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109TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION S. CON. RES. 3

Expressing the sense of Congress with respect to the murder of Emmett 

Till. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

JANUARY 24, 2005

Mr. SCHUMER (for himself and Mr. TALENT) submitted the following 

concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary 

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 

Expressing the sense of Congress with respect to the murder 

of Emmett Till.

Whereas Emmett Till was born in Chicago, Illinois, at Cook 

County Hospital, on July 25, 1941, to Mamie and Louis 

Till; 

Whereas Emmett Till traveled to Money, Mississippi, to 

spend the summer with his uncle, Moses Wright, and his 

relatives; 

Whereas in August 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till—with adolescent flamboyance, but unfamiliarity of the racial customs of the South—allegedly whistled at Carolyn Bryant, 

a White woman; 

Whereas on August 28, at about 2:30 a.m., Roy Bryant, 

Carolyn Bryant’s husband, and his half brother, J.W. 
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Milam, kidnaped Emmett Till from his uncle Moses 

Wright’s home; 

Whereas Bryant and Milam brutally beat Emmett Till, took 

him to the edge of the Tallahatchie River, shot him in 

the head, fastened a large metal fan used for ginning cotton to his neck with barbed wire, and pushed the body 

into the river; 

Whereas 3 days later, Emmett Till’s decomposed corpse was 

pulled from the Tallahatchie River; 

Whereas Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till, made the extraordinary decision to leave the casket open at her son’s funeral in Chicago, in order to allow the world to see the 

brutality of the crime perpetrated against her son; 

Whereas tens of thousands of people viewed Emmett Till’s 

body in a Chicago church for 4 days; and press from 

around the world published photographs of Emmett’s 

maimed face; and the sheer brutality of his murder became international news that highlighted the violent racism of the Jim Crow South; 

Whereas Jet Magazine and the Chicago Defender published 

photographs of Emmett Till’s body outraging AfricanAmericans around the United States; 

Whereas the trial of J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant began in 

September of that year with an all-male, all-White jury, 

because African-Americans and women were banned from 

serving; 

Whereas the trial of Milam and Bryant was a microcosm of 

the Jim Crow South: African-Americans were packed in 

a specific section of the courtroom balcony; the defendants’ families were seen laughing and joking with the 
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prosecution and the jury; and food and snacks were 

passed out to White observers; 

Whereas Moses Wright did the unthinkable as an AfricanAmerican and openly accused the White defendants in 

public court of murdering his nephew; 

Whereas Moses Wright was run out of town for his actions 

in court; 

Whereas J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant were acquitted of the 

murder of Emmett Till, and Bryant celebrated his acquittal with his wife in front of the cameras; 

Whereas protected from further prosecution, Milam and Bryant candidly confessed their torture and murder of Emmett Till; Milam did so on the record to Look Magazine 

for $4,000; 

Whereas Mamie Till and thousands of others pleaded with 

the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to reopen and investigate the case; 

Whereas the Federal Government did absolutely nothing, and 

President Eisenhower and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover 

refused to reopen the case and did not even answer 

Mamie Till’s urgent telegraph; 

Whereas 100 days later, Rosa Parks refused to give up her 

bus seat to a White patron and the modern civil rights 

revolution began; 

Whereas many historians regard the murder of Emmett Till 

as the true spark of the civil rights movement; 

Whereas Mamie Till, who died on January 6, 2003, moved 

back to Chicago, taught, and continued to talk about her 

son Emmett’s murder; and expressed her wishes for a 

full Federal investigation; 
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Whereas more than 48 years have passed since the murder 

of Emmett Till; 

Whereas the remaining witnesses to this gruesome crime are 

elderly; 

Whereas House Concurrent Resolution 360 entitled ‘‘Expressing the sense of Congress with respect to the murder of Emmett Till’’, was introduced on February 10, 

2004, by Representative Bobby Rush; 

Whereas the Department of Justice reopened the investigation into the murder of Emmett Till on May 11, 2004; 

and 

Whereas Congress supports the decision to reopen the investigation of the murder of Emmett Till: Now, therefore, 

be it

1 Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives 

2 concurring), That Congress—

3 (1) calls on all authorities with jurisdiction, in4 cluding the Department of Justice and the State of 

5 Mississippi, to—

6 (A) expeditiously bring those responsible 

7 for the murder of Emmett Till to justice, due 

8 to the amount of time that has passed since the 

9 murder and the age of the witnesses; and 

10 (B) provide all the resources necessary to 

11 ensure a timely and thorough investigation; and 
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1 (2) calls on the Department of Justice to fully 

2 report the findings of their investigation to Con3 gress.

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