Dear Reader (if, indeed, you are reading this): I can only begin to tell you how frustrating it is to attempt to post photos on this blog when I don't know what the hell I'm doing. In an early post I placed a photo of my friend Val near a paragraph about James Earl Chaney. They are not the same, nor should they be considered such. ("Why doncha jist write it acrost m' fore-head: F-A-Y-L-U-R!!!" ) I am terrified of writing for two hours, playing around with this thing, and then accidentally erasing everything I've written, deleting all my photos of the trip, and melting my monitor.

LET US CONTINUE AS BEST WE CAN UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES:

On Saturday, July 10, Amity and I drove north, through the town of Greenwood, and then drove Hwy #7 to Money.

I knew that Robert Johnson's grave was supposed to be around Greenwood somewhere -- and though I wasn't specifically looking for it, there is a marker (above) on the road between Greenwood and Money. I also took a photo of the little churchyard and graveyard near the marker, but don't know where to post it.

"I have all of Robert Johnson's recorded songs on CD at home!" I told Amity. She was only mildly impressed. Listening to those in the car would have greatly enhanced my Delta experience, if I had only thought of it.

The photo to the right (above) is what is left of Bryant's Grocery in Money, Mississippi.

It seems strange to me that everyone wouldn't know every single detail of the Emmett Till case, as long and hard as I have studied it -- but then many of us wear blinders where our own interests are concerned. My idea of heaven (and hell) is to stand in the spot where some monumental historic event happened and to imagine the place at the time of the event. Can't help it; I was born that way.

HISTORY LESSON: In the summer of 1955 a fourteen-year-old boy from Chicago, Emmett Till, went to Money, Mississippi, to spend some time with this great-uncle, Moses Wright. Wright worked cotton on the Graves plantation outside Money.

Emmett ("Bo") was an only child, big for his age, a prankster, and completely oblivious to the cultural differences between the city of Chicago and the very rural South. Before he left Chicago, his mother (who moved to Chicago when she was a child but who had strong family links to Mississipppi) warned him to be extremely careful in dealing with White people in the South.

On Wednesday, August 21, after having worked half a day in the cotton field, Emmett rode with this cousins into Money to hang out at Bryant's Store.

In 1955 the town of Money had one street and only five or six stores. Bryant's Store was owned by (and was the residence of) Roy Bryant and his wife, Carolyn, and served as a grocery and "hangout" for the sharecroppers living nearby.

On August 21st only Carolyn was working in the store; her husband was out of town. According to one of Emmett's cousins, as they drank Nehis on the porch Emmett bragged about his White girlfriend(s) in Chicago, and another young man in the group dared him to go inside the store and "make a date" with the White woman there.

Nobody knows exactly what happened then; the only two people in the store when it happened are dead. Some say Emmett bought gum and then turned at the door and whistled at Carolyn as he left. Others say he grabbed Carolyn's hand as she handed him change. Others say he blocked the door as she tried to go to her living quarters through a back door.

At any rate, what he did seemed serious enough to his companions that they feared Mrs. Bryant was going to get a gun, and they jumped into Wright's truck and drove away as quickly as they could. (Of course, even a Black man's failing to step off a sidewalk to let a White person pass was a "serious offense" in that time and place.) As they drove away, Emmett begged his cousins not to tell Wright about the incident.

At 2:00 AM Sunday morning (August 25th), J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant -- who had been out of town on the night of the incident -- showed up at Wright's place, entered with a gun and a flashlight, and demanded to see Emmett Till.

They threatened Wright and the rest of his family, forced Till into their car, and left.

Three days later Till's body was found in the Tallahatchie River, severely beaten, shot in the head.

Surprisingly, Milam and Bryant were arrested immediately. Not surprisingly, they were tried an acquitted by an all-white, male jury after just a few minutes of deliberation.

Immediately upon learning of her son's disappearance, Mamie Till notified Chicago authorities and the newspapers. She insisted that Emmett's body be returned to Chicago (the local authorites were eager to bury him in Mississippi immediately), and she displayed his body at the funeral in Chicago.

She -- and numerous northern photographers, reporters, and a Black Congressman -- were in Sumner, Mississippi for the trial. The case became a huge national story and (some believe) was the catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1950s and 1960s.

END OF LESSON