Death of Innocence : The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (9781588363244) (31 page)

With all that in mind, the teams started out making the rounds to plantations on Tuesday and found several cases where potential witnesses had disappeared. The word was that they had been visited by whites.

Many people began to believe Collins and Loggins had been killed to keep them quiet. Jimmy Hicks believed something else. He had developed some amazing sources in such a short time, impressive when you realize just how wary those Delta black folks could be. But Hicks had good information that Too Tight was in jail in Charleston. Maybe Loggins, too. The prosecutors asked about it. Sheriff Strider denied it. And that seemed to be good enough for all the white folks. But the names Levy “Too Tight” Collins and Henry Lee Loggins would continue to haunt the proceedings. For Jimmy Hicks, though, these men would become an obsession.

Even though the whereabouts of Collins and Loggins would remain a mystery, the teams were able to reach several witnesses and convince them to come forward. Still, there was one critical person everyone wanted to find. And the teams were racing the clock. Everything had to be in place by the following morning. Leflore County Sheriff George Smith was heading up one of the search parties. He had been the man contacted by Papa Mose and Uncle Crosby when Emmett was taken. This team finally got a break, a lead they couldn’t afford to pass up. Smith would lead the way, followed by Booker and Porteus in one car and Hicks in another. As it turns out, the sheriff’s team was traveling so fast, Booker and Hicks lost him and, the reporters wrote, they were left to wonder how things would turn out.

Willie Reed stopped what he was doing as he watched across the field. He didn’t know the names of the people, black people and white people, walking in his direction, and he wouldn’t remember their names after it was all over. He did know why they were there. He knew that even before they started talking to him. He had heard all about it on the radio, he had seen it in the paper, when he wasn’t picking. He had heard something else even before anybody heard anything on the radio. His own relatives had advised him to stay out of it. Not to tell what he had heard. He thought about all that and about what these strangers were talking about. But he didn’t think long. What they talked about would put his life in danger. His relatives had told him that much. That thought made him nervous. Very nervous. He was only eighteen. He had to live in this place for a long time and he didn’t want to live with the constant fear of dying. If he was going to keep living at all. But he agreed to cooperate. He recalled the horror of what some men had done early on a Sunday morning in a plantation shed, when they thought nobody was around. He had been unable to do anything to stop it from happening. Maybe now he could do something to keep it from ever happening again. Maybe.

 T
he story was front-page news Wednesday morning. That’s the way everybody had agreed it would go. The three white reporters were able to go forward with their insider accounts. They wrote about how the surprise witnesses were found and brought in to testify. That had been their reward, but it also had been part of the strategy of Medgar Evers, Dr. Howard, and Ruby Hurley, working with the black reporters. The Clark Porteus story in the
Memphis Press-Scimitar
made news across the country through the Scripps-Howard news service. Porteus wrote about how Dr. Howard had identified five witnesses who might be able to show that Emmett’s murder had taken place at the Sheridan Plantation in Sunflower County. Like Leflore, Sunflower was right next to Tallahatchie County. The Sheridan Plantation was managed by Leslie Milam, J. W. Milam’s brother, and Roy Bryant’s half-brother. The Porteus story gave a detailed account of Dr. Howard’s discussions with a witness about the possible scene of the crime. As many as four white men and two black men were seen with Emmett at the Sheridan Plantation in a green Chevy truck, like the one that drove off from Papa Mose’s place with Emmett in the back. Porteus had been the person who delivered Dr. Howard’s report to the prosecutors. Everyone saw right away that this new evidence might mean the whole trial would have to move to Sunflower County. They brought in Leflore County Sheriff George Smith, along with his deputy, John Ed Cothran; the Sunflower County district attorney; the Sunflower County prosecutor; and a forensic specialist sent down by Governor White. After Judge Swango granted the recess on Tuesday, Porteus wrote, the white officials went to the Sheridan Plantation to examine a shed. There was some information that the shed might have been the place
where Emmett had been beaten, and where someone had been trying to clean up bloodstains. The officials didn’t find any traces of blood, and they probably scared off quite a few potential black witnesses in the process.

Even though Porteus didn’t mention Jimmy Hicks, he did report that two more potential witnesses, Levy “Too Tight” Collins and Henry Lee Loggins, were still being sought. And that only fueled the growing feeling that these two men were long gone.

Papa Mose was sworn in at nine-fifteen Wednesday morning. He had been waiting there in court over the last two days just for this moment. On Tuesday, he had stood around because there were no vacant seats. He’d just stood, waiting to be called. Then court was recessed so that the surprise witnesses could be found, and he’d had to wait overnight. But he had been waiting for this moment even longer than that. He had been waiting nearly a month to have the chance to bear witness, to tell everybody what had happened at his home the night Emmett was taken away.

Papa Mose wasn’t a tall man, but people had always looked up to him. He was respected by the people who knew him. When he spoke, they listened. In court, they listened intently, not so much because the white folks there cared about what he was saying, but because they cared more about what he was speaking against. Yes, he was testifying against Bryant and Milam. But, more than that, his very presence there spoke out against a custom that said you don’t do what he was about to do. You see, through his testimony, Papa Mose would cross a line that no one could remember a black man ever crossing in Mississippi. He wasn’t afraid of Bryant and Milam, sitting there in court, staring him down. “They oughtta be scared of me,” he had said before he got his moment, before he was sworn in, before he settled into the cane chair on the witness stand. This was Papa Mose’s chance. He had been waiting for this chance, for this moment. He was not going to let Bryant and Milam off. They had violated his home. They had terrorized his family. Beyond all else, they had tortured and killed Emmett.

The District Attorney Gerald Chatham started off. He addressed the witness as “Uncle Mose,” and the witness addressed him as “sir.” On questioning, Papa Mose once again told the story about how he was awakened at two in the morning by the banging on the front door and the voice calling out to him, the one identifying himself as “Mr. Bryant.” He told how he came out to the screened-in porch to see that there were two men, one with a flashlight and a gun, who asked for the boy from Chicago, the one who had done the talking. There was a third man, who stayed behind on the porch outside when the other two came in.

Papa Mose testified how the two men woke Emmett and threatened him and took him out to the truck. He told how he heard Milam ask someone in the truck whether Emmett was the right boy. There was that voice from inside the truck: “Yes.” A fourth person, a person with a voice that was lighter than a man’s voice. They put Emmett in the back of the truck. And they drove away.

Chatham looked straight across at Papa Mose. “Did you ever see your nephew alive again?”

Papa Mose swallowed. Then he spoke in a low voice. “No, sir.”

Chatham asked Papa Mose if he could identify the two men. This was the moment. A black man was actually being asked to take a stand in a Mississippi courtroom and accuse a white man of kidnapping a black boy.

“Yes, sir,” Papa Mose said. He could identify them, all right.

Chatham asked him to rise.

Papa Mose did right away. He stood up, straight, erect. He did not waver, he did not shake. It was very dramatic, and everything was suspended in the heat of that moment, the very moment Papa Mose had been waiting for. Chatham asked Papa Mose to indicate the men who came to his house that Sunday morning. Without hesitating, as if he had seen himself doing this in a thousand moments before this one, Papa Mose raised his arm.

At the black press table, off to the left, behind the rail, and near the window, Ernest Withers, the photographer shooting for the
Defender
, was also waiting for that moment. Ernest Withers knew what that moment meant, and what it would mean. It was a defiant moment that had to be preserved, even if the judge had restricted picture taking. So Ernest Withers pointed his camera very carefully, aimed it between the people in front of him, straight through the opening, right at Papa Mose. That’s where everybody else’s attention was drawn, too. Nobody, it seemed, was watching the black press table at that moment. At least you might hope that would be the case. So, with hope, with patience, and with a steady hand, Ernest Withers waited for the moment.

As Papa Mose pointed, he felt the rush of anger in that room. The heat of the moment. As he would put it later, he could feel the blood of all those white people boiling. But there was scarcely a peep from the crowd. In fact, it was so quiet in that courtroom, you could hear the gentle whirring sound of the ceiling fans stirring the hot air. That, and a single click of a camera shutter over at the black press table. Papa Mose stood straight and firm against the weight of that room. “There he is,” he said, as he pointed directly at J. W. Milam. “And there is Mr. Bryant.”

That done, the moment past, Papa Mose took his seat once again.

As he did, from a spot near the jury, artist Franklin McMahon was preparing for
Life
magazine a drawing of the same dramatic event photographed by Withers. While he finished his work, McMahon heard a juror mutter a reference to Papa Mose: “Sambo, Sambo.”

When the defense attorney, C. Sidney Carlton, started his cross-examination, it became clear that he wanted to make this
his
moment. He tried to pin Papa Mose down on how he could recognize anybody in the dark with the flashlight pointed mostly at him. Carlton tried to get Papa Mose to admit that the only reason he even thought he recognized Milam was because Milam was big and bald and white. And couldn’t that description fit a lot of people? He wondered how Papa Mose could even identify Bryant, ignoring what Papa Mose had said under oath. Bryant had identified himself when he came banging on his door. Oh, that man was getting on Papa Mose’s nerves. In fact, at one point, he became so annoyed that he just stopped saying “sir” when he answered.

“So there were four persons there that night?” Carlton asked.

Papa Mose sat back in the chair. “That’s right.”

Finally, Carlton asked about the third man who had come that night, the one who had stayed out on the porch. “Was he a white man?”

“I don’t think so,” Papa Mose said.

“He might have been a Negro?”

“He sure acted like a Negro,” Papa Mose said. “He stayed outside.”

People laughed at this answer and the judge slammed the gavel and shut everything down right away. He was determined to keep control of his courtroom. After about an hour, Papa Mose finally was released. The moment had come and it had passed. An hour that seemed like only a heartbeat, and an entire lifetime.

Leflore County Sheriff George Smith was called next. The judge excused the jury while he listened to what the sheriff had to say. What Smith had to say was how he went to Roy Bryant’s store later that Sunday, after Emmett was taken. Bryant was asleep in back of the store at two in the afternoon. Bryant admitted that he took Emmett out of the house and back up to the store. But he told Smith that he turned Emmett loose, when he found out from his wife that he wasn’t the one. The defense lawyers made a big deal out of the fact that Sheriff Smith and Bryant were friends. They tried to say that the conversation between them was confidential. But the judge wouldn’t allow the objection. The whole thing just seemed too cozy. The sheriff who was investigating the kidnapping was a friend of one of the kidnappers. It looked like the sheriff wanted to do the right thing, but in that crazy place, you could never be sure how things might turn out.

The recess for lunch was going to be two and a half hours long. The defense team wanted to have time to question the surprise witnesses being called by the prosecutors.

As people began filing out for the extended break, somebody approached Ernest Withers, stopped him in his tracks. Somebody had seen him take that picture, capture the moment: Papa Mose standing to accuse Bryant and Milam. As it turned out, the man was from one of the wire services. He bought the film right out of Ernest Withers’s camera.

It must have been unsettling for Willie Reed. Awful, really. It sure had been that way for me. Walking into that court for the first time, not knowing what was in store, what to expect. Oh, for me, it was the worst. But, for him, it was worse still. He had never been inside a courthouse in his entire life, and what he was about to do there would change his life from that point on. His first stop on this first trip on Wednesday was the judge’s chambers. There, seated with their feet up on Judge Swango’s desk, were Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam. Their lawyers were there, too. That was not a good sign to Willie. He might not have ever been in a courthouse before, but he didn’t have to have experience in a courthouse to know what it meant for a black man to be in a room like that with people like those. He had lived in the Delta long enough to know this much: Even when you’re brought into the room, you’re still an outsider.

Willie didn’t take a seat. He didn’t even think about that. He just stood there and answered the questions about the testimony he would give. The same way the other surprise witnesses would be doing. Willie was under a great deal of pressure, but he believed he could get through it. He had gotten so much support during his stay at Dr. Howard’s place the night before. People knew he would need that. Willie had been very hard to find at first because his grandfather had moved him about three miles away from his house when things had started heating up, when word started spreading about the people who might have information about Emmett’s death, especially Willie. His grandfather needed to protect Willie. Even so, even several miles away from his grandfather’s place, he hadn’t felt completely safe. Somebody still could have gotten to him. As it turns out, the people who finally did get to Willie wound up bringing him to safety in Mound Bayou. He thought about that. That, and all the encouragement everybody had given him the night before. He had been impressed to meet a U.S. congressman, a black congressman. He told Charles Diggs as much. He told me he wanted to help and I told him how much I appreciated his help, how grateful I was. He felt relieved being in an all-black town, on Dr. Howard’s grounds, with bodyguards. Oh, that made him feel very
good, and very safe. To him, it was like being at the White House. Trying to get to Dr. Howard, he said, would have been like trying to get to the president.