Journalist Suppressed Evidence Pointing to Additional Conspirators Involved in Murder of Emmett Till

It is often said that journalism is the first draft of history. In the case of Emmett Till, a prominent news story about his murder was long taken as the definitive account of his death at the hands of J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant. Newly discovered documents, however, conform suspicions more people were involved in Till’s horrific death.

The Washington Post reports:

A journalist whose 1956 article was billed as the “true account” of Emmett Till’s killing withheld credible information about people involved in the crime, according to newly discovered documents.

William Bradford Huie’s article in Look magazine helped shape the country’s understanding of 14-year-old Till’s abduction, torture and slaying in Jim Crow-era Mississippi. The article detailed the confessions of two White men who previously had been acquitted by an all-White jury in the killing. The men told Huie they had no accomplices.

Yet Huie’s own research notes, recently released by the descendants of a lawyer in the case, indicatehis reporting showedthat others were involved andsuggest he chose to leave that out when it threatened the sale of his story. He also was seeking a movie deal about the killing and had agreed to pay the two acquitted men, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, part of the proceeds.

If Huie had fully reported what he’d learned, it could have led to charges against additional participants in the murder, three historians say.

As the Post report indicates, many had believed that additional people participated in Till’s murder, but the Look story deflated efforts to pursue additional conspirators.

Black journalists had been pressuring Mississippi officials and the FBI to investigate and charge additional suspects in the case. Huie’s “true account,” with its assurance that only two men were involved and its depiction of Till as a defiant brute, effectively ended that effort.

“This confession, as it was touted, suddenly seemed enough to satisfy everybody,” said Devery S. Anderson, author of a 2015 book on the Till case. If Huie had reported everything he had learned, “it’s possible these other people would have been indicted,” Anderson said, though he also said they could have been acquitted.

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