Journalist Suppressed Evidence Pointing to Additional Conspirators Involved in Murder of Emmett Till

Newly released documents suggest a prominent account of Till's death left out some important information.

It is often said that journalism is the first draft of history. In the case of Emmett Till, a prominent news story about his murder was long taken as the definitive account of his death at the hands of J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant. Newly discovered documents, however, conform suspicions more people were involved in Till's horrific death.

The Washington Post reports:

A journalist whose 1956 article was billed as the "true account" of Emmett Till's killing withheld credible information about people involved in the crime, according to newly discovered documents.

William Bradford Huie's article in Look magazine helped shape the country's understanding of 14-year-old Till's abduction, torture and slaying in Jim Crow-era Mississippi. The article detailed the confessions of two White men who previously had been acquitted by an all-White jury in the killing. The men told Huie they had no accomplices.

Yet Huie's own research notes, recently released by the descendants of a lawyer in the case, indicatehis reporting showedthat others were involved andsuggest he chose to leave that out when it threatened the sale of his story. He also was seeking a movie deal about the killing and had agreed to pay the two acquitted men, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, part of the proceeds.

If Huie had fully reported what he'd learned, it could have led to charges against additional participants in the murder, three historians say.

As the Post report indicates, many had believed that additional people participated in Till's murder, but the Look story deflated efforts to pursue additional conspirators.

Black journalists had been pressuring Mississippi officials and the FBI to investigate and charge additional suspects in the case. Huie's "true account," with its assurance that only two men were involved and its depiction of Till as a defiant brute, effectively ended that effort.

"This confession, as it was touted, suddenly seemed enough to satisfy everybody," said Devery S. Anderson, author of a 2015 book on the Till case. If Huie had reported everything he had learned, "it's possible these other people would have been indicted," Anderson said, though he also said they could have been acquitted.

Comments

[Kleppe]

Adler, proofread your posts. There are always a ton of typos and they make your posts difficult and distracting to read.

[EllaWilson]

Politico and Axios have been rated the "most unreliable" sources. 97 &98/98.
National Review is rated 17/98.
SCOTUS Blog and Gateway Pundit are #1 and #2.
Reason is not rated.

[Sarcastr0]

Anything that rates Gateway Pundit reliable has refuted itself as a reliable source of reliability.

[JasonT20]

Politico and Axios have been rated the “most unreliable” sources.

Rated where? By whom?

[John Rohan]

As Steve Sailer would say on his blog - Ah more late breaking developments in the Emmet Till case!

"Newly discovered documents" does not seem plausible for a murder that occurred almost 70 years ago and has been endlessly gone over with a fine tooth comb. On an almost regular basis, the NYT and WaPo keep trotting out some tidbit to keep this story active.

[Sarcastr0]

THE EMMETT TILL AGENDA!

History is full of late-breaking tidbits.

[John Rohan]

Reminds me of how North Korea regularly still keeps discovering new messages and notes left by Kim Il-Sung from back when he was a guerilla fighter against the Japanese during WWII. Keeps the heroic legend alive, and fills column space.

[Drewski]

Players in this conspiracy: The Washington Post, the New York Times, Florida State University, Houk's granddaughter, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States National Archives, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.

Goal of the conspiracy: Fill some column space every five or ten years, remind the public that Emmet Till existed.

Stakes if successful: Several thousand dollars in ad revenue a couple of times each decade.

Stakes if unsuccessful: Dozens of established, professional careers ruined, FSU loses donations, Congressional hearings, likely criminal charges for government actors and ringleaders.

[John Rohan]

It's hardly a far-reaching conspiracy involving so many players to simply find a note or two, or report on the latest vandalism against his memorial, or that yet another person tangentially involved in the investigation has just passed away. There's always an excuse to keep the story alive. The Jon Benet Ramsey case is the only other murder I can think of that comes close to popping up as often and it probably gets 10% of Till's coverage.

[Roger S]

It is almost as if no one can find any other examples of racist harm done to a Black person.

[John Rohan]

The NYT and WaPo love this story. They aren’t as wild about the killing of people like Mike Brown or George Floyd because the circumstances were more messy and they couldn’t be portrayed as total innocents like Till.

[Snorkle]

I don't know, SCOTUS keeps finding remarkable new details in the Constitution after almost 250 years.

Who knew both Hamilton and Jefferson wanted to crown a failed steak salesman?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Experts now agree on this basic timeline: On Aug. 24, 1955, Till whistled at Carolyn Bryant outside the convenience store where she worked. What, if anything, happened inside the store is unknown."

Certainly true, but it would appear that we've left the "believe women" era fully behind us.

[Michael Ejercito]

Carolyn Bryant was the Blasey-Ford bitch of her generation.

[TwelveInchPianist]

People certainly seemed a lot more ready to believe Blasey-Ford, even though her allegations were made twenty years after the fact for purposes of derailing a SCOTUS nomination, and there was evidence that Bryant and Till had been in the same place at the same time.

But we should always be skeptical of allegations such as these, especially uncorroborated ones.

Of course, even if the allegations were true it certainly didn't justify what happened.

[TwelveInchPianist]

There was a claim at one point that Bryant recanted her allegations, but there's almost no evidence to support it.

[David Nieporent]

Yes, and she vehemently denied having done so.

[Savagely Average]

This case has nothing to do with believing or not believing women. Whether one believes Bryant is irrelevant to Till’s murder.

Except, perhaps, under some warped worldview in which Till’s acting imperfectly or imprudently in some way means he shares responsibility for his own death.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Huh? Whether or not "What, if anything, happened inside the store is unknown", as the linked article claims, certainly has something to do with believing or not believing women.

You are correct that this has nothing to do with who bears responsibility for Till's death, which is of course the people that killed him.

[Savagely Average]

Bryant gave conflicting accounts so you’d have to pick which one to believe. In any case what happened in the store is peripheral to the main issue of the murder, as you acknowledge.

[TwelveInchPianist]

What were the discrepancies?

[Savagely Average]

At the murder trial she claimed that Till repeatedly grabbed her and spoke lewdly to her. Other witnesses denied that and the killers seem to have been enraged by Till’s “talk,” so it’s likely the claim of grabbing was fabricated for the purposes of the murder trial. Bryant later said that testimony about Till grabbing her wasn’t true. She claimed not to remember what he did do. Best evidence seems to be Till whistled or perhaps made some comment.

[Mark Regan]

The Post's story substantially discredits Huie's integrity as a journalist, but his notes may be OK. His later efforts to interview, write about, and get a movie made about James Earl Ray are even more thoroughly and systematically discredited in Gerald Posner's "Killing the Dream."

[Longtobefree]

"Journalists" lying for profit?
Say it ain't so, Joe.

[Commenter_XY]

I know. The irony is thick with that WaPo report. They have no self awareness whatsoever.

[Michael Ejercito]

Will there be prosecutions?

[CJColucci]

Of whom? For what crime?

[Savagely Average]

[Stephen Lathrop]

Yet Huie's own research notes, recently released by the descendants of a lawyer in the case, indicate his reporting showed that others were involved and suggest he chose to leave that out when it threatened the sale of his story.

That remark examples incomprehension among the legal profession—and among plenty of other journalistic laymen—with regard to the journalistic profession. Huie of course had to convince a publisher that he would not embroil the publisher in a libel suit, or worse. So of course it would threaten sale of Huie's story if he insisted on publication of allegations he might even have thought nearly certain, but could not lock down with ironclad proof.

That happens all the time in investigative journalism. Living with it, and using discretion to decline publication when necessary, is an indispensable part of journalistic professionalism. Smearing that likely example of professionalism with an implication of corrupt practice suggests unreflective hostility to journalism.

[Absaroka]

FTA: "A journalist whose 1956 article was billed as the "true account" of Emmett Till's killing withheld credible information about people involved in the crime..."

You are certainly a credible source for how journalism works, and I commend your honesty. "We will falsely say we are telling the truth for profit" isn't something a lot of journalists will say.

From the WaPo article: "Instead, he published as fact a claim he doubted". It's one thing to say "Adam and Bob say they were the only ones involved in the killing, although there is evidence that other unnamed people were involved". It's another to say "The only people involved were Adam and Bob" when you believe otherwise.