SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey Jesse. Hello, Lindsay. Hey, Landon. Hey.

SPEAKER_04: 0:06

Hey, hey. Check this out, Lindsay. Watch this right here.

SPEAKER_01: 0:11

Hey, Lindsay. It's Cody from Wage War. We wish you were here. Hope you're doing great.

SPEAKER_04: 0:18

Cody said hey too. I just I just wanted to say that Cody said hey too.

SPEAKER_00: 0:22

He did. So my nail tech slash concert going friend. We've been friends for since like 2008. She is on Shiprock right now. And she met the other love of my life, Cody Quistad, and he is the guitarist for and the clean vocalist. God he can sing for Wage War. And she met him and got him to send me a message. Lucky bastard. I almost shit myself. I'm not jelly. I think it's cool. I've been on top of the world all fucking week, man.

SPEAKER_04: 0:56

You can tell he was slosh too. We should share that video. And he was so cute. I shared it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05

Yeah. And I tagged him.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07

That's cool. That's cool.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09

Thank you, Cody. If you ever listen to this podcast, you are the tip.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13

Bring your cocoustic next time you're in Florida and come hang out and play some cocoustic in our house.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17

Listen, that was, I think, the that was when the love was really formed for Wage War. Like I already loved them, but like I fell deep at that acoustic story.

SPEAKER_04: 1:27

Storytime real quick.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29

We'd already talked about it before.

SPEAKER_04: 1:30

We did.

SPEAKER_00: 1:31

Because I'm obsessed.

SPEAKER_04: 1:32

Going to Spookala. Spookala. When it was in Ocala. It was in O'Cala. Scaradise and Wage War. Yeah, now it's Scaradise in Tampa.

SPEAKER_00: 1:40

Wage War did a uh acoustic set there and it was.

SPEAKER_04: 1:44

He was so scared.

SPEAKER_00: 1:45

Imagine. Yeah, I could have met him this year. Just go on up there.

SPEAKER_04: 1:48

Just go up there and say, I know they're all getting their stuff together and all that stuff. All you had to do was just go and say hey. They could have said hey.

SPEAKER_00: 1:54

That's what I'm always worried about, is bothering somebody.

SPEAKER_04: 1:57

While they're busy.

SPEAKER_00: 1:58

While they're busy, or while they're like, I don't want to be like, hey.

SPEAKER_04: 2:02

They're on the job. They're on the job, yeah. Yeah, but it was more of a relaxed setting. You know, they were just like shit rocked is for sure. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 2:10

But hey, what are you drinking today, Jess?

SPEAKER_04: 2:12

I am drinking crown vanilla. Yeah. Yeah. With um, what was it? Like cream soda. It's good.

SPEAKER_00: 2:19

I'm burping.

SPEAKER_04: 2:20

So total uh total the total little crownie over here. Crownie crownie. What are you drinking over there?

SPEAKER_00: 2:27

I got a watermelon vista bay. I'm finishing off the rest of my vista bays from last week, and I'm gonna be on the claw here in a minute. Probably have me a little vod later. I don't know. I could not stomach it last week. I don't know what the Dilio was. I couldn't stomach it.

SPEAKER_04: 2:43

Oh, he's over here having just a little uh Landon's vibing. A little vibing with some water.

SPEAKER_00: 2:49

Yeah. We just had a great see food meal at one of our local spots here in LC.

SPEAKER_03: 2:56

Most expensive meal I bought myself. I was just about to say, we're so proud of him.

SPEAKER_00: 3:01

Yes, he bought him a big ass plate of crabs. I mean, we he shared.

SPEAKER_03: 3:05

And um Yeah, it was like eight or nine clusters of crabs. I couldn't eat all that.

SPEAKER_04: 3:11

Look at him, he's all comfortable now. Look at him, he's getting saddled in or delicious. It was a delicious meal. Landon on the podcast. He was nervous the last time.

SPEAKER_00: 3:19

Well, I mean, even me. Like, remember our first one that we did? I like couldn't breathe. Like I was talking in front of a live audience or something.

SPEAKER_04: 3:26

My first one, they dumped me off into like this big huge thing. There was like a hundred and something thousand people.

SPEAKER_00: 3:31

I know, I watched it on the laptop.

SPEAKER_04: 3:33

And then, well, no, I think the one the one after that was the one I did with the DWP thing. There was like 200,000 people came on that.

SPEAKER_00: 3:40

I was about to say, because it was the brew brew guys. What was it called?

SPEAKER_04: 3:43

Uh the True Brew.

SPEAKER_00: 3:44

True Brew.

SPEAKER_04: 3:44

I think it's still going on.

SPEAKER_03: 3:46

I think uh I have an idea for you guys. Y'all should uh start live streaming your uh like on Twitch. I know you do it on Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 3:53

I'm I'm still a little boomery because you can get paid though on Twitch as well.

SPEAKER_04: 3:57

Who's the famous our niece? Uh small small the bean smoldering the bean. Yeah, she has fucking millions of followers.

SPEAKER_00: 4:03

Yeah, she gains streams on there. She's good at that.

SPEAKER_03: 4:07

But yeah, we might set us up a little Discord, a little Twitch, yeah, Twitch and like podcasts, so be a good idea.

SPEAKER_00: 4:13

That might be uh our next little step if we can figure it out. We just got TikTok live figured out, so kind of we just we just turn it on and let it go.

SPEAKER_04: 4:23

Well, I feel like my head's in a bucket, so let's start this party right right now. Now we got a cold, and we're doing happy Friday, everybody. It's gonna be a great weekend.

SPEAKER_00: 4:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 4:59

It's gonna be great.

SPEAKER_00: 5:00

So besides your it's your sickness and your your janky arm, what else made you feel old this week? Ahby. I took a peek at it. Did you? Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_04: 5:13

Yeah, this year, the labyrinth in June is gonna be turning 40. That made me feel old, goodness, to the graciousness.

SPEAKER_00: 5:22

Yeah, we were we were babys when that came out. We were. You remind me of the babe. Well, speaking of babys, we lost the greatest. Oh, Catherine O'Hara left this world. Uh now this will be out next week, but um happy Friday. But um, on January 30th, we lost Catherine O'Hara.

SPEAKER_03: 5:46

Yes. What's her last movie, the second Beetlejuice?

SPEAKER_00: 5:50

I think no, yeah, because she was also in The Last of Us. And but they were like, I don't know, she might have been in production of something else. I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_04: 6:00

I haven't Googled it because I'm flirting with another Home Alone with Macaulay Calkin and the little thing that he did with that and her and I've got the socials and I'm like, I cried yesterday.

SPEAKER_00: 6:09

It was just I cried yesterday, but we DA. But we watched uh some Chits Creek last night. We had to watch the fold in the cheese episode.

SPEAKER_04: 6:19

Fold in the cheese, David.

SPEAKER_00: 6:20

Fold in the cheese, David, and she let and that's how she says Bebe. What do I do with the long cheese?

SPEAKER_04: 6:26

I'm not used to the long cheese. What?

SPEAKER_00: 6:31

I can't show you everything, David. And he's like, well, can you show me this one thing?

SPEAKER_04: 6:38

Yeah. What do you have in store for us after all this? I got I gotta we gotta get on the while stuff. You gotta, you know, do the things.

SPEAKER_00: 6:48

I do have to do the things. Well, you haven't asked me what made me feel old. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 6:52

Well, I thought that was that, but you know what made you feel old?

SPEAKER_00: 6:54

I mean, pretty much Catherine O'Hara passing away and while I'm in my 40s. She was a big part of she's been a big part of our lives, man, since Bebe age. Bebe. Beetlejuice and Sally and Kevin's mom, Mrs. McAllister, and Beatlejuice 2, Shits Creek. Yeah, she was in The Last of Us recently.

SPEAKER_04: 7:18

She really did rock that whole rich and distraught fucking thing.

SPEAKER_00: 7:23

Oh my gosh, perfect.

SPEAKER_04: 7:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 7:25

And I was telling Jesse yesterday, that is my I love her and everything, but that is my favorite role she's ever played. Yeah. Because she does it so well. Nails it. With that weird accent and the whole Moira Rose, man. Legendary.

unknown: 7:38

All right.

SPEAKER_00: 7:39

So oldness.

SPEAKER_04: 7:40

What made Landon feel old here?

SPEAKER_00: 7:42

Made you feel old.

SPEAKER_03: 7:43

Yesterday, my uh my right ankle started hurting at work. Oh.

SPEAKER_00: 7:50

Just your right?

SPEAKER_03: 7:51

Yeah, just the right one. And uh I every time I move it, it pops. So it hurts right now, but uh that's it. Might need to get you a little brace. Yeah, old.

SPEAKER_00: 8:00

Yeah, that just that just keeps happening, just to let you know, like throughout the years, like random things will just hurt. You won't know why. It'll go away sometimes. Sometimes it'll take a few days. Yeah. But it just random parts just start hurting. Cold weather, too. Oh, yeah. Well, Landon did break his femur bone when he was four years old, um, caused by another brother. And uh we were just glad that he was young enough at that point where he did not have to have a rod put in because you would feel all the weather.

SPEAKER_02: 8:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 8:31

Yeah. Yeah, you would know. Where he's like fully healing, his bones are like. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00: 8:37

Yeah, he was still, it was still like before you're five, your bones are still mostly like cartilage.

SPEAKER_04: 8:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 8:44

So they heal easier. And because that's the hardest bone in the body to break, but not when you're four.

SPEAKER_04: 8:50

So right, right, right. Lindsay has stories though.

SPEAKER_00: 8:54

I do. So we're still in um, well, we're it's pretty much like the beginning of Black History Month now. I went ahead and started with one case last week, which was Tamil Horseford, and um check out our recap on that and the episode. And uh Hashtag justice. And I did a yeah, I did a little backstory into the horrible history of Forsythe County. And now we're gonna move on to something else. So Emmett Lewis Till was born on July 25th, 1941, to Mamie and Lewis Till in Chicago, Illinois. Are you guys familiar with this story?

SPEAKER_03: 9:36

Not at all. Really? No.

SPEAKER_00: 9:40

Okay, because I have to say off the top, I don't I must have had an excellent history teacher in 10th grade. I did not do well in her class for some reason. Like I struggled, probably because of the ADHD, but I remember everything she talked about.

SPEAKER_04: 9:56

So as far as Game of Thrones goes, I think you're more like Sam. Yeah. Yeah, you read it in a book.

SPEAKER_00: 10:02

Well read. Well, and also I think her name was Miss Minix, I want to say. She was an excellent teacher. She made she was very passionate, especially about cases that had to do with um racial inequality, uh, like the Holocaust.

SPEAKER_04: 10:19

That's that's good. Like she really put out like real stuff and was like, you know what, we're gonna get a little bit off curriculum and I'm gonna share some real things with you guys. And that's awesome because you have you have you have said that same scenario with her before.

SPEAKER_00: 10:33

Um she was also who had me passionate about Matthew Shepard. Right. She came in and she told us the story with tears in her eyes, and I felt it, and I never forgot that.

SPEAKER_04: 10:42

That is upset of the whole passion for all this true crime stuff, I guarantee it, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00: 10:47

Well, well, you know, other than our upbringing with watching Rescue 911 and Unsolved Mysteries. Unsolved Mysteries and Murder She Wrote and Matt Lock.

SPEAKER_04: 10:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mine, I mean, mine always just goes back to Paul Harvey. I mean, that's all I got.

SPEAKER_00: 11:02

Well, I didn't want I didn't listen to a lot of him unless I was on a work day with dad.

SPEAKER_04: 11:05

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 11:06

And he would listen to him at lunchtime. Well, Emmett's nickname was Bobo.

SPEAKER_04: 11:12

Oh.

SPEAKER_00: 11:12

Just like you. Yes. His mother, Mamie, was born was from Webb, Mississippi. And when she was two, her family moved to Argo, Illinois with the great migration of rural Black families to escape violence and the lack of opportunity and equality under Jim Crow laws. Sorry, that was a lot to say. Jim Crow laws, which enforced racial segregation. Yeah, I mean, you're familiar with Jim Crow laws. Yeah, bullshit. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 11:45

Who the fuck thinks that's fucking humane? I mean, exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 11:48

What? Like, fuck you, Jim Crow. Um when Mamie was 18, she met and married Lewis Till, who worked for the Argo Corn Company. That's who like cornstarch and shit. It's Argo.

SPEAKER_02: 12:01

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 12:02

Um, and he did some amateur boxing. They were married in 1940, but were separated by 1942 because Mamie caught Lewis cheating and he had become abusive. Lewis had choked her unconscious at one point, and later that evening, that same day, she poured boiling water on his ass. Good for you, girl. Get him. She moved in with her mother after this and had to get a restraining order against Lewis because he was not happy that she had left, even though he brought it all on. But and he did violate this restraining order over and over. And then he was finally given the choice of jail time or fighting in World War II, to which he chose to enlist. Three years later, Mamie received word that Lewis had been executed due to raping two women and killing another in Italy.

SPEAKER_04: 13:02

Really? Well, he got what was coming to him. She should have threw the fucking grits on him then. Yeah. That'd have changed his mind. Well, boiling water's got to be just as bad.

SPEAKER_00: 13:12

No, because them grits stick to the girl. Landon and I know from getting on.

SPEAKER_04: 13:17

No, we have like three granddaughters, and we're gonna teach them all to throw grits. We're gonna teach them.

SPEAKER_03: 13:23

What about the white gravy?

SPEAKER_00: 13:24

Oh god, that still don't stick as bad as grits.

SPEAKER_04: 13:27

They like burn into your grits are like kind of almost bubbling a little bit, plop, plop, plop, plop. And get his conniving, trifling ass in the kitchen and get them.

SPEAKER_00: 13:38

You know, I first saw that. I had no idea about that growing up in the south and eating grits my whole life. I had no idea about that till I watched um, I think it was Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Yes. Uh Tyler Perry's movie. Have you watched that one with Medea?

unknown: 13:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 13:54

Medea taught her that. And yes, I was like, yes!

SPEAKER_03: 13:57

Painful thing Jesse knows about butter in the sock. Silas hit you.

SPEAKER_04: 14:04

Oh, I didn't know about that. It was soap in a sock. Oh, soap. Yeah, he learned that from fucking watching YouTube. No, what movie was it? It was Full Metal Jacket or something.

SPEAKER_00: 14:16

He hit you with a camera because soap.

SPEAKER_04: 14:19

Because they did that shit in the movie, and I was like, why in the hell did you do that? Well, I seen it on the movie. I'm like, you hit me in the elbow. That shit hurts so bad, dude. I'm sleepy. And he comes in here. Yeah, I would have got up and beat it. Oh, he should not have watched that movie. Why? I caught him watching it and he done watched it at all. And I was like, well, fucking done watched it. Yeah. God.

SPEAKER_00: 14:40

Now, his uh Lewis's ring with his initials LT was also sent to her. And she decided to keep it and put it up for Emmett to have when he got older. Now, me, I probably would have tossed that bitch. I mean, that's got some bad memories tied to it, but it'll kind of be important later on.

SPEAKER_04: 14:58

So I mean, you know, she can just speak good and then try to build that from there. You know? It sucks. It really does. I get it.

SPEAKER_00: 15:07

Now she had two more short-lived marriages, one to Lamoris Mallory, and another to a man named Pink Bradley. I thought of Pinky from That sounds pimpish, I'm not sure. From Friday afternoon, it's Pinky. And uh all this happened within a decade after her split from Lewis. In 1951, she and Emmett moved to an apartment on Chicago, Chicago South Side, and she worked for the Social Security Administration, and then she worked for the Air Force where she was in charge of confidential files.

SPEAKER_04: 15:40

Fuck.

SPEAKER_00: 15:41

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_04: 15:42

That is a in the 50s. Yeah. You know, women were doing the work behind the scenes in all the military. Oh, yeah. And it's coming out more and more and more. All that was really predominant.

SPEAKER_00: 15:52

Specifically women of color. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 15:54

Yeah. Yeah. Rightfully so. And credit where it is due for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 15:59

Now, when Emmett was just six years old, polio was running rampant through the country, and he contracted this and would this would cause him to have a persistent stutter and weak ankles. Now he did get better from it. You know, a lot of people get a lot worse things from polio. Um, but he did get um the weak ankles, the stutter, and for the weak ankles, he did have to wear special shoes. Oh. Latforest.

SPEAKER_02: 16:27

Live forest.

SPEAKER_00: 16:28

Yeah, like forest. Um, huh? My new legs. Uh when he got better, he went back to playing with his friends as usual. As Emmett grew older, he enjoyed comedians like Red Skelton, Jack Benny, Abbott and Costello, and George Gobel. He would tell lots of jokes. He was the prankster of the family. His mom said that he told all the knock-knock jokes, all the chicken crossing the road. Like he was a comedian.

SPEAKER_04: 16:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 16:59

And it was said too that he would actually pay um other people he knew that were like on the funny side so he could have more jokes to his repertoire. Like, yeah. He was gathering content.

SPEAKER_04: 17:11

Yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_00: 17:13

He enjoyed going to church with his grandmother where he would be in perfect attendance for uh Sunday school. And he liked to go to Lake Michigan with his friends and cousins. There's like a little beach there, I'm guessing.

SPEAKER_04: 17:26

Lake Michigan.

SPEAKER_00: 17:27

Like I have seen what it is crazy how there's like waves and everything on these gigantic lakes. Yeah, body of water that big.

SPEAKER_04: 17:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:35

I know it's just you know, because we know ocean, like we're Floridians, we know ocean, but yeah, the Great Lakes are like oceans. Our lakes don't have waves unless they're put on by a boat or uh jet ski. He liked to dress sharp, always wearing a straw hat and a tie. And now when um Emmett was 14, his uncle Moe's Wright, who was a reverend and a sharecropper, had come up from Mississippi for a funeral, and Emmett wanted to go back with him. Mamie was not a fan of the idea, but wanted to show Emmett that she trusted him and she was proud of how responsible he was because you know he did help out with the children.

SPEAKER_04: 18:17

Up to this point, I feel like mama did a great job raising him. He's confident, you know, he's outgoing, and he's just wanting to experience life and taking it all in. She did good.

SPEAKER_00: 18:26

So before he left, she gave him several lectures on how different it was in Mississippi compared to Chicago. Because it was. And she told him that it was a lot more racist that he should not engage in conversation with white folks that only speak if spoken to, never stare at a white woman. And if a white woman was walking down the street, he should have to go, he should go to the other side and keep his head down. I hate that. I hate that any parent ever had to have that conversation.

SPEAKER_04: 19:00

That conversation. Yes, exactly. Why? Why is that a thing? Why was it a thing? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 19:06

Well, later on, she said that she realized this was the first conversation she had ever had to have with him about racism. She said, How do you teach a kid who's been who's been around nothing but love? How do you teach them to understand hate?

SPEAKER_04: 19:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 19:22

He's holding back from what's natural, you know, and that's so on August 20th, 1955, Mamie said goodbye to her only son as he set off for Money, Mississippi, with his uncle on a train. Three days after he arrived on Wednesday, August 24th, or 23rd. I may have the dates mixed up there. It was three days after he arrived on a Wednesday. Uh, Moe's was to preach at the East Money Church of Christ. Now, since his boys and Emmett had helped pick cotton all day, he didn't make them go to church. So six boys and one girl piled up in the truck, and uh, this was also neighbors and cousins, you know, like there was a big group.

SPEAKER_04: 20:12

Right, the community.

SPEAKER_00: 20:13

Right. They went a little further than they were supposed to and went to Bryant's grocery store, which was owned by a very deep rooted racist family, and Carolyn Bryant was the cashier. Now, Carolyn's father had been in plantation management. So that tells you anything. And she was raised to feel to believe that deep-seated fucking yeah, debauchery. Now the kids were just stopping in for candy and drinks, and there was checker games on the front porch. So, you know, it was that old type of country store. Right. Of course, the kids want to play. The kids want to play, and yeah, and I mean, and that was kind of a normal scene. So there was no problems there. I gotta take a drink for this next part.

SPEAKER_04: 21:04

No. Should I? Should should I?

SPEAKER_00: 21:07

Now there are several different accounts of what happened in the store. At some point, Emmett was alone in the store for about a minute with Carolyn. And according to Carolyn, Emmett grabbed her hand as she was stalking shells and said, How about a date, baby? And when she snatched her hand back, he then followed her to the register, grabbed her by her waist, and said, What's the matter, baby? You can't take it. You needn't be afraid of me, baby. I've been with white women before.

SPEAKER_04: 21:40

That's nothing like how he talks to begin with. He's from Chicago. I know. I just I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 21:45

I've got Mississippi in my head.

SPEAKER_04: 21:47

All right, well, either way, this is all fun.

SPEAKER_00: 21:49

And also, also, the narrator of the book that I listened to, the audio book I listened to, had kind of like they jazzed it up a little bit, you know, in the stuff. And that's kind of what I had in my head. Sorry. Um again. You're right, though. I don't think that's a good one. But I mean, he was not his mama had a Mississippi accent, and you know, you they pick that up. So you never know.

SPEAKER_03: 22:10

You never know.

SPEAKER_04: 22:14

He's not gonna fucking touch her at all, I guarantee you.

SPEAKER_00: 22:17

No. So um now the other kids say that this never happened. Carolyn would also say in another story that Emmett grabbed her hand and asked for the date as he was paying for his items. The only thing that was reported by the children that Emmett did wrong was when he was paying for his items, he put the money directly in her hand instead of putting it on the counter. It was like an unspoken law to do that because you can't you can't touch the white women. You know what I mean? So now everyone did say that this was true, that he wolf whistled at her as they were leaving, and Carolyn was grabbing her pistol. But none of this, absolutely none of it, will ever justify what happens next.

SPEAKER_04: 23:15

Are you kidding me, Lindsay? No, I need a plant already.

SPEAKER_00: 23:22

Now, all the kids left and raced home, and Emmett begged them not to tell his uncle about it. But Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Mo's did end up hearing about it, and the word spread through the small community really fast. So on August 28th, between 2 and 3 a.m., Roy Bryant, Carolyn's husband, and his half-brother J.W. Millum drove to Uncle Mo's house armed and demanded that Mo's take them to, quote, the N-word who did the talking. Now Moes told the man that Emmett didn't know any better that he was from up north, which is true. I mean, Mamie did lecture him, but at the same time, like, in my opinion, it's just innocent enough. You know what I mean? It's not that big of a deal. He's a 14-year-old kid.

SPEAKER_02: 24:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 24:18

Um, JW then asked, How old are you, preacher? To which Mo said, 64. And JW said that if he told anyone, he would not live to see 65. And then they snatched up a terrified in it. They tied him up and threw him in the back of the truck and drove towards money where they pistol-whipped him relentlessly.

SPEAKER_04: 24:43

Lindsay.

SPEAKER_00: 24:44

Shot him, and then tied him to a cotton gin fan and sent him down the Tallahatchie River.

SPEAKER_02: 24:54

Oh my God. Lindsay.

SPEAKER_00: 24:57

I gotta how does that merit any fucking thing at all? Like, uh I know. I had to kind of hurry through that because I really plant okay.

SPEAKER_04: 25:06

Just over some kid gesture bullshit. I mean, it was blowed completely out to begin with. Do they fucking realize how what an impact did that little girl realize that that was gonna happen over that? Well, we'll get that. Or was she just that fucking shitty because of her raising? We'll get there.

SPEAKER_00: 25:24

Now, when the men didn't return with Emmett, about actually about 20, 30 minutes later, Moes drove around all night until 8 a.m. And then he feared for his life to call the police. So his friend Curtis Jones called the La Flora County police and then made another call to Mamie in Chicago to let her know that her son had been kidnapped. Now, they didn't know anything other than he had been kidnapped at this point. So Mamie made the absolute smart decision and um called the media in in the Chicago area. And then double uh the NAACP got involved. Now Aunt Elizabeth had Mo's drive her to her family's house in Sumner because she was terrified. She was like, I'm done, done with this area. Like she was pissed. Now, she had also gone to um some neighbors' house in the middle of the night to try to get help, and they were too scared to try to help. So they called the sheriff in that area. And like I said, Mamie had the good sense to contact the black community media and let her let them know about her son's kidnapping right away. So then the pressure was on. The sheriff of La Flora County named George Smith found and questioned Roy and JW, and they admitted to kidnapping him. But they said that they released him right in front of Bryant's door. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 27:04

Okay, well, y'all just going about your way, right? It's all good, right?

SPEAKER_00: 27:10

And then three days later, two boys were fishing along the Tallahatchie River and discovered Emmett's body. He was nude, swollen, disfigured, and his face had been mutilated. The gunshot wound was right above his right ear, and one of his eyes had been completely dislodged out of the socket. And the fan blade that they tied him to was tied to his neck with barbed wire.

SPEAKER_04: 27:43

So horrific.

SPEAKER_00: 27:44

Horrific. Now his father's ring, the ones with the initials, that is what was used to identify his body. Now Emmett Till's murder would be one of the main reasons behind the civil rights movement. This is like this is a spark. Right. His body was prepared for burial in Mississippi, but Mamie said no to bring him to Chicago. Right. I think she had to pay like$3,000 for that. So I mean, she got, you know, she collected funds in that age. Fuck.

SPEAKER_04: 28:23

Rightfully so, though. Who wants to put your kid in? That's fucking garbage ass South bullshit.

SPEAKER_00: 28:28

Well, she insisted on an open casket so the world could see what had been done to her child of just 14 years old. Tens of thousands of people would come to the viewing, and then more thousands would attend the actual funeral at Robert Temple Church of God in Christ. A photo of Mamie looking over her son's casket would be one of the hundred most influential images of all time.

SPEAKER_04: 29:00

Lindsay, and that is exactly what needs to be taught at school. So thank you for the teacher that taught you that. I mean, I feel like more of that, there should be more of that in a curriculum. You know, you have to take the good with the bad. I mean, I really hate that that shit kind of happened. And that kind of shit has happened all over the place in the United States because of racism and all the fucking bullshit. And teaching your kids, and you know, they did that bullshit thinking that they were being godly. Yeah. How in the fuck do you tie religion in how do you retire? How the fuck can you think that this is actually a good thing? How do you how do you teach your children this?

SPEAKER_00: 29:41

How do you they they did not, I mean, on a lot of white people, I'm not saying all, but a lot of white people did not view the black community as actual fucking people. As humans. It's crazy white. What fucking book were they looking at? Because they were all fucking seated. Well, they were all claiming that they were all Christians. Exactly. What fucking book were they looking at? To a white Jesus.

SPEAKER_04: 30:05

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 30:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 30:06

Jesus was not white.

SPEAKER_03: 30:08

Definitely not.

SPEAKER_04: 30:08

All these southerners, if they would have took the South in the late 1800s and 1900s, early 1900s, and moved them to fucking Israel, you know, or Bethlehem, they would have been all fucked up. Be like, wait a minute, this is where your religion comes from, dude. Right. You got it all fucked up.

SPEAKER_00: 30:28

Fucking I mean, I had I had relatives like that I grew up with that, you know, told me that America was God's country, but like, what? But we're gonna do all this ungodly shit. Yeah. We're the Korean. We are the youngest country, like established uh country, even though it was already established before, you know, in the world. Right. You know.

SPEAKER_04: 30:52

Half the people that were coming over here though were just trying to find a better way, but it all got fucked up. It did, and they did it completely wrong. Wrong. So wrong. Uh global.

SPEAKER_00: 31:01

Well, and I was gonna say this same teacher, like, she showed us, like, I don't know if we were supposed to be watching this stuff.

SPEAKER_04: 31:08

You should have.

SPEAKER_00: 31:09

But she showed yeah, because it I mean, it stayed with me forever. Right. She had us watch videos on the Holocaust.

SPEAKER_04: 31:15

No, this is a proper middle school fucking educational thing.

SPEAKER_00: 31:18

It was 10th grade, so we were in middle school. Well, to me, it's I mean, I was driving.

SPEAKER_04: 31:21

But teach that shit in middle school, like start planting this seed earlier. I think so. I think so. Maybe a well, because I mean, I went to middle school in the south, and so did you. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 31:32

But I'm just saying, like the graphic videos that she showed us, like of the Holocaust of them like carrying these limpless, starved bodies, and people were just dumping them in in trenches. And then she showed us a documentary on this, and it showed what his face looked like, and it was horrific.

SPEAKER_04: 31:51

Right. And that should have been the turning point for segregation to begin with. We all just went over and fought a big ass war because of the same shit. Why can't our country step up? You know?

SPEAKER_00: 31:59

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 32:00

Shouldn't even, it shouldn't have been a thing. Hey, as soon as we put a first foot on the ground in World War II, it should have been the end of segregation in the United States.

SPEAKER_00: 32:09

Especially when everybody, every color was fighting in that war.

SPEAKER_04: 32:15

Yeah, you know, or when Great Britain decided they want to start trading human beings to try to better a nation that's being built and stolen from Native Americans, you know? Exactly. Wait a minute. Yeah. We're gonna claim this shit. We're gonna steal it and just take it. Fuck. And then we're gonna also we're gonna hire these people to steal people and make them just property.

SPEAKER_00: 32:37

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04: 32:38

You ain't got it right. No, humanity, tighten up. Please don't let this ever be a thing.

SPEAKER_00: 32:44

Ever. Don't let do not let history repeat itself for God's sake.

SPEAKER_04: 32:49

Everybody share this and keep it all in part of your just DNA. Because you can't let it repeat.

SPEAKER_00: 32:56

Can't.

SPEAKER_04: 32:57

Never.

SPEAKER_00: 32:58

Now Roy Bryant and J.W. Millum were indicted for murder. And the trial was held in the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in September of 1955.

SPEAKER_04: 33:10

You're gonna piss me off with all this shit, too, ain't you?

SPEAKER_00: 33:12

Oh, get ready to get mad. Lindsay. Now the press would be in attendance, and many from the black community would also be in attendance because, of course, Sheriff Strider from that area would welcome the black communities by saying, hello, N words. Like just, hey, like it was just No. Yeah. With the hard R. With the hard R. Yes. And most of these were from Chicago, so they're like, what? You know?

SPEAKER_04: 33:42

We done beat all this up here.

SPEAKER_00: 33:44

Well, no, there was still segregation, but it wasn't as bad.

SPEAKER_04: 33:48

Yeah. And around that time some really all that shit was going on in California.

SPEAKER_00: 33:53

Different kind.

SPEAKER_03: 33:54

You give a white man a badge and a gun back then. They feel like God. Literally.

SPEAKER_04: 33:59

Yeah. And they would do that bullshit in the name of Jesus. Oh, yeah. They're gonna fucking praise the Lord. Yeah, we're getting closer to heaven by doing that.

SPEAKER_00: 34:05

Blessed be the fruit.

SPEAKER_04: 34:07

Fuck.

SPEAKER_00: 34:07

Now jury members would be allowed to have guns and drink beer on duty. Like while they're we can be drunk as fuck, hoot them or all, right?

SPEAKER_03: 34:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 34:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 34:17

Fuck. Beer was stronger back then, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 34:20

They didn't have that straight straight from the hop.

unknown: 34:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 34:24

They drive that warm beer. Yeah, you hard ass dude. You just drink hot ass beer. Our our cello player still drinker. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 34:32

Well, hey, German as fuck, man. Yeah. Now, maybe she would actually be criticized for not crying enough on the stand. Like, okay, you can only cry so much. And everybody grieves differently. Like, you, I mean, honestly, you can only you get you get dried out after a while.

SPEAKER_04: 34:52

By now, though, she can tell the vibe, and she's probably just pissed the fuck off.

SPEAKER_00: 34:55

Pissed the fuck off. That's I would be more angry. Yeah. Which I'm a cry, I'm an angry crier, but not everybody is.

SPEAKER_04: 35:01

Yeah, am I supposed to suck this in and just still be remorse when I'm sitting here looking at the fucking tyrant right in front of me, you know? Right. I'm pissed off about this.

SPEAKER_00: 35:10

And it was even said by the defense that maybe this body wasn't even in it. That he could just be missing and not deceased.

SPEAKER_03: 35:20

Because he was so mutilated. Even though the ring was on the finger with the father.

SPEAKER_00: 35:26

And Roy and JW had admitted to kidnapping him. I mean.

SPEAKER_03: 35:31

So yeah, there's your answer right there.

SPEAKER_00: 35:34

All right. Get ready to be very angry. I'm already fucking angry right now, Lindsay. Both Roy and JW were acquitted for murder and kidnapping, even though they had admitted to the kidnapping.

SPEAKER_03: 35:48

Motherfucker.

SPEAKER_04: 35:51

I knew they were going to get away with this shit, Lindsay. Why you gotta do this shit to me, Lindsay? Lindsay.

SPEAKER_03: 35:55

Lindsay is a white man and they believe in God.

SPEAKER_00: 35:59

Now these two would admit to the murder in an interview with William Bradford Huey for Look magazine in 1956. And this is I'm about to read a quote. Well, it's a little bit more than a quote. Uh it's a couple paragraphs from JW Millam for this magazine. This was printed. Okay. Well, what else could we do? He was hopeless. I'm no bully. I never heard an N-word in my life. I like N-words in their place. I know how to work them. But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, N-words are gonna stay in their place. N-words ain't gonna vote where I live. If they did, they control the government. They ain't gonna go to school with my kids. And when an N word gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he's just tired of living. I'm likely to kill him. Me and my folks fought for this country and we got some rights. I stood there in that shed and I listened to that N-word throw that poison at me. Oh, I forgot to mention they claim in the in their testimonies that Emmett was combative to them. That he was like spouting off at the mouth. Well, they were saying, yeah, they were saying that y'all basically asked. Y'all are full of shit. Full of shit.

SPEAKER_03: 37:30

Y'all are full of shit. He was scared to death. Right. Yeah, 14-year-old boy.

SPEAKER_00: 37:35

Exactly. And I just made up my mind, Chicago boy. I said, I'm tired of him sending your kind down here to stir up trouble. God damn you. I'm gonna make an example of you just so everybody can know how me and my folks stand. At the disgusting vile thoughts that are going in my head. That was printed material, you can look it up on Google.

SPEAKER_03: 38:06

Yeah. For me and my people, no, not all black people.

SPEAKER_00: 38:10

We ain't in this house by any means.

SPEAKER_04: 38:12

We're way beyond that. That is so stupid. We're two generations past that. Yeah. I think. You know, I mean, if if you hang on to some shit like that right there, find somewhere else to be. Just don't be around, you know. Fucking hell, dude. You ready to get mad again? No, you more? A little bit more.

SPEAKER_00: 38:30

Many years later, I think in 2007, Carolyn Bryant would admit to fabricating details of what happened in the grocery store that day, and said nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him. That's why I said that at the top. Because those were her words. She's the reason why it happened to him. And now she's saying that nothing he did could have ever justified that. Now she says that Roy was abusive towards her and she was afraid of him. So why would you tell him?

SPEAKER_03: 39:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 39:09

If you know how he is, why would you even tell him? Nothing happened to you. Right. Nothing happened to you at all.

SPEAKER_04: 39:16

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 39:18

And Jay does she said that JW, he was domineering and brutal and not a kind man. Obviously, I just read you what he wrote in a mag or what he said in an interview.

SPEAKER_04: 39:28

Right. He don't give a fuck. Garbage ass power fucking.

SPEAKER_00: 39:33

After they were acquitted of.

SPEAKER_04: 39:35

Just feels like he's just on top of the world. I can say and do whatever I want. Exactly. Son of a bitch.

SPEAKER_00: 39:41

Now, Mamie, she would go on to tour the country with the NAACP, and this would be one of their most successful campaigns of all time. In 1987, an Emmy Award-winning documentary series called Eyes on the Prize begins with the story of Emmett Till. And um this is the one that I told you my teacher showed me. Now, the documentary that I watched on Kendrick Johnson also touches on his murder. And it was the this was the reason why Kendrick's mom chose to have an open casket at Kendrick's funeral. And we do talk about that. If you're new to RPOG, go back and listen to that episode as well. The Blood of Emmett Till is the audiobook that I listened to on this case, and it was written by Timothy B. Tyson, who had interviewed many of the people involved, including Carolyn Bryant. She was he was the one that she said that to, that she did fabricate it and he didn't deserve it. Fuck.

SPEAKER_04: 40:48

You know how many, how many exact stories like this happened throughout a nation. We're just talking about the world. Humanity.

SPEAKER_00: 41:05

Oh yeah, there's been racism all over the world, but it's like it seems to keep repeating itself here. And we we gotta stop it.

SPEAKER_04: 41:13

Yeah, well, I mean we're fighting a war in World War II to abolish it. And then you come over here and it's still running rampant all the way up, you know, to the 70s, 80s, and even 90s here.

SPEAKER_00: 41:24

All the way we've just had some shit happen in the last 10 years.

SPEAKER_04: 41:27

All the way up, and it's still running in pockets. Why is it still running? How? How? Is it I mean, don't you realize? Kendra Johnson and Tamla Horseford was in the last decade. Yeah. You know? Don't you fucking realize that this shit is over with? I mean, get fucking over yourself already, butter. Move the fuck away. Get in your own time.

SPEAKER_00: 41:45

And I'm not gonna say because it's not out there that those were racially based, but there's some fishy shit in both of those situations.

SPEAKER_04: 41:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 41:54

With Kendrick Johnson and Tamil Horse for like really fishy. A lot of good old boy shit.

SPEAKER_04: 41:59

And that good old boy shit. Lots of cover-ups.

SPEAKER_00: 42:03

Well, Roy Bryant, he died in September of 1994 of cancer, and he had been convicted of food stamp fraud in the 80s. Wow. J.W. Millem also died of cancer in December of 1980, and Carolyn Bryant died of cancer in 2023. Now she got to live a long life. I don't appreciate that. I don't appreciate that.

SPEAKER_04: 42:30

But hopefully it was full of guilt. I'm not trying to put fucking shit on nobody. But there's some shit.

SPEAKER_00: 42:37

Somebody died because of you.

SPEAKER_04: 42:38

There's some shame back. Yeah. Hopefully it stays full of a brutal death. Can you uh yeah, yeah, there's there's just so many of these fucking stories, and it's a fucking pissed off about them. God.

SPEAKER_00: 42:50

Stay pissed off about it. So it does not because I I and I say history shouldn't repeat itself, but it has.

SPEAKER_02: 42:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 42:57

And we got to stop. We have to make it stop. Somehow, if we keep sharing these stories over and over and over again, don't stop talking about them. Don't let them go out of the limelight. Like I looked up other people that had covered this, and it's not a lot.

SPEAKER_04: 43:12

Right. Yeah, exactly. Education in itself and being able to share things like this. Share our podcast to some middle schoolers. Share this story. Well, I don't know about middle schoolers.

SPEAKER_00: 43:23

No, no, I think middle schoolers are 11, 12, and 13. Yeah, well.

SPEAKER_04: 43:26

Stop. Put it, put the seed in now.

SPEAKER_00: 43:28

Maybe not art. In a different way, you can do it in a different way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 43:32

13 version. Do it in a different way. Be like, hey, you know, this ain't cool. You know, everybody can be everybody. We're just humans and we're all equal, you know?

SPEAKER_00: 43:42

But I believe that the age that I was, I was 16. Was perfect. Was perfect.

SPEAKER_04: 43:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 43:47

Because it stuck with me. Yeah. Forever.

SPEAKER_04: 43:49

Yeah. I never forgot. You just, I mean, but you want to plant those seeds as raising children, period.

SPEAKER_00: 43:54

Just do it in a fashion that they can remember, and then you can get more graphic with. It the older they get. Like, you know.

SPEAKER_04: 44:02

I'm not going to let anybody around me try to feel like they can discriminate against anybody other than their character. You know? Listen, every single one of my boys. Who they are, what they are, how they are. You can only discriminate against character.

SPEAKER_00: 44:19

Right. Character.

SPEAKER_04: 44:21

Something you can change. You know, so if you're an asshole, then you're an asshole.

SPEAKER_00: 44:24

Character, work ethic, all of that.

SPEAKER_04: 44:26

All of that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 44:27

I I'm a big, I'm a big judge on that. Work ethic. If you ain't got a good work ethic, I don't want to fuck with you at all. Period.

SPEAKER_04: 44:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 44:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 44:41

That's all there is to it. Instill that to begin with. Exactly. It's over with. We're we're I feel like I'm I'm way be we're way beyond this shit, man. Should be for sure. The conversation, but needs to always come up. I mean, you need you need to teach them as they're growing. Yep. You know. So yeah. Don't let that bullshit happen. Lindsay.

SPEAKER_00: 45:00

But that concludes our coverage on Emmett Till. And there is a lot more to this. If you want to learn more about it, please listen to that audiobook or read it. And there's a few other books out there. I just felt like that was a good one to go towards. Um, it was one of the shorter ones that I could listen to. It was about seven hours long.

SPEAKER_02: 45:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 45:21

Um, and I've got it on Audible, The Blood of Emmett Till, by um, where did I say it was by Timothy Timothy, Timothy Tyson, Timothy B. Tyson.

SPEAKER_04: 45:31

And to anyone that has our same enthusiastic fucking views on being just equality.

SPEAKER_00: 45:37

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 45:37

I just want to give this to everyone that wants to share this to people for education. Yes. That's what I want to do. Listeners, you deserve that for being able to instill greatness on your ki on your children and throughout humanity. That's what we're here to do this month. And throughout all of our podcasting.

SPEAKER_00: 46:13

Yes. And um do one to do our plugs real quick, but I did I think I came up with a good little um quote or tagline or whatever you want to call it.

SPEAKER_04: 46:22

You got a jingle?

SPEAKER_00: 46:23

Not a jingle, but I think you should have a jingle. Come for the story, stay for the band. Because that is what we do here. I unload a true crime story on Jesse, and now my son, he's joined us on two now.

SPEAKER_04: 46:35

Hey guys. And um and we're gonna be able to do that. He's warmed up a little bit, but I think after after this one, I think he's gonna be wide open. He's gonna be leading the past.

SPEAKER_03: 46:42

Oh, it's just the story that got me like thinking right now, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 46:46

It's a really I knew that it was heavy on you guys because y'all were quiet.

SPEAKER_03: 46:49

Yeah, it's a really fucked up story, man. Like, it's a 14-year-old boy, dude. You can't justify anything. Nothing. Nothing. Even if he was flirting, fuck that, man. If you even if he was flirting with that kid.

SPEAKER_00: 46:59

You just nodded off and you go on about or you did or you can say, hey, that's inappropriate. Let's not do that again.

SPEAKER_03: 47:05

Literally, it's a 14-year-old boy just started life, really. 14 year old.

SPEAKER_00: 47:09

I've had to put kids in their place. I ain't gonna go tell my husband to go fucking fuck him up.

SPEAKER_03: 47:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 47:15

Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_03: 47:16

You're grown, you should know that you have higher authority than a little kid, so just tell him not to do what he's doing. If he did it, even if he didn't do it, he's gonna tell you he didn't do it.

SPEAKER_04: 47:27

Well, everybody has things they have to learn, you know. I mean, you have to be respectful, and so should should should she. She should be respectfully, so no.

SPEAKER_00: 47:35

And then I'm not I was gonna say the judge, but it was actually the prosecution said this boy should have just got a whooping and sent on about his wife.

SPEAKER_04: 47:43

Right. Period. If it if it was that or a strong talking to get married to that. It was just like, no, that's not cool. And then that was it.

SPEAKER_00: 47:50

You know, well, she basically said she fabricated her story. Exactly. And the one female, other female um witness said that the only thing that she's seen that he did wrong was put the money directly in her hand instead of putting it on the card. The whole whole towns. But we're gonna um we want to mention all of our plugs really quick. So this will be episode 66. And pick up sticks. But we have a lot of recaps. Um, we've talked about um some trips that we went on, but we have 66 proper episodes. Um our plugs are drinkaboutsomething.site, drinkabout something on Instagram, drinkaboutsomething pod at gmail.com, and drinkabout something pod underscore lindsey on TikTok where we do live recaps. And then uh Gen Z, type that in on YouTube.

SPEAKER_04: 48:46

You will find us, yes.

SPEAKER_00: 48:47

Check it out, check it out, share us. And uh Jesse's about to grace us with a palette cleanser today.

SPEAKER_04: 48:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 48:55

So this is the band portion.

SPEAKER_04: 48:58

I'm going to LA, Lindsay.

SPEAKER_00: 49:00

I'm going to LA again, LA.

SPEAKER_04: 49:02

And you know, I don't I don't plan what bands we play, so I just go down the list. And we got some amazing ass bands, dude. Last weekend was amazing.

SPEAKER_00: 49:13

We listened to their whole vlog yesterday.

SPEAKER_04: 49:14

We rode that wave like the whole week. I think you're gonna ride this one too, girl. I think you're gonna ride it, Lance. Okay. You're gonna love it.

SPEAKER_00: 49:21

I'm excited.

SPEAKER_04: 49:22

Yeah, Alexandria. This song is called Crisis, and holy fuck. I'm ready.

SPEAKER_00: 52:30

That was so awesome.

SPEAKER_03: 52:32

Wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00: 52:33

So awesome. What do you think, Lynn?

SPEAKER_03: 52:36

Oh. It was amazing. Yes, so cool. Yes, so cool. Definitely enjoyed that one.

SPEAKER_00: 52:43

So I have followed her now on Spotify and Instagram. And hold on, let me pull up her Instagram again because it was like it's Alexandra underscore music on Instagram.

SPEAKER_03: 53:00

That that band sounds like a mixture of like corn, lamb of god, and then um in this moment.

SPEAKER_00: 53:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 53:09

It's like all three. But no, it's so flavorful. Yeah, it really fit everything. It was really amazing. I loved it. Thank you so much for making that music. Yes, I like the name of the song. It's good. Good jams, good jams. Good jams. Check it out, check out all the stuff, share all the stuff. We were seeing it.

SPEAKER_00: 53:26

Share us, share the band.

SPEAKER_04: 53:27

We got so much more to do today. Oh man. I think it's gonna be my turn soon.

SPEAKER_00: 53:32

It is stage. Present a story for us.

SPEAKER_04: 53:40

Stories. Storytime with Jessie.

SPEAKER_00: 53:42

Storytime with Jesse.

SPEAKER_04: 53:44

I'm excited.

SPEAKER_00: 53:45

You should be. Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 53:47

Thank you, Leslie, for your story. Thank you guys for being part of this. And we will see you guys next time. We love you so much.

SPEAKER_03: 53:55

Yes, bye.