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| “ | As long as I live and can do anything about it, niggers are gonna stay in their place. Niggers ain't gonna vote where I live. If they did, they'd control the government. They ain't gonna go to school with my kids. And when a nigger gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he's tired o' livin'. I'm likely to kill him. | „ |
| ~ Milam in his confession to the murder. |
John William Milam (18 February 1919 - 31 December 1980) was one of two people (the other was his half-brother Roy Bryant) responsible for the 1955 abduction and lynching of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African-American who had allegedly wolf-whistled Bryant's wife Carolyn Bryant. Bryant and Milam were tried for the murder but were acquitted by an all-white jury, sparking national outrage.
The lynching of Emmett Till was one of the first hate crimes to garner national attention and inspired many African-Americans to fight against the discriminatory Jim Crow laws, thus kick-starting the African-American civil rights movement.
Biography edit
On 24 August 1955, Emmett Till, visiting his relatives in Money, Mississippi, entered Bryant's grocery and was met by Carolyn Bryant. What happened next is disputed by witnesses, and even Bryant herself changed her story multiple times; however, what is known is that Till supposedly flirted with Bryant and wolf-whistled as he walked out, either at Bryant or some friends of his across the street. He either said "Bye bye, baby" or "Bubblegum" before leaving. Carolyn Bryant chose not to tell her husband for fear he would attack Till, but another witness informed Bryant, who decided to make an example out of Till.
On 28 August, Roy Bryant, J.W. Milam and two others drove to where Till was staying and demanded that Till's uncle Mose Wright hand over "the nigger who did the talking". They took Till into they truck and, after confirming he was the one who had talked to Carolyn, tied him up and drove away. During the drive Till was brutally pistol-whipped. They eventually arrived at a barn in Drew, where Bryant and Milam continued their beating. According to Bryant and Milam, Till taunted them during the beating by claiming to have "had white women" and calling them bastards. One eyewitness, Willie Louis, heard the beating from outside the barn and was ordered by Milam not to say anything. Eventually Bryant and Milam finished beating Till and shot him before throwing him in the Tallahatchie River.
Bryant and Milam were arrested on suspicion of kidnapping the following day; the charge was upgraded to murder after Till's body was recovered. Both insisted they had let Till go and hadn't seen him again afterwards. Their trial was held in September 1955 and testimony was heard from numerous witnesses who had seen Bryant and Milam with Till at various points; however, an all-white jury acquitted them after only 67 minutes. A juror quipped "If we hadn't stopped to drink pop it wouldn't have taken that long".
In 1956, Bryant and Milam, now protected by double jeopardy, agreed to give an interview to Look magazine. In the interview, both of them fully confessed to Till's murder. When asked why they killed Till, Milam replied "What else could I do? He thought he was as good as any white man!". Despite admitting Till's murder, both men maintained they had done nothing wrong and Bryant would later deny killing Till.
Bryant and Milam's confession of guilt contributed to the passage of the Civil Rights Act 1957, authorising the FBI to bring charges for civil rights violations if individual rights were being violated and local law enforcement failed to intervene. Bryant and Milam could not be prosecuted under this act because it was passed after the murder.
After their admission of guilt, Bryant and Milam lost most of their local support. People refused to buy from Bryant's shop and blacks refused to work for Milam. Both were declared bankrupt and Milam was forced to work as a heavy machinery operator, a job he left due to poor health. He died of spinal cancer on 31 December 1980.