Emmett Till Returned to His Final Resting Place 

KAREN PRIDE / Chicago Defender 6jun2005

[Also see: The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi - Look magazine 24jan1956]

Christopher Benson wasn’t alive in August 1955 when Emmett Till’s funeral attracted more than 100,000 people, many never ever knowing the young man whose brutal murder in Mississippi provoked anger among African Americans, and served as a rallying cry for the then-fledgling Civil Rights Movement.

But on Saturday, the journalist and author was one of several pallbearers who placed Till’s new, blue casket next to his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip.

The solemn event took place three days after his body was exhumed for an autopsy 50 years after abduction and murder.

Benson became connected to the Till story after collaborating with Mobley on a 2003 book, “Death of Innocence: the Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America.”

“I'm a little too young to have taken part in the civil rights movement that Emmett's death launched,” Benson told the Chicago Defender. “But because I was so close to him yesterday at the cemetery, I feel that I have taken part in it and that the story has come full circle.”

Benson said he sat with Mobley for many days and weeks talking about what it was like for her to receive his body in 1955.

“It was overwhelming for her, as anyone can imagine,” he said.

Simeon Wright, a cousin who was sleeping in the same bed with Till the night he was taken, described the 40-minute service Saturday as emotional and somber, calling up memories of the night Till was abducted.

"Emmett's blood is still crying out all over the world," Wright said.

For Benson, the mood resembled that of a family reunion.

“There were so many family members and friends there expressing love and support for what had happened in the past and what has just recently happened,” he said. “The service was appropriately reverential and I felt very connected to everyone there.”

He said the media coverage now was quite different now than at the time of Till's death.

While thousands came to Chicago to see the battered body – Mobley insisted on displaying in a glass-covered casket – there were now helicopters hovering over the graveside.

“Nobody at the cemetery seemed annoyed about that,” Benson said. “That said to me the family recognized this is everyone's story. So, there was no resentment about the press being there.”

FBI officials have said Till's remains were exhumed in the hope DNA or other evidence could provide new information on the circumstances surrounding his death.

According to media reports, the autopsy, led by Cook County Medical Examiner Edmund Donoghue, was completed Thursday and the results are expected in the fall.

Wright said FBI officials told him Till's body was remarkably well-preserved and the autopsy results offered good news.

"They said I'd be very pleased, but they couldn't divulge what was in the results," he said.

Two white men charged with the murder, Roy Bryant and his half brother J.W. Milam, were acquitted by an all-white jury. The two, now dead, later confessed to beating and shooting Till in a Look magazine article, stating they killed the teenager because he whistled at Bryant's wife.

During the trial, defense attorneys suggested the body found in the river was not Till's and that the boy was still alive, a theory officials hope will be disproved with the autopsy results.

“Do I believe this can happen, if they might find the real cause of his death? It's possible,” said Benson. “We can only hope if there is anybody else involved in Emmett's murder, they would be brought to stand trial.”

The U.S. Justice Department reopened the Till investigation in May 2004 after reviewing several pieces of information, including a documentary by New York filmmaker Keith Beauchamp.

That documentary will be screened tonight during a members-only event at the Chicago Historical Society.

• More on Emmett Till

Associated Press writer Mike Colias contributed to this story.

source: http://www.chicagodefender.com/page/local.cfm?ArticleID=995 9jun2005