The Last Witness to Emmett Till’s Abduction Tells His Story

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now to another critical social issues in the U.S., racial justice. We’re going to look back at a case which helped spark the U.S. civil rights movement and that was the lynching of Emmett Till. Our next guest is the last surviving eyewitness of that tragedy and details his memories of it in a new book, “A Few Days Full of Trouble: Revelations on the Journey to Justice for My Cousin and Best Friend, Emmett Till.” Reverend Wheeler Parker is a pastor, a district superintendent, and a public speaker. And he now joins Michel Martin.

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MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Christiane. Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr., thank you so much for talking with us today.

REV. WHEELER PARKER JR., COUSIN OF EMMETT TILL AND AUTHOR, “A FEW DAYS FULL OF TROUBLE”: My pleasure.

MARTIN: And I’m mindful that although you are being nice to us, it really isn’t your pleasure that you’ve lived with this very terrible story for so many years and I can only imagine that every time you talk about it, it probably cost you something, doesn’t it?

PARKER: It does. It’s — but that’s a price, I guess, you pay to keep it out there and give him the respect and honor that he needs.

MARTIN: So, tell me about your cousin Emmett Till. And I see that there is a picture of you and him behind you.

PARKER: Uh-huh.

MARTIN: You’ve said many times that, you know, he was not just your cousin, he was your best friend.

PARKER: Yes.

MARTIN: Tell me a bit about him. What was he like?

PARKER: Fun. Never had a dull day in his life. Exciting. Always something going on. If you were around him, you knew that he started — I got to say, he was the center of attraction all the time.

MARTIN: Fun loving kid.

PARKER: Yes.

MARTIN: Nice personality.

PARKER: Yes.

MARTIN: Nice smile.

PARKER: Uh-huh. Nice smile, yes. He had a beautiful smile.

MARTIN: You all were living in Chicago, Emmett and you and other family members like so many other African Americans had moved up from the south to the north and the Midwest, and to some degree the west, in search of more, you know, opportunity. So why did you and your cousin happen to be back in Mississippi that summer?

PARKER: I had been in Chicago/ Argo, Illinois since January 1947. And this is in — this is in the August of 1955. My grandfather had come to Chicago for a funeral. And Emmett learned that I was going back with him, and he would not have it any other way, because he did not have any sisters or brothers. So, in other words, they took me a long. So, we were, like, inseparable. And he insisted that he go back south with me, and they did not think it was a good idea, but he insisted.

MARTIN: And why did they think it was a good idea?

PARKER: Because if you did not live in the south or experience it, you had no idea what it was like for a black male. And what they thought could happen is exactly what happened.

MARTIN: You mean the sense of having everything about your life controlled —

PARKER: Uh-huh.

MARTIN: — by the need to defer to white people, I think, is that — that’s what you are referring to?

PARKER: You are putting it lightly, but yes. And they made sure that existed. A lot of people lost their life. And we were constant reminded that you were inferior and they were superior. Constantly reminded. There would leave bodies lying here or there, or leave them hanging for a while so that you get the message. And the message was well entrenched in our way of life. We had to say we sent droves of children to the south every year. They — from the north and went, but they were still train and surreal and entrenched in the ways of the south that we enjoyed ourselves immensely when we went down there.

MARTIN: You and your cousin were picking cotton during the day. Is that right?

PARKER: It was cotton picking time. And in the south, if you wandered around a town and it’s cotton picking time, you are going to end up in prison and you’re going to stay there until cotton picking time is over. Everybody went to the field. Everybody went to the cotton field.

MARTIN: So, you would go and pick for half a day. And then what would you do, go have fun?

PARKER: Well, actually, we picked all day, really. The thing was from sun to sun. We just took off early that day to go have some refreshments at a little country store three miles down the railroad.

PARKER: So, I was going to ask you that. So, how did you and Emmet, your cousin Emmett, whom you called Bobo, how did you wind up at the store that day?

PARKER: Usually when you went south, and this was a norm, you are in the hands of an adult.

MARTIN: Uh-huh.

PARKER: And if you went to town or somewhere, there is an adult, always, to kind of correct you. But my grandfather was 67 years old. He had a son named Maurice (ph), (INAUDIBLE), he had a car. And so, we were kind of on our own, which is a mistake. We just got there on a Sunday, and here it is Wednesday, we are going to this little country store, and of course, that is where everything got started.

MARTIN: I cannot help but think that, you know, we’re asking you to remember the beginning of the worst day of your life.

PARKER: Uh-huh. Yes.

MARTIN: But if you would, just as briefly as you can, what happened?

PARKER: We got to the store and everyone was gathered around and laughing and talking. They were playing checkers and telling jokes. And Emmett love jokes. He paid people to tell him jokes. And so, at the store, I decided to go in and purchase some things. But while I was in the store, I remember Emmett coming in. In my formative years were spent in the south, I spent seven to eight years, so I was well entrenched in the ways. This is how you were taught that from the day you could understand how to stay alive as a black boy in Mississippi. So, I — so, I saw him coming and I said, man, I hope he — I remember my heart — I hope he’s got it together. That he got his language together, like the yes sirs, and the no sirs, and the politeness that they demanded. And so, I said, I hope he got it together. So, I left him in the store. And of course, shortly thereafter my Uncle Simeon came in, I was 12 and he 14 or 16, he came in with him and nothing happened while I was in the store. They came out, nothing happened at all.

MARTIN: And then when did you realize that something was going on?

PARKER: Well, shortly after I left out, and then they came out, and then Mrs. Bryant (ph) came out. And coming out of the store, she turns to her left, and as Emmett was, he loved to make people laugh, he gave the wolf whistle. There’s so many different stories told about that and where it happened and all that, but he whistled at her, he did whistle at her, and when he did that we just could not believe in Mississippi in 1955 that he whistled at this white lady, where people have been killed for raising their eyeballs that is looking at her. And no one said let’s go. My uncle, 16, driving the car. Everyone made a beeline for the car and we took off down this gravel road.

MARTIN: You knew right then that there was going to be trouble. So, what did you do then?

PARKER: Well, we got in the car, and now Emmett is a sight. He’s scared now because we are showing these emotions. So, my uncle sped down the road and dust was flying everywhere, and there’s a car behind us. So, someone is like, they are after us. They are after us. And we knew rightly so that they could be after us for what he has done. So, we pulled to the side, jumps out of the car, ran through the cotton field, and the car goes right on by. And we were (INAUDIBLE) at the edge of the road and Emmett asked us not to tell my grandfather. So, it’s a Wednesday. We did not tell my grandfather. Thursday passed. Friday passed. Saturday passed. And we kind of forgot about it. We forgot about it. Otherwise, we should have probably been on a train heading back north, but then they would come to the house sometimes, and someone would aggravate.

MARTIN: So, when someone finally did come to the house what happened then?

PARKER: It was Sunday morning. We had gone to town just prior to that — to Greenwood (ph). We got home, I guess, about 12:00. Not thinking anything. We went to bed. I — it’s four big bedrooms. I’m in the bed with my Uncle Maurice. And then about 2:30 in the morning, I hear these people talking, and they’re talking about what happened at the store. Being raised with very strong faith, first thing I said, when death is imminent, I said God, we’re getting ready to die, these people are going to kill us. I’ve heard the stories and I know what they did and they had once killed. And I’m shaking like a leaf on a tree. And the thing that I remember most is that not only am I getting ready to die, I’m 16 years old, my relationship with God is not right. And when death is imminent, for some reason, you think about all the bad things that you’ve ever done. So, I’m praying to God, not out loud, and saying, God, if you just let me live, I need to get right with you. If you just let me live, I’m going to take care of that. I’m going to get that together.

MARTIN: Uh-huh.

PARKER: And literally shaking, and in walk these guys — dark as a thousand midnights, you can’t see your hand before your face, and no lights on in the house. And they enter in with a flashlight in one hand and a pistol in the other. And I closed my eyes to be shot.

MARTIN: Uh-huh.

PARKER: I opened my eyes and they were passing by and they went to the next room. Emmett wasn’t there. They went to the third room, they found Emmett in bed with my Uncle Simeon, and it was just pure hell in that house. It’s just unbelievable. The tension and the helplessness. That’s what — I think that’s what resonates so strongly in a case like that, how helpless you are. You can’t call your grandfather because he’s in trouble too. So, you just — being a people of faith, we just started praying and they left with Emmett, and that’s the last time we saw him alive.

MARTIN: Oh, my God. There’s just so many things going through my head right now. But your grandfather, the humiliation of not being able to protect his grandson —

PARKER: Yes, yes.

MARTIN: — from people in his own house. And then —

PARKER: Yes, it’s the lowest of the low.

MARTIN: Uh-huh. When did you realize or when did you find out what had happened to Emmett?

PARKER: They started looking right away near the rivers and the bridges and — but they had said that if wasn’t the one, they’re going to bring him back. And I left, of course, and we found — I found out on the police on Wednesday, when they found his body. By this time, I was back in Chicago.

MARTIN: They had spirited you out of town, basically, for your own safety, right?

PARKER: For sure. Right away.

MARTIN: Did you hear what had happened to Emmett? I mean, did you know at the time they found his body, as you said, days later. But the fact he had been tortured, the fact that his body was destroyed? Did you know that then?

PARKER: No, we did not. We did not. We didn’t know the condition of the body. We didn’t know — only we knew is they had found him. And of course, they got him back here to have his funeral here.

MARTIN: So, now many people know some of the outlines of the story from there, that the courage of his mother, Mamie Till, to have an open casket funeral because she wanted the world to see what had been done to her son.

PARKER: Yes.

MARTIN: And many people know that, you know, two people were eventually tried in connection with Emmett’s torture and murder, but that they were acquitted —

PARKER: Yes.

MARTIN: — by an all-white jury just, like, in a matter of, I don’t know – – what was it? You know, just actually like —

PARKER: 57 minutes.

MARTIN: Yes, minutes. I mean, if you’re being honest, did you believe that justice would ever take place? That someone would be held accountable for what they did?

PARKER: No, but it — this incident brought about changes.

MARTIN: Uh-huh.

PARKER: I think this is probably the first time — not one of the first, not the first time. One of the few times that a white man had been charged with doing something to a black. As a matter of fact, when they went to arrest these guys, they told them, that’s BS. I’m trying to protect the southern way of life and you’re going to arrest me? They were highly insulted because if time had passed, nothing would have been done at all. They would have been rewarded or at least thanked for what they were doing, helped keep the system in place. The system was very, very strong, and it’s still strong. What they were protecting then, they protected now. Even still today, I see it in — the young man that was choked to death up there in Minnesota. You see it — I see it all the time. First thing I think about is Emmett Till. The system still prevails.

MARTIN: So, again, let’s sort of fast forward a bit. The two men who were responsible for torturing Emmett — for kidnapping Emmett and torturing him, they had been acquitted at trial. But later on, in an interview with what was then, you know, a very prominent, you know, magazine, they admitted, you know, what they have done. You know, what was that like for your family? I mean, did it feel at least there was an acknowledgment, or just — did it make it even worse that there was no accountability?

PARKER: Well, living in a situation, in an environment, you are not surprised. Like I said, this is the first time, so we’re making progress. We got a trial. That’s unheard of. And we didn’t expect anything to come out of it, or you’re say, well, maybe there’s a possibility. Maybe something will be done and you’re thinking that, man, they arrested these guys and they had trial. And of course, they admitted that they did it after the trial. We’re not surprised by that. And they were awarded, they were paid money, I understand, for their story.

MARTIN: Uh-huh.

PARKER: Of course, the story was just so — it resonates with me now. It was so erroneous and so degrading that it bothers me even to this day. The way that they portrayed Emmett to justify what they did to him.

MARTIN: And again, you know, fast forward even further into 2017, you know, a historian revealed that in interviews with Carolyn Bryant, who was the young woman who accused Emmett, he revealed that Carolyn Bryant had lied and had acknowledged lying about her encounter with Emmett Till at the store. At a trial, she had this whole elaborate story about how he had allegedly attacked her, and had said several things to her, which you knew could not be the case because, as you said, he had a very pronounced stutter. Did it make you feel, at least, a sense that the world knew what you knew, which is that she had lied?

PARKER: You know, we were not privy to that story you just told —

MARTIN: Uh-huh.

PARKER: — until we found the transcript about 50 years later. We had never heard anything like that before. We were privy to her memoirs, and she don’t remember him stuttering. That was his way of life. He did not talk without stuttering. So, the lie that she told still prevails. You got to justify what they did to Emmett. So, they used those kinds of things to justify what they did to him.

MARTIN: You’ve just written a book called, “A Few Days Full of Trouble: Revelations on a Journey to Justice for My Cousin and Best Friend, Emmett Till”. You co-wrote it with a longtime friend and co-author, Christopher Benson, who’s also a lawyer. Why was it important to you to write this book now? Why this book and why now?

PARKER: I was very reluctant to write a book because so many stories had been told. And for 30 years, they never interviewed me. And so, I’ve been hurt with the stories that have been told of what happened at the store. And I knew it wasn’t the truth. I felt that we were at such a disadvantage competing with the major magazines and the articles that had been written. So, I was just reluctant to write it. And then I decided — well, they convinced me that somebody will believe your story. So, here I am now hoping someone will believe me because I was an eyewitness. Many stories have been told. Many things have been said. But we were eyewitnesses, Simeon and I.

MARTIN: Before we let you go, how do you feel now that you got your story out? Now, that you’ve been able to tell your truth, how does it feel?

PARKER: It feels good because I — speaking in — people hear me and they believe it, you know. So, I don’t feel as helpless as I did from the beginning, because I do have evidence (ph) to tell the stories like through your system and other systems. So, I feel good that I’m able to help shed the light and get the story to the schools. So, I feel better about it now. But I’m still — at the end, I’m still thinking about how he died and the price that he paid.

MARTIN: Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr., thank you so much for talking with us today.

PARKER: My pleasure, and look forward to meeting you.