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FBI releases Emmett Till autopsy, family members hear evidence
CHICAGO — A month after a grand jury in Mississippi essentially closed the books on the 1955 killing of Emmett Till, family members met with the FBI to see a report with grisly details of the 14-year-old black boy’s autopsy and death investigation.
Among the findings released last Thursday were that Till died of a gunshot wound to the head, had broken wrist bones, and skull and femur fractures. According to the report, when the body was found, “the crown of his head was just crushed out ... and a piece of his skull just fell out.”
Till was brutally killed in Money, Miss., after reportedly whistling at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant.
Nearly 100,000 people visited his open casket during a four-day public viewing in Chicago. A graphic photo of his face in Jet magazine fueled national outrage and helped spark the civil rights movement.
Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were charged but acquitted by an all-white jury. The men, now deceased, later confessed to the killing in a 1956 interview with Look magazine.
In 2004, the FBI reopened the case and Till’s body was exhumed in 2005. The FBI decided last year not to press charges. The case was turned over to local prosecutors, with the FBI suggesting a closer look be taken at Carolyn Bryant, who was suspected of pointing out Till to her husband to punish the boy.
But the Mississippi grand jury ruled late last month that it found insufficient evidence to indict the now 73-year-old woman.
“We felt that since the investigation took so long and the results as they were, we would sit face-to-face with the family to answer any questions,” said Joyce Chiles, the chief prosecutor on the case.
According to the report, a third man, Leslie Milam, a relative of the two men who confessed, gave a deathbed confession.
“We just wanted the truth,” said Ollie Gordon, Till’s cousin. “Just knowing the truth has been comforting to the family.”
$1.75M scholarship fund aims to bring more black students to UCLA
LOS ANGELES — A private group led by several prominent UCLA alumni has raised $1.75 million to bankroll scholarships for black freshmen, hoping the additional financial aid will help increase African American enrollment at the campus.
“We want to take finances out of the question for these students, to the extent we can,” said Los Angeles businessman Peter J. Taylor, who heads the fundraising group, along with leaders of UCLA’s Black Alumni Association.
The number of black students at UCLA has been dropping for years. Last summer, only about 100 black students said they planned to enroll in the current freshman class of about 4,800 — the lowest figure in more than three decades.
The university implemented a new “holistic” approach to admissions last fall aimed at boosting minority enrollment.
“This was done to increase the numbers of African American students,” Abrams said. “But I hope it may provide a model to every community to set up private scholarships that target students in their community, if they are so minded.”
Taylor and others said the scholarships were needed to help UCLA compete for top black students who might otherwise accept offers of admission — and financial aid — from private universities and out-of-state public schools that are not bound by California’s Proposition 209, which bars the state’s public institutions from considering race in admissions or hiring.
The group will give at least $1,000 to each admitted black freshman who enrolls. Additional awards will be based on financial need and academic merit.
Cherokees’ vote to remove freedmen not yet approved
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — A vote by the Cherokee Nation to revoke the membership of descendants of freed slaves has not received approval from the federal government, according to a letter received by the tribe last week.
Cherokee Principal Chief Chad Smith was informed of the decision in a letter from Carl J. Artman, the new assistant secretary of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, dated March 28.
“Due to ongoing concerns about the rights of the Freedmen, the Department of the Interior is still studying the issues in this evolving matter,” Artman wrote in the letter, which was given to tribal councilors in a meeting last Friday.
More than 7,000 Cherokee voters approved a constitutional amendment March 3 that would remove about 2,700 freedmen descendants from the tribe’s rolls — and therefore eliminate their eligibility for medical and other services provided by the tribe.
“We appreciate notification from the BIA, but it’s been four years since they offered to give their opinion on our 2003 constitution and it may be four more before they do,” Smith said in a statement.
“Regardless of what advice they may eventually give in the future regarding the constitution, the Cherokee courts and the Cherokee people have spoken, and the 2003 constitution is in place,” Smith said.
The freedmen vote has been challenged by more than two-dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus and by the National Congress of Black Women. BIA spokeswoman Nedra Darling said a response to the lawmakers remains in draft form.
Should the Cherokees lose a federal court battle regarding the vote, the tribe could lose federal funding. The Cherokee Nation operates on an annual budget of approximately $300 million, about 80 percent of which comes from federal funding.
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