As Sam recalled his grandmother telling him to never be “Uppity” to white people this negative image is created as a time lapse. It is a scene of Carolyn Bryant Donham with her husband and two children in the courtroom of the Emmett Till murder trial. She was never charged in the murder of Emmett Till. The court case took place in in the court case in Sumner Mississippi, which was billed as a good place to raise a boy. Her husband Roy Bryant his accomplice J.W. Milam were found not guilty by a jury of all white men. The verdict took just an hour and seven minutes. It wouldn’t have taken that long, but the jury took a soda pop break to make it look good.
Knowing they could not be re-tried for murder, Roy and J.M later admitted to journalist William Bradford Huie in a 1956 Look Magazine story, that they had indeed tortured and murdered Emmett Till. They were paid $4000 for the story. The US Justice Department re-opened the case saying the case was a “gross miscarriage of justice.” The new evidence points to the possible involvement of more that a dozen people. Roy and J.M have already died. J.M. Milam died of cancer in 1980 and Roy Bryant died of cancer in 1994.
