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[0:03] Donnie Betts: This interview with Deborah Watts was conducted in July of 2020.

[0:08] Donnie Betts: This is an Encore presentation.

[0:10] Donnie Betts: We hope you had a chance to listen to A Letter from Heaven to America from Emmett Till, which is episode 15 of Destination Freedom.

[0:18] Donnie Betts: Next up on The Eclectic, produced and hosted by Donnie Betts of No Credits Productions LLC.

[0:26] Donnie Betts: Fresh for your ears, tell everybody.

[0:28] Donnie Betts: The new podcast from the producers of Destination Freedom Black Radio Days comes The Eclectic.

[0:34] Donnie Betts: Interviews with difference makers, artists, authors, bold thinkers, people we love who get stuff done.

[0:40] Donnie Betts: We hope you enjoyed this special interview with the co-founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, his cousin, Deborah Watts.

[1:00] Donnie Betts: Till's body had been dumped there by two men who later confessed to his killing. He had been beaten to death savagely for many hours. Now Emmett's murder was just one of 4,000 lynches that stained the soul of America from 1870 until 1950. What made this different was the insistence of his mother, that brave soul Mamie Till, that said his body must be brought back from Mississippi to Chicago, where it was displayed in an open casket for all the world to see what these men had done to her son. That image would help spark the Southern Freedom Movement, also known as the Civil Rights Movement. Till would have turned 79 on July 25th, 2020, and August 28, 2020, it would be 65 years since that murder. Joining me today to speak about the ongoing push for justice for Emmett Till is his cousin, Deborah Watts, co-founder and executive director of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation out of Stone Mountain, Georgia. Welcome.

[1:55] Deborah Watts: Thank you for having me.

[1:56] Donnie Betts: Absolutely. So let's first start with this, as I described earlier, a little push for justice for Emmett Till. What are you and the foundation doing to make this happen?

[2:07] Deborah Watts: Well, we are, I would say, pounding on the drums right now and asking the public, Congress, and others to join us in this push for justice. It's a 65-year-old murder case that, as you mentioned, the perpetrators or the murderers were found not guilty. And we know that that was a total miscarriage of justice. And so we're asking the public to join us in making sure that at least the known accomplice that is still alive is brought to justice. And that's Carolyn Bryant Donham. She is in her 80s and has never really answered to any questions, particularly from the public or reporters or others, but she told her story to her husband, and she told her story to a jury, and that is what began the wheels turning and led to Emmett Till's death.

And so her recollection, her story, her lie, if you will, is why she needs to be held accountable for Emmett's murder. She was a central part of his demise and represented such a time back in the 1950s, which, you know, of course, we're seeing something similar happening today. So that model is being repeated and we need it stopped. So we are at this point asking the public to join us in a petition. We have a petition campaign that is being launched, and it is asking for the murder charges to be filed against Carolyn Bryant Donham. We know that the responsibility and the powers that be are held in the hands of the local authorities and those that have jurisdictional authority in Mississippi, and that would be the attorney general Lynn Fitch, along with the district attorney in the area that's holding the case as we finally know, and that is Dwayne Richardson, the district attorney in that area.

The case is a reactivated open murder case that is still on the list of cold cases, unsolved cases, that the Department of Justice has a report that they issue every year, and it's still showing as an open murder case. So we know that the FBI has been involved. We know that they have done an investigation, or at least they have indicated they've done an investigation or are still doing an investigation. We're not sure why it's taken this long. So we are urging the public to help us to help them bring this to closure. Bring the case to closure, file charges, have an indictment against Carolyn Bryant Donham, and finally have some form and sense of justice that I believe is owed to our family. It's owed also to the public and actually the world.

We have received calls from people in Europe and other places that are counting on us doing our part. And so this time it's our family that is and the foundation is leading the effort. And I must say, Mr. Betts, that I'm a cousin of them. Our great grandfathers were brothers. And so this effort, wearing two hats, you know, one of which with the foundation, the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, and you know, that was as a promise to Emmett's mother that we would keep fighting for justice, we would make sure that his death is not in vain, and that people would remember him and they would also understand what the legacy is about. And so we're trying to make sure that that's all intact as well. So this is wrapped up with family, with our foundation leading the effort, and with activists, supporters, and others that are counting on the Department of Justice along with the local jurisdictional authorities to right the wrongs, to do their part, and to bring those that are known accomplices, and the one that we know is Carolyn Bryant Donham, but bring that person to justice.

[7:04] Donnie Betts: Reopened in 2010 and then reopened again recently in 2017 by the FBI. Are these all three separate investigations or are they all collaborating with each other?

[7:23] Deborah Watts: What happened, you know, in 2007, I believe, there were activists, Alvin Sykes, along with a filmmaker, Keith Beauchamp, who petitioned along with cousin Simeon Wright, who actually was a witness to Emmett's kidnapping. Yes, he was. They were able to get the Department of Justice, along with Congress's support, John Lewis and others, to support an act called the Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act, and that called for cold cases to be investigated of a full accounting brought to families, the truth and justice for those perpetrators that were still alive. Now many of those cases were from the civil rights era, and unfortunately, many of the perpetrators are no longer with us. And so, but it did give some semblance of truth and some semblance of justice to some families.

Emmett's case though was actually reopened and reinvestigated with his body being exhumed in 2005, and that was subsequently, I don't want to say closed because murder cases, you know, until they're solved aren't closed, but they decided there was no true bill. That was in 2007 and with new investigations and actually with the revelation that Carolyn Bryant indicated, and I know people are saying she recanted her story, and this was based on a book that was written by Timothy Tyson, that's what started this firestorm, if you will, in 2017 when he revealed that he had spoken to her, and I believe it was around 2008 or 2009 that he had spoken to her about the case and she indicated at that time to him supposedly that the things that she said that he did, he didn't do.

So that piqued the interest of the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the case was revisited, if you will, and at the same time we were getting the reauthorization of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act because it was due to sunset in 2017. So in 2016, President Obama was able to sign that act and it's reactivated, it's back in place, and it is to look at unsolved cold cases now through 2000 or excuse me, from the 40s through, I believe it's 1979. The first act, which I would call the Till Bill, was to investigate cases through 1969, and with the reauthorization, they extended it another 10 years. So now cases that, and we have some that we were aware of that needed to have attention, like the Atlanta Five, who actually, there are five men that went fishing from Atlanta to Pensacola and they came back, or they didn't come back alive, if you will.

So that case happened, I believe, in 1976. With the reauthorization of the Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act, there is a report that has to be issued each year based on what the findings are from the Department of Justice with their investigation. What happens with that, Donnie, is that when the cases are investigated, they turn it over to the local authorities. So the Department of Justice at the highest level, you know, the United States law enforcement there, they provide some assistance. But where the jurisdictions are, you know, where local authorities, whether it's in the state, the county, or in a particular city, they, you know, because most of the statute of limitations for some of these cases don't have federal jurisdiction, but they agree to help with the investigation.

That's the same thing here in Emmett Till's case. So they would, under normal circumstances, turn their investigation over to the local authorities, and that's where we sit today. We don't know what was a part of their investigation. We assume that it has to be their findings with Timothy Tyson's book, what he wrote, what Carolyn Bryant admitted to or didn't admit to. And then also, she indicated or he indicated that there were memoirs that she was actually writing, and he agreed to have those held until 2036. So of course, you know, with everyone hearing that, we're wondering, okay, what's inside of those memoirs?

[12:54] Deborah Watts: You know, what information is there that we need to know? So I'm hoping that with the reinvestigation or the revisiting of the case that they were able to acquire that information. They were able to talk to Timothy Tyson, and I'm hoping they were able to talk to Carolyn Bryant. But with investigations like this, we never really know the truth or we don't know the process because it's an open investigation. So we're hoping that, um, that with our push that, um, you know, we're of course we're making some assumptions, and we do know that some of our family members have been given some updates, but they have not been given any updates since I believe like 2018. So it's time, you know, it's time and so we're just asking for the update.

We don't know what it entails, but we really want the help of the public to help us push for that kind of closure. And we're hoping too that with the information that they have that they will, um, find and that they're finding, um, the association of Carolyn Bryant being an accomplice in the murder of Emmett Till. Well, she would be complicit because her actions and her words led to all the actions of her husband and also of his, uh, was it his cousin? So J.W. Millam and uh, Roy Bryant were the two perpetrators of this murder. There may have been other people involved against their will. I had a conversation with the mayor of Glendora, Mississippi, who has always said that he thought he felt his father may be involved against his will because he worked for the Bryants.

So that yes, that may or may not be true, but we do know for sure, because they confessed, and after a sixty-seven-minute trial, they were found not guilty. And then they were able to benefit by an article that they wrote for and paid three thousand dollars for that. Whereas the family of Emmett Till, yourself included, uh, has not gotten justice nor received one cent of any kind of compensation for this murder or anything like that. So I just wanted the public to be aware of that.

[14:58] Deborah Watts: You brought up this amazing woman at the beginning of the conversation, that's Mamie Till Mobley. And that I want you to be able to really tell people about her as much as you can remember. It's always, um, interesting to me when we talk about Emmett Till because our mother's name was Mamie as well. So it's like, uh, something in my heart that always tells me that I need to keep talking about this case in particular here in Colorado, where you're speaking to me from, of course, right now we are, uh, hashtag justice for Elijah McLean. So these, as you said, men, women, and children are still being murdered. Murdered here in America, we're not any kind of justice for the families in particular as we go to this trauma of trying to get justice for these individuals. But please speak to us about Mamie.

[15:51] Deborah Watts: Yes, I I'm delighted to do that. She is my shero. You know, um, my great-grandfather and Emmett's great-grandfather were brothers. Joe Smith was my great-grandfather and Emmett's was, uh, George Smith. And my great-grandfather lived to be about 97, and so he was one of the oldest favorite uncles that was still alive. And he had so much, there was so much respect for him with other family members that they would visit often. And that would include Emmett's grandmother, Alma Spearman, and his mother. And so I had the fortunate opportunity of being in an extended family, living with my great-grandfather at the time when he migrated from, um, from Mississippi to, uh, Omaha, Nebraska. And so with that, I, you know, I had a chance to just hear them how they loved up on him, and then how they were about their business of, uh, their faith with the Church of God in Christ.

You know, many times they were there, uh, helping to spread the word, to, you know, encourage other, um, uh, units growing, you know, um, in their faith and then starting, you know, churches as well. So, um, that was always, you know, a visit to my great-grandfather, and then they were about their business, you know, moving forward. But at reunions, I oftentimes spent time talking to Mamie. And you know, she, when I think about her, you know, she started this, if you will, this public, um, outcry. Um, but again, when you think in 1955, uh, such a brave soul, courageous, and starting this unwelcome, unwanted club, if you will, of mothers who had to, um, find the kind of courage, their voice, their faith.

They used everything that they had to try to get, um, some support for and justice for the loss of their sons and daughters' stolen lives. So Mamie provides that, I think, that model of grace and dignity and class, uh, through her grief. And so I think me, along with so many others, we just respect her for that. We, uh, probably would not handle, uh, a similar situation, uh, the way that she handled it, but she provided that kind of a model.

[18:26] Deborah Watts: But this was a, uh, very intelligent woman, very, um, I think determined, uh, just in her even in her early years, you know, to get her education, but also to be obedient to her mother. Her mother had a pretty strong, um, I'd say she had pretty strong influence over her. So everything had to be approved by, by Mama Spearman. And, uh, Mamie was very obedient to that. And that happened before Emmett was born and even after Emmett was born. I read for Sardina Redwell, she didn't want her to get married to Emmett's father. Yeah, she, you know, but of course, you know, think in 19, you know, in those early, uh, 40s, um, and you know, she had, you know, dreams and hopes for her as well. Yes. But there was a lot, I mean, it would take, you know, I'm, I should write a book.

I'm, I am the author of a book called 101 Ways to Know You're Black in Corporate America, of which I should say Mamie wrote the foreword of my book. Okay. And so as we move forward with our relationship, you know, she, um, of course respected my work and, and you know, my, I guess matriculation through corporate America. But we found ourselves connected in a way because as the dreams and hopes were, um, I'd say destroyed, uh, with racism by many of those that were smart and brilliant individuals, willing to play the game, willing to make sure that they did all the right things in corporate, um, you know, their 250% still wasn't enough. You know, giving 250%. So she compared that with Emmett, you know, not having an opportunity to have his hopes and dreams, uh, realized, you know, at age 14.

So, but a very determined woman, very, um, I would say, you know, she, she battled this. Um, I, I don't want to say alone, but we were pretty much like spectators watching her, watching her interview, uh, her interview with Jet magazine and with other publications, with speaking, uh, at podiums, you know, NAACP and other places across the country and churches and, and just trying to share Emmett's story, but then also, you know, connecting with some of the issues that African Americans were facing with unemployment, with, uh, violence and racism and other things. So she was, she's a model, uh, role model, definitely a role model for me, and I think for a lot of women. And she was just determined, though, that we would remember Emmett. And I, I tell you, I had to promise that I would do whatever I could after I left corporate America that I would do everything that I could to try to make sure that people would not forget Emmett.

[21:25] Donnie Betts: Well I know that she's looking down on you and smiling and just keeping a part in the work that you are doing, your legacy and the rest of the family to do that. Let's talk about some of the events that you have planned for not only for Emmett's birthday for, um, July 25th he would have been 79 years old and also August 28th was his 65th anniversary of his murder. Can you share with the public, uh, just a little bit what some of the things you're doing?

[21:55] Deborah Watts: Yes, on July 25th we start with a global notice, um, it's a time for unity in black and white and we started this several years ago where we're asking the public to join us in a silent yet powerful protest against racism, hate, violence and now we've added police brutality. And what we've asked the public to do is wear black and white all day that day, um, take a photo of themselves, post it on social media, send it to us as well, and it's a statement, you know, that just says, you know, enough is enough, you know, we need to say the names of all of those that who had their lives stolen and then we also need to pause for just a moment of silence just to give them that kind of respect and we ask people to do that at 12 noon wherever they are in the world.

You know, I think people would be surprised that in Minnesota there are something, there's like four hundred or so, uh, cases and names and people that have lost their lives to, uh, police or have been victims of police brutality in Minnesota starting I believe they started recording, uh, those names in nineteen eighty-four and they ended it with, um, with the names like George Floyd in 2020, uh, Joshua um Ostwiski, uh, Ron Davis in 2019, Brian Queen Kinnones, um, and then others, uh, that, um, just, I mean there's four hundred, I'm just looking at a poster with four columns, really small font size and print, um, and it's filled with the names.

[22:49] Deborah Watts: We are on Facebook at Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, we're on Twitter, and with the support of some of our celebrities, we have grown from like three thousand to maybe thirty-six, thirty-seven thousand. Thanks to Tay Diggs, who sort of adopted us, actors, beautiful. And that's at Emmett Till, it's real simple, E M M E T T T I L L. And then we have Instagram at Emmett Till Legacy Foundation along with our website, it's Emmett Till Legacy Foundation dot com.

[24:28] Donnie Betts: Well, Deborah Watts, I can't thank you enough for being with us to tell us more about the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, to share your, uh, your personal recollection of Mamie Till, which I say is one of my heroes as well, sharing that mutual name of mothers, and also the fact that Emmett was calling for her as he was being beaten, as so many, uh, recorded today. There wasn't a camera available at that time. But so many have been recorded today, trying to call for their mother as a way to escape the brutality that's being inflicted upon them. So thank you again. The best of luck to you. Uh, we'll do our part and, uh, we'll spread the word for you here in our region. Thank you again.

[25:10] Deborah Watts: Thank you so much.

[25:12] Donnie Betts: The Eclectic is produced by Donnie L. Betts and No Credits Productions LLC. The series is remixed by Maurice Smith. Reading subscribe to our podcast at Broadway Podcast Network, Spotify, Radio Public, iTunes, Stitcher, wherever you get your podcast. Follow us on Facebook at No Credits Productions LLC, Instagram, Twitter, at Donnie Betts, or The Eclectic, the Podcast. I'm Donnie L. Betts. And special thanks to all our great, great supporters out there.