Cousin shares story, impact of murder of Emmett Till
Wheeler Parker Jr. remembers his 14-yearold cousin with affection and awe.
“He was a prankster. This guy never had a dull day in his life,” Parker said Monday before addressing a full house at Oklahoma Christian University.
That life was tragically cut short more than 60 years ago in a lynching that helped spark the civil rights movement.
The last living eyewitness to the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till was the guest for the fifth annual History Speaks event at OC.
“Because he died, it brought about a lot of changes,” Parker said. “Ms. (Rosa) Parks said she thought about Emmett and said ‘I ain’t giving up my seat.’
“It helped a lot of people. It did a lot of good, but, my, what a price.”
Born in Mississippi in 1939, Parker moved with his family to Chicago when he was 8. At 16, he returned with his grandfather and 14-year-old cousin to visit relatives.
“Emmett shouldn’t have been there,” Parker said. “He had no idea about the South. They prepare you to stay alive if you go to Mississippi.”
On Aug. 24, 1955, the two teenagers and a third cousin went into a store in Money, Mississippi. After they left, Carolyn Bryant, a 21-year-old white woman, emerged from the store and Till wolfwhistled at her, Parker said.
Not only was that unacceptable in 1955 Mississippi, it was downright dangerous. The cousins ran, pursued by a car, and escaped by cutting through a cotton field, Parker said. They soon forgot the incident.
On Aug. 28, the family was awakened about 2 a.m. by men accusing Till of assaulting the woman. Parker was praying when the armed men approached him.
“These people come to get us. I’m getting ready to die,” he said. “They had killed a lot of people.”
The men left everyone else, but drug Emmett from the house. His body was found in the Tallahatchie River, beaten beyond recognition and shot in the head.
It reminded Parker of Jesus on the cross, one man killed for the sake of others.
The body was shipped back to Chicago with warnings not to open the casket, but Emmett’s mother insisted on an open-casket funeral, Parker said. She wanted the world to see what they did to her child.
“The big thing about it was they had a trial,” Parker said, noting lynchings rarely were prosecuted.
The woman from the store said Emmett grabbed her around the waist and made an indecent proposition, Parker said. He was there in the store and knew it wasn’t so, but no one interviewed him for 30 years.
The woman’s husband, Roy Bryant, and brotherin-law were arrested and charged with murder, but were acquitted.
“(Emmett’s) mother was pleased just to get in and out of court every day alive,” Parker said.
The events of that trip to Mississippi forever changed Parker, who sometimes had trouble believing the nightmare ever happened. Prayer seemed to be the only answer.
“Being from a religious background, you never can hate,” he said. “Hate destroys the hater.”
Today, Parker is a preacher, peace activist and civil rights activist. He has made it his mission to educate others on his cousin’s tragic death and to call for peace and racial reconciliation.