The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till (2005)

The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till is a documentary film that was released on DVD in 2005. Produced and directed by American filmmaker Keith A. Beauchamp, it runs for 68 minutes.

Emmett Louis Till was born in Chicago in July 1941. In August 1955, shortly after his 14th birthday, he took the train to Mississippi to stay with one of his relatives. What was supposed to be an adventure turned into a horrible nightmare: Emmett was kidnapped, tortured, and killed by two white men, who dumped his body in the Tallahatchie River. What had he done? It seems he had whistled at a woman in a grocery store, and since he was black and the woman was white, he had committed a sin which could not be ignored; a crime which called for revenge.

When his body was discovered and the perpetrators were arrested, they confessed to kidnapping him, but denied everything else. When they were charged with murder, they were acquitted by an all-white jury. In January 1956, the national magazine LOOK published an article in which the killers confessed to the murder. The legal rule that is known as “double jeopardy” prevented them from being accused of the same crime one more time.

In the white community in Mississippi, the verdict was greeted as a triumph, but in the black community, it was seen in a totally different light. The murder of Emmett Till and the acquittal of his killers was one of the sparks, which ignited the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. This film covers the life and death of Emmett Till and explains the importance of his case.

PART ONE
Several witnesses were interviewed for the film. Here are the names in the order of appearance:

** Mamie Till-Mobley, mother

** Reverend Wheeler Parker, cousin

** Simeon Wright, cousin

** Ruthie Mae Crawford, cousin

** Reverend Al Sharpton, president, National Action Network
** Charles Evers, brother of Medgar Evers, slain civil rights leader
** Dr Raymond Lockett, historian, Southern University of Baton Rouge, LA
** Roosevelt Crawford, friend

** John Crawford, friend
** Willie Reed, witness at the trial
** Mary Johnson, neighbour of J. W. Milam
** Dan Wakefield, reporter for the Nation

Several old clips, recorded in black-and-white in 1955, are also used in the film, including the following:

** Moses Wright, uncle

** Mamie Till, mother

** Charles Hayes, UPWA-CIO

** Roy Wilkins, executive director, NAACP

** Sheriff George Smith, Greenwood, Mississippi

** Sheriff H. C. Strider, Tallahatchie County

There is no narrator in this film. Instead the story is carried forward by on-screen messages, which appear whenever a new chapter is about to begin.

Emmett Till’s mother was Mamie Carthan (1921-2003). His father was Louis Till (1922-1945). When they were married in 1940, she took his family name and became Mamie Till. When she re-married later in life, she became Mamie Till-Mobley.

The woman, whose honour was insulted by a whistle, was Carolyn Bryant (born 1934). The killers were her husband Roy Bryant (1931-1994) and Roy’s half-brother J. W. Milam (1919-1981).

No one ever did time for the murder or the kidnapping of Emmett Till.

PART TWO
American Experience, a television program produced by PBS, produced an episode about this case, which was aired in 2003 and released on DVD in 2004. The title is The Murder of Emmett Till. It is obvious to compare the two films, because they cover the same topic and were released at almost the same time: the one from PBS in 2003, the other one in 2005.

# 1. The first difference is that the PBS film employs a narrator to move the story forward, while Beauchamp does not have a narrator.

# 2. The second difference is that the PBS film only talks about two perpetrators. If the two white men had help, they never mentioned anyone else. Beauchamp believes the two white men asked some black men to assist them while the crime was being carried out, but as far as I can see, he is not able to prove this assumption.

# 3. A third difference concerns the material used in the film. Most of the PBS film is filled with recent interviews in colour; only a few old clips recorded during the trial are included. Beauchamp spends less time with recent interviews in colour, which allows him to use more clips that were recorded back in 1955.

Unfortunately, the technical quality of the old recordings is rather poor; sometimes it is difficult or impossible to understand what is being said. It is interesting to see these old clips, but the quality varies a lot. Some of them are quite good, while others should not have been included, because the technical quality is too low.

Some overlapping between the two films is unavoidable, indeed several witnesses appear in both films. I do not wish to recommend one over the other, because I think they both are very powerful.

TWO MINOR QUIBBLES
Beauchamp has produced an important film about an important case, but I have to mention two minor quibbles:

# 1. The New York City Council discussed the Emmett Till case in a meeting that was held on 21 April 2004. At the end of the film there is a section about this meeting in which several members of the council talk about the case. Not a single member of the council is identified by name. This is a strange omission, given that this is a public forum and every statement is part of the public record. Why not add the names of the speakers?

# 2. The title of Beauchamp's film is misleading, because the case of Emmett Till is not "untold." Several books and articles have been written about it (for some examples, see the PS below); many of them were published before Beauchamp's film was released in 2005. As mentioned above, the PBS series American Experience devoted an episode to the case which was aired in 2003, i.e. two years before Beauchamp's film was released.

CONCLUSION
Beauchamp’s film covers the murder of Emmett Till and the subsequent trial in great detail. Since it is a horrible story, I cannot say you will enjoy it, but I do think you can appreciate it. The story deserves to be told and this film does it very well.

The case of Emmett Till is a dark chapter in the history of the United States. Keith Beauchamp, the man behind the film, deserves praise for making sure the case is not forgotten.

If you are interested in the history of the modern world - in particular the civil rights movement in the US - this film is something for you.

PS # 1. For more information, see the following books:

** A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till by Stephen J. Whitfield (1988, 1991)

** The Lynching of Emmett Till: A Documentary Narrative edited by Christopher Metress (2002)

** Emmett Till: The Sacrificial Lamb of the Civil Rights Movement by Cleonora Hudson-Weems (1994, 2006)

** Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime that Changed America by Christopher Benson & Mamie Till-Mobley (2003, 2004)

** Who Killed Emmett Till? by Susan Klopfer (2010)

** Emmett Till: The Murder that Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement by Devery S. Anderson (2015)

PS # 2. The Murder of Emmett Till is the title of a documentary film that was aired on PBS in 2003 and released on DVD in 2004. It is an episode in the series American Experience. Produced and directed by Stanley Nelson, it runs for 54 minutes.

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The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till,

Produced and directed by Keith A. Beauchamp,

Released 2005, run time: 68 minutes

 

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