Cousin saw Emmett Till being kidnapped in 1955 before teen was killed

CHICAGO — Simeon Wright, who was with his cousin Emmett Till when the Chicago boy was kidnapped in 1955 after whistling at a white woman in Mississippi, has died. He was 74.

Till, who was 14, spent the summer of 1955 visiting relatives in Mississippi and was kidnapped, tortured and killed after whistling at a white woman working at a store. Till’s death galvanized the civil rights movement when his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, insisted on an open-casket funeral in Chicago to show the world her son’s mutilated body.

Wright’s cousin, Airickca Gordon-Taylor, said Wright died of cancer Monday. Wright described Till as a “fun-loving guy,” and said he witnessed his cousin whistle at Carolyn Bryant as a group of boys left Bryant’s Market on Aug. 24, 1955.

“It scared us half to death,” Wright recalled in October 2010. “Some said, ‘Why’d he do it?’ I said, I think he just wanted us to laugh. He wasn’t trying to be fresh. He just wanted to let the boys in Mississippi know, ‘Hey, I’m from Chicago. I can do this. I’m not afraid.’ He had no idea what was going to happen.”

Wright, who was 12, was sharing a bed with Till on Aug. 28, 1955, when he saw J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant come into his family’s home with pistols and kidnap Till. Roy Bryant was married to Carolyn Bryant, and Milam was his half-brother. An allwhite jury acquitted the two men, but they later confessed in a magazine interview.

Wright said the verdict was unjust. “So if you ever get on a jury ... do the right thing,” Wright said in 2010. “If they had done the right thing back in 1955, we would’ve forgotten about Emmett right now. But the verdict enraged everybody.”