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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSimeon Wright, Witness to Abduction of Emmett Till, Dies at 74
Retweeted by David Fahrenthold: https://twitter.com/fahrenthold
Simeon Wright, Witness to Abduction of Emmett Till, Dies at 74
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Simeon Wright, Witness to Abduction of Emmett Till, Dies at 74
By SAM ROBERTS SEPT. 6, 2017
Simeon Wright picked cotton all day in his fathers field on Wednesday, Aug. 24, 1955, just as he had done every summer growing up in the Mississippi Delta. It was just too hot, though, for his 14-year-old citified cousin, Emmett Till.
....
That night, the boys sought refreshment with relatives and friends, all black, at Bryants Grocery & Meat Market in Money. Inside, Emmett bought some bubble gum from the 21-year-old white woman, Carolyn Bryant, who ran the store with her husband. It was a fateful encounter.
....
Simeon Wright was only 12 at the time. He was sharing his bed with Emmett the night of Aug. 27 when two white men Carolyn Bryants husband, Roy, and his half brother, J. W. Milam abducted Emmett at gunpoint. ... It was Simeon who identified Emmetts ring for the police a few days later, after his cousins beaten body, one eye gouged out, had been fished from the Tallahatchie River, weighted down with a 75-pound cotton gin fan tethered to his neck with barbed wire.
....
Simeon Wright, who fled Mississippi with his parents and siblings after the not-guilty verdict, died on Monday in Countryside, Ill., a Chicago suburb. He was 74. His family said the cause was complications of bone cancer.
------
A version of this article appears in print on September 7, 2017, on Page B16 of the New York edition with the headline: Simeon Wright, 74, Witness to His Cousin Emmett Tills Abduction, Is Dead.
By SAM ROBERTS SEPT. 6, 2017
Simeon Wright picked cotton all day in his fathers field on Wednesday, Aug. 24, 1955, just as he had done every summer growing up in the Mississippi Delta. It was just too hot, though, for his 14-year-old citified cousin, Emmett Till.
....
That night, the boys sought refreshment with relatives and friends, all black, at Bryants Grocery & Meat Market in Money. Inside, Emmett bought some bubble gum from the 21-year-old white woman, Carolyn Bryant, who ran the store with her husband. It was a fateful encounter.
....
Simeon Wright was only 12 at the time. He was sharing his bed with Emmett the night of Aug. 27 when two white men Carolyn Bryants husband, Roy, and his half brother, J. W. Milam abducted Emmett at gunpoint. ... It was Simeon who identified Emmetts ring for the police a few days later, after his cousins beaten body, one eye gouged out, had been fished from the Tallahatchie River, weighted down with a 75-pound cotton gin fan tethered to his neck with barbed wire.
....
Simeon Wright, who fled Mississippi with his parents and siblings after the not-guilty verdict, died on Monday in Countryside, Ill., a Chicago suburb. He was 74. His family said the cause was complications of bone cancer.
------
A version of this article appears in print on September 7, 2017, on Page B16 of the New York edition with the headline: Simeon Wright, 74, Witness to His Cousin Emmett Tills Abduction, Is Dead.
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Simeon Wright, Witness to Abduction of Emmett Till, Dies at 74 (Original Post)
mahatmakanejeeves
Sep 2017
OP
Here is the confederate monument outside the Tallahatchie county courthouse in Sumner
struggle4progress
Sep 2017
#5
still_one
(91,947 posts)1. We should never forget what happened to Emmett Till
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)3. + Several Zillion.
nolabear
(41,915 posts)2. I cannot imagine having that legacy. May his people find peace.
struggle4progress
(118,039 posts)4. The Death of Emmett Till
struggle4progress
(118,039 posts)5. Here is the confederate monument outside the Tallahatchie county courthouse in Sumner
where a jury in 1955 acquitted Bryant and Milam for the murder. Several months afterwards, in early 1956, Look magazine published their confessions. Carolyn (Bryant) Donham later admitted her testimony at the trial had been false
JI7
(89,173 posts)7. and she is still alive . i would have no problem locking her up right now
raven mad
(4,940 posts)6. I still cry.
This book destroyed me. There are better ones, I guess more accurately written, since then. But this one? 2003, before Mamie Till Mobley died, sticks.