WORD REIMAGINED The wire · 25 filed · live

Source archive Tier A

Emmett Till Case Record

U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, "Emmett Till," case record.

Custody docket

Record
doj-emmett-till-case-record-1955
Type
archive
Trust tier
A
Status
published

Sources are graded A (primary) / B (secondary academic) / C (secondary journalism) / D (tertiary or contested). See the manifesto’s Evidence Standard for full criteria.

Official DOJ record of the 1955 lynching/murder of Emmett Till, 14, in Money, Mississippi — the historical reference point Ben Crump and Rev. Al Sharpton invoked directly. Note for drafting: Till’s killers (Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam) were acquitted by an all-white jury in September 1955, then confessed in a paid Look magazine interview in 1956 after double jeopardy protected them from retrial. Any essay claim about “truth forcing past the acquittal” should cite this confession specifically, not assert it vaguely — verify exact framing at receipt-gate before shipping.

Provenance

Creator
U.S. Department of Justice
Published
1955
Accessed
2026-07-28

Cited by

Theme custody

No theme record references this source.

On the wire