I have had some really amazing experiences on this trip, but today was extraordinary!
I can't do full justice to this subject tonight because I am exhausted and I am still "digesting" everything I experienced today.
The photo here was taken by Amity from my car today. I didn't know she was taking it at the time -- but I am so glad she did!
I had just seen "downtown" Money, Mississippi -- where the Emmett Till "whistle" happened (more photos later). After seeing Bryant's Store, I drove down the road to the site where Moses Wright (Till's great-uncle) had lived, and from where Emmett Till was kidnapped that summer night in 1955. (I knew from my studies that Wright left Mississippi soon after the murder and that another house now stands where his house once stood.)
I stopped my car and introduced myself to this older gentleman who lives just a few hundred yards down the road from the Wright house site. The man not only knew Mose Wright -- he had lived in / near Money all his life -- but he also knew Milum and Bryant (the men who went on trial for Till's murder) and Carolyn Bryant. Mr H.T. (in the photo above) was a young man -- a young White man -- in his thirties when Emmett Till was killed, and he had a lot to say.
I can't do justice to our discussion now; I'll write more very soon.
How could I have gotten so lucky, to have met two people (Minnie Watson at the Medgar Evers home, and then this gentleman today) who have direct lines to the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi?
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