# Louis Till

Louis Till (February 7, 1922 – July 2, 1945) was an African American GI during World War II. After enlisting in the United States Army following trial for domestic violence against his estranged wife Mamie Till, and having chosen military service over jail time, Till was court-martialed on two counts of rape and one count of murder during the Italian Campaign. He was found guilty and was executed by hanging at Aversa. Till was the estranged father of Emmett Till, whose murder in August 1955 at the age of 14 galvanized the civil rights movement. The circumstances of Till's death remained largely unknown, until they were revealed after the highly controversial acquittal of his son's murderers 10 years later.
There is debate on the matter of Louis Till's guilt concerning the crime for which he was executed. In 2013, in a book documenting every court martial and execution of GIs in North Africa and Europe during World War II, United States Army Colonel French MacLean acknowledges the lynching murder of Till's son, but insists that even though justice was not done to Emmett Till's murderers, the documents kept on the case by Judge Advocate General's Corps suggest that justice was in fact done to Louis Till. An unrelated 2016 analysis by John Edgar Wideman, using the same case files, suggests Till to be innocent, and theorizes racial bias to be a factor in his guilty verdict, comparing the execution to the murder of Till's son.

## Early life

Till grew up an orphan in New Madrid, Missouri.$^{:14–15}$ As a young man, he worked at the Argo Corn Company and was an amateur boxer.
At age 17, Till began courting Mamie Carthan, a girl who was a few months older than him. Her parents disapproved, thinking the charismatic Till was "too sophisticated" for their daughter. At her mother's insistence, Mamie broke off their courtship, but the persistent Till won out, and they got married on October 14, 1940. Both were 18 years old. Their only child, Emmett Louis Till, was born nine months later, on July 25, 1941. However, they separated in 1942 after Mamie found out that Louis had been unfaithful. Enraged, Till later choked her close to unconsciousness, to which Mamie responded by throwing scalding water at him. Eventually, Mamie obtained a restraining order against him. After Till violated this repeatedly, a judge forced him to choose between enlistment in the United States Army and imprisonment. Choosing the former, Till enlisted in 1943.$^{:14–17}$

## Criminal charges and death

While serving in the Italian Campaign, Till learned to speak the Neapolitan dialect of the Italian language fluently.
On July 19, 1944, Till was arrested by Military Police, who suspected him and two fellow soldiers of the murder of Allied civilian Anna Zanchi, an Italian woman, and the rape of two others in Civitavecchia. Pvt. James Thomas, Jr., was granted immunity in exchange for testimony against Pvts. McMurray and Till.$^{:196}$ Thomas testified that Till and McMurray took 20 minutes to plan the home invasion and raped the two women. Military Police investigators had found an envelope at the crime scene addressed to Pvt. McMurray. Under interrogation, Pvt. McMurray confessed and stated that Till said, "Everybody follow me: If anybody turns back I'll blast him." McMurray also testified that he begged Till not to shoot, but that Till had fired a shot into the house which killed Zanchi.
On February 17, 1945, the Court Martial of Privates Till and McMurray began before a panel of seven military judges at Livorno. As with most Allied-on-Allied atrocities, which are not covered by the laws of war, both soldiers, who raised no objection to a joint trial, stood accused of one count of murder and two counts of carnal knowledge in violation of the 92nd Article of War. 2nd Lieutenant Mervin R. Samuel appeared for the prosecution as Trial Judge Advocate, while First Lieutenant John W. Wynn appeared as Defense Counsel for both soldiers.
Fellow African-American GI Private James Thomas, Jr. testified for the prosecution and described witnessing the June 27, 1944, assault, armed robbery, and attempted murder of United States Navy sailor James E. Carter. Private Thomas identified Till as Carter's assailant and alleged that Till had shouted, "I'm going to kill the motherfucking son of a bitch!" Till allegedly attempted to shoot Carter with his own sidearm. Carter managed, however, to jump into a jeep and flee the scene after the gun jammed. According to Pvt. Thomas, the shot that later killed Anna Zanchi had been fired from the M1911 pistol that Louis Till had stolen that morning from the U.S. Navy Serviceman.
Italian witness John Masi testified about witnessing the home invasion and assault against all three women on the evening following the sailor's assault. He testified that Louis Till had fired the shot that killed Anna Zanchi and had told him personally, "Get in the house, or I'll blow your head off!" Both surviving rape victims also gave evidence, but stated that their assailants wore masks and they accordingly declined to identify them as the defendants. Pvt. Thomas did, however, identify Louis Till as having fired the shot that killed Anna Zanchi.
Despite being informed of their right to do so, both soldiers elected not to give evidence in their own defense. As their defense counsel, Lt. Wynn objected to the introduction into evidence of Private McMurray's confession, alleging that it had been made involuntarily. The objection was overruled by Law Member Colonel Roger W. Whitman, who instructed the jury, however, that the confession could only be used as evidence against Private McMurray.
Lt. Wynn also objected in vain to the fact that Pvt. Louis Till's involvement was only established by the uncorroborated testimony of an alleged accomplice. After this objection was also overruled by Col. Whitman, the United States military jury voted unanimously to convict both defendants and sentenced them to death by hanging.
As was the usual practice within the United States Army during the Italian Campaign, both defendants were transferred to the United States Army Disciplinary Training Center near Aversa to await review of their trial and sentencing by the Judge Advocate General's Corps.
On April 18, 1945, Col. Claudius O. Wolfe ruled that the trial record was sufficient to support a verdict of guilty. Regarding the two surviving victims inability to recognize their attackers, Col. Wolfe wrote, "The place, time, and circumstances were such as to exclude reasonable doubt as to their identity."
In support of similarly confirming the verdict and sentences, the Judge Advocate General's Corps cited the relevant passage of A Manual for Courts-Martial, U.S. Army, "A conviction may be based on uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice, but such testimony is of doubtful integrity and is to be considered with great caution."
Private Louis Till was hanged immediately following his co-defendant Private Fred A. McMurray at Aversa on July 2, 1945. Multiple photographs were taken to document before, during, and after both executions and are still in existence.$^{:134–135}$
Before his execution, Till had been imprisoned alongside highly influential American free verse poet Ezra Pound, who was imprisoned for treason and collaboration with both the Nazis and Italian Fascists. Till is accordingly mentioned in lines 171–173 of Canto 74 of Pound's Pisan Cantos:
    "Pisa, in the 23rd year of the effort in sight of the Tower
    And Till was hung yesterday
    for murder and rape with trimmings".
While Pound and Till had met briefly at the MTO DTC near Pisa, the American poet was taking artistic license, as Pvt. Till was actually hanged at Aversa.
U.S. Army Chaplain William O. Strother, an African-American Methodist minister, presided over the funerals of both soldiers at the U.S. Military Cemetery in Naples. Telegrams were dispatched by the War Department to notify both soldiers' next of kin. Despite her later statements that the U.S. Army told her nothing, the War Department telegram sent to Mamie Till read, according to Col. French Maclean, that her husband's cause of death was, "Judicial Asphixiation (sic) due to his own willful misconduct in Italy." In 1948, Private Till's remains were moved to the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery Plot E.$^{:195}$
According to Colonel French Maclean, "The Army returned Louis Till's silver ring, bearing the initials 'LT', to his estranged wife in Chicago. In 1955, she let her son Emmett take the ring to visit relatives in Mississippi, where he was soon murdered, resulting in a civil rights case that gained lasting national attention. Authorities identified Emmett's mutilated body, in part, through the distinctive ring."

## Aftermath

The reasons for Till's death were not revealed to his family; Mamie Till's attempts to learn more were comprehensively blocked by the United States Army bureaucracy. The full details of Till's criminal charges and execution emerged 10 years later. On August 28, 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered in Mississippi, after allegedly making advances towards Carolyn Bryant, a local white woman. (Years later, a historian claimed that Bryant disclosed to him that she had fabricated testimony that Till made verbal or physical advances towards her in the store. However, the family of Bryant has disputed this claim.) Her husband, Roy, and his half-brother John William "J.W." Milam abducted Till and tortured him to death, then threw his body into the Tallahatchie River. Both were arrested a few days later, charged with and tried for first-degree murder, but were acquitted by an all-white jury in September 1955.
In October 1955, after the murder trial and extremely controversial acquittal gained international media attention, U.S. Senators from Mississippi James Eastland and John C. Stennis uncovered details about Louis Till's court-martial and execution and leaked them to media sources sympathetic to continued segregation. In November 1955, a Leflore County grand jury declined to return an indictment against Emmett Till's two killers for kidnapping, despite a recent magazine interview in which they both had freely admitted to being guilty of that very offense.
In the pro-Segregationist media, various editorials claimed that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the "Yankee" media had lied about the record of Emmett Till's father.$^{:136}$ Many of these editorials specifically cited an article in Life Magazine, which presented Louis Till as having been killed in action while fighting for his country in France. According to historians, Life magazine was an exception rather than the rule, and no other "northern" media had praised Till or embellished his war record; additionally, Life later published a retraction.$^{:136}$ However, the impression was left among some southerners that the erroneous Life article was representative of the Northern media in general.$^{:136}$ Several other Southern editorials went so far as to smear Emmett Till by association with his father's crimes. They even alleged that Till had attempted to commit sexual assault, after the fashion of his father, and thereby justified his murder as an act of vigilantism.$^{:138}$

### Debate over trial and sentencing

United States Army Colonel French Maclean, who tracked down and examined the case file and sentencing documents, ultimately believes Louis to be guilty.
In a book published in 2013 titled The Fifth Field: The Story of the 96 American Soldiers Sentenced to Death and Executed in Europe and North Africa in World War II, which documents the court martial proceedings and executions of every one of the World War II GIs who, like Pvt. Till, lie buried in the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery Plot E, Col. MacLean wrote, "From the manner in which Private Louis Till spoke and the way he carried himself, you might think he was a small time gangster from Chicago. Fear was Till's game. He terrorized his wife, terrorized his fellow soldiers and terrorised local Italians who did not cooperate with him. Unfortunately for Private Till, one of his co-conspirators was not afraid of him and agreed to testify against the tough guy from the Windy City in return for a recommendation of clemency in his own case." While Maclean acknowledges the murder of Emmett and states it to be unjust, he insists his conclusion that Louis Till was, in fact, guilty.
In 2016, notable African-American novelist and essayist John Edgar Wideman tracked down the same case files as Maclean and reached a different conclusion, believing his innocence.
Wideman explored the circumstances leading to and including the military conviction of Louis Till in the partly fictional book Writing to Save a Life – The Louis Till File. Wideman examines the trial record and compares it to the trial of Emmett's killers, calling both "a farce", and expresses the belief that the leak of Mr. Till's military records during 1955 was an intentional effort to further demonize Emmett Till and retroactively justify the acquittal of his murderers. Wideman expresses the viewpoint that Louis Till may have been punished for the "Crime of being (Black)", rather than for committing any real crimes, citing the disproportionate punishment of African-American soldiers for rape as well as laws in the United States that defined all sexual encounters between African-American men and white women as rape.
Wideman's analysis of Till's murder trial alleged one of its witness insisted that the killer was a white person before recanting their statement, and in Till's rape trial, both victims said that they were assaulted in darkness and could not identify their attackers, declining to label Till or his co-defendant as suspects. Wideman believed that their execution, due to these inconsistencies, was racially motivated.
Ollie Gordon, one of Emmett Till's cousins, was recorded visiting Louis Till's grave in France for the final episode of the ABC documentary series Let the World See, which aired in January 2022. Referencing Wideman's analysis of Till's murder and rape trials, she said "He's laying in this less than honorable area for a crime that we're still not sure that he committed."