“I was sending news to the Jackson Daily News at the time of the Emmett Till case but was not expected to cover anything as big as that story and so was spared that, though it would have been an interesting one to cover. Local people resented the wide news coverage so it was just as well I missed that one.

“In 1986 a man who said he was employed by a television station in Chicago which was an NBC affiliate, called me and asked if I could give him any information on what happened to Milam and Bryant and other information on the Till case, since he was preparing a documentary on the case and planned to come to Greenwood later. Even this long after it happened I was hesitant to talk to him too much for fear of being quoted. He had interviewed Till’s mother in Chicago and said she had started a club called ‘The Emmett Till Boys Club.’ He did come to Greenwood but I only talked to him on the phone. He told me that Milam was dead and that he had found Bryant operating a store in Ruleville which was similar to the one in Money.

“In 1954 the Supreme Court had handed down the Brown v. Board of Education decision declaring that school segregation was illegal, and little did we realize the impact this would have on our schools or how it would affect our lives and those of our children.”