches journalism at New York University and is a Contributor to
www.MaximsNews.com
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