More than 6,500 pages of the Emmett Till murder investigation were published online Friday, days before the 70th anniversary of the 14-year-old Chicago boy’s death.
The public for the first time can view documents detailing the federal government’s response to the 1955 lynching that helped spark the Civil Rights Movement.
The “almost totally unredacted” files from the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice were published on the National Archives website, said Hank Klibanoff, Emory University professor and co-chair of the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board, which oversaw the document release.
While many of the documents had already been obtained by researchers through open records requests, the new records may let researchers “connect the dots” and make new conclusions about the Till murder, Klibanoff said.
Till was abducted and lynched Aug. 28, 1955, after a white woman accused the Black teenager from Chicago of wolf-whistling at her in Mississippi, where he was visiting relatives.
The documents show:
- FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote in a memo claiming there was not enough evidence to indict the two alleged killers on federal kidnapping or civil rights charges.
- Letters from citizens about the Till murder and Justice Department responses
- Internal FBI correspondence on the preliminary investigation and the two men later acquitted of murdering Till.
This first batch of documents is from the National Archives itself and consists mostly of older records turned over years ago by the FBI and Justice Department, Klibanoff said.
The board anticipates publishing tens of thousands of additional pages of documents it expects to receive from the FBI and DOJ, Klibanoff said, though he was unclear when that might happen.
Keith Beauchamp, director of the 2005 documentary “The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till,” has researched Till’s murder for 30 years. He said he has already read all 6,500 pages published online because he had previously obtained the documents through records requests.
The documents span from the opening of the Till investigation to the Montgomery bus boycott.
Beauchamp’s research led to the FBI reopening its investigation in 2004. The government also reopened the case in 2017. Both times, the case was closed without any charges filed.
Beauchamp said he “truly applauds” the government for releasing the documents. He notes that some of the documents explain why the federal government did not pursue charges in the 1950s and how Hoover did not want charges filed despite public pressure.
The most intriguing documents, Beauchamp said, show civil rights activist Dr. T. R. M. Howard having a “tiff” with Hoover over the handling of the murder. He said the documents also show the FBI trying to pit certain African American activists against each other.
Beauchamp said he was “quite moved” reading accounts of witnesses testifying and speaking to the press.
“Overall, I’m happy that the files are being released. But there’s a lot more in those files that should be revealed to the public,” said Beauchamp, who estimates there are around 30,000 files total.
The timing of the publication of these documents is important, considering the 70th anniversary of Till’s death is Aug. 28, said Christopher Benson, a Northwestern University professor who co-wrote “Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America” with Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley.
Benson said the documents will correct misreporting in the past, particularly the claim that Carolyn Bryant Donham had recanted her accusation against Till. The documents show she was unrepentant on her deathbed and even claimed she had suffered more than Till, Benson said.
The records were released under the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act of 2018, signed by President Donald Trump.