“The objection is sustained,” Judge Swango pronounced. “Now, will you gentlemen of the jury step back into the jury room a moment, please?” The twelve Mississippians filed through the door behind the witness stand and closed it behind them.
In the absence of the jury Breland questioned Mamie about her subscription to the Chicago Defender, which she read every week. “These papers are edited by colored people, is that right?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Breland held up a copy of the Defender, then handed it to her, asking if she had seen this issue, and more specifically if she had seen the photograph of her son in it. It is of a smiling, utterly boyish Emmett, inescapably fourteen, his dark tie against a white shirt lending him the air of Sunday-best efforts, a hat on his head, the image of a boy hopeful about becoming a man. Did she have a copy of this photograph with her? She had. And when was it made? All of the photographs in all of the newspapers were made on the same day, two days after Christmas in 1954, Mamie told him.
“Did you have several of those photographs made?” She acknowledged that she had. “And did you furnish any of those photographs to members of the press?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“And that was for photographic purposes to put in the papers, is that right?” Breland had a number of different papers with him, all of them littered with adorable photographs of her child. She had provided the newspapers with copies. In fact, she had a number of copies with her now, presumably in case other newspapers wanted to feature his story. But there was more.
“Mamie,” Breland said momentously, “I hand you a paper, being page 19 of the Chicago Defender, on the 17th of September, 1955, which purports to be a photograph of some person. Will you look at that and state whether or not this is also a photograph of Emmett Till or the person who was shipped back to Chicago that you saw at the funeral home there?” It was the grisly photograph of her son’s battered, bloated body.
“This is a picture of Emmett Louis Till as I saw it at the funeral home,” she said.
“And being the photograph of the same body which you then identified as Emmett Till? And which you now identify as that of Emmett Till, is that right?”
“Yes, Sir.”
The judge then asked Breland if he had finished his examination. “I believe we have, Your Honor. And we submit that these are proper at this time.”
The defense raised the matter of the Chicago Defender and the photographs of Emmett in order to tie Mamie to the national outrage pouring onto Mississippi from the Northern press, particularly the African American press. The imagination was left to fill in the events between the two photographs, which for many Northerners and black people were sufficient for disgust, outrage, and scorn. This scorn from outsiders had become very unpopular among white Mississippians, even those who had no sympathy for the killers. The photographs and the world’s disgust made it far harder to avoid the fact that whatever had happened to that boy had happened in their state, under their collective watch, and therefore with some degree of their collective culpability. In story after story much of the world’s media made sure that point was made. Breland’s associating Mamie with the national press coverage marked her as an outsider and focused the hostility and resentment of the jurors and the public on her. Smith injected, “Your Honor, we think this is highly incompetent, this whole part of the case.”
The judge replied:
With reference to that, I believe that the witness testified that the pictures taken—that one of them is a picture of her son that was taken shortly after Christmas, and I believe that the witness testified that it is a true likeness of her son during his lifetime. And she also testified that the picture taken in Chicago after his death portrays a true picture of what she saw there at that time.
Now, the Court is going to admit these pictures in evidence—that is, one picture there that she produced, so that the jury may see the likeness of Emmett Till during his lifetime. And the Court is going to let be introduced in evidence the picture made in Chicago after his death. It will be cut from the paper, and the paper itself will not be any part of the exhibit.
There will be no reference to any newspapers to which this witness may subscribe in Chicago, or any reference to what she may read. And there [will] be no reference or anything said about any newspapers or pictures other than this picture, which she had identified as being a picture of her son taken after his death as she saw it there in Chicago. That picture will be permitted.
Breland informed Judge Swango that he had one more topic that he wanted to broach with the witness, one that might well be objectionable to the defense. The judge urged him to go right ahead and get it out of the way. The jury remained in the jury room. This next line of questioning was an admission of a different sort, but one that for much of the world implicitly defended Bryant and Milam’s kidnapping of Till at two o’clock in the morning.
“Did you caution [your son] how to conduct himself and behave himself while he was down here in Mississippi before he left there?” Breland demanded.
“I told him when he was coming down here that he would have to adapt himself to a new way of life. And I told him to be very careful how he spoke and to whom he spoke, and to always remember to say ‘Yes, Sir’ and ‘Yes, Ma’am’ at all times.”
“And did you direct his attention as to how to act around white people, and how to conduct himself about a white man? And did you caution him in those conversations you had with him not to insult any white women?”
“I didn’t specifically say white women. But I said about the white people. And I told him that because, naturally, living in Chicago, he wouldn’t know just how to act, maybe.”
“Prior to his coming down to Mississippi,” Breland pressed, “and prior to his leaving Chicago, while he was living there in Chicago, had he been doing anything to cause you to give him that special instruction?”
“No, Sir. Emmett has never been in any trouble at any time.”
“And he has never been in a reform school?”
“No, Sir.”
“I believe you live on the south side in Chicago, is that right? And that is the part of Chicago referred to as the black belt, is that right?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“And the people in the community, are they all colored people or white people?”
“There are a few white people living there.”
“And they have their homes there, is that right?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Breland’s implication was clear: untutored, swaggering, race-mixing South Side Chicago had gotten what it deserved.
“Is that all?” asked Judge Swango. The defense attorney said that it was.
“Now,” said the judge, “the objections to all that testimony will be sustained, and there will be no questions along that line whatsoever.”26 And yet, captured in the trial record, Chicago had been placed on public trial in Judge Swango’s courtroom. A veil of a different sort had been handed not to the men sequestered in the jury room but to the state of Mississippi. Mamie took her seat and the jury returned to the courtroom.
15
EVERY LAST ANGLO-SAXON ONE OF YOU