American Experience; The Murder of Emmett Till; Interview with Magnolia Cooksey, classmate

fb oh yes i went to school with him and when i was twelve thirteen years of a moment for thirteen to say so you had yesterday i didn't know you can say yes i did you got to say i do until the bigger the questions that would be there as the actor

describe sandy i mean you know yes sooner to handle the material with the premise could involve the years of nineteen nineteen fifties who went out of round school greats grew together we played together it fun again that these fallen kavanagh can't travel together and we just all that france a whole woodland buried at that time and im it was off on them and just like neil young teenager you would say so therefore arms and win this the question you have to those great again you're telling stories and i think that's great we just just so did you did you see him in the summer of fifty five yesterday i saw him in in fact the summer of nineteen sixty five and those eyes and sensitive fifty five the sergeant

of bahrain says so oh so you do see him until summer of fierce that i saw him until the summer of nineteen fifty five in fact he was in preparation for gore won for his vacation in mississippi because he sat on the front porch of my mother's home and was that now which partying and he was letting us know that he was going to mississippi to states and tamp down on his grandparents' home and drove us aid have finally left and went on about just entered the plane so you know that was always say a lot about where he was when it's like just hasn't been on the front porch of my mother's house oh thank you and you know we haven't talked to a lot of people knew in the two of those people were in the trial you know people like that but the people who knew him like you do you know you as his age his contemporary know wasn't alive to me the two issues like a

teenage boy allam we play baseball in a farm when he called the great the great school where we went to go play baseball at school we were going through the neighborhoods weekly ball in the street we were taught we were five languages just everything gets a teenager would do at that time keeping the man who are twelve thirty year old children and this was something that the children were doing at that time and for so long basically like gas at below us know that he was gone on vacation lodges and i could rise in half out you know there was it do you remember you know we're kind of kid you know emmett till was he was on it was a fun person you know a lady and you would play ball aren't in basically just to ease our own you can there was a what a teenager would do he was not mentioned was genius like you to murder trial or anything active that were a couple but the question of a

game it was a little immature was that can opt teenage boy we go out with the other boys playing ball we would run in the playground here friday which is he was just a teenager to me that thirteen twelve year in grade school in wheaton oh we were working at that time so let's play ball in and visit around the world why does the levee he lived about four blocks north of may maybe two blocks west of me yes he did so he was it was not too far from mosul was walking distance and at that time you walk to school together and there was a debate about two blasphemy but he was out of sixty eight teams like sixty four of so give or take it was not too far from was so it was easy for you to come and at that time was like fairy teenagers and he has a lot is play league of that far from you know

he needs them into his mother without seeing nervous too westcott will lead in the early fifties it was it was great it was on it was just fine you wake up see my son to shining blue and down we can hardly wait to get out because a lot of the young people out of indicate that can solve the voice had paper routes and week as the go to our girlfriends because of second breakfast for them but back in the fifties and those were some good memorable years for those that came along with that decade you know but it was i was signed young lady i guess we were when he did leave we were in high school when he did call vacation without a great school like this it would work from rhetoric about plus grands go together

but in the fifties it is a little different now it was which was chicago safe you know actually you get an idea of what chicago was like back then and he gets a chicago was chicago usa plays well with chicago led the chicago ind in the fifties it was a safe place to play how all times of the night everyone knew each one's children look out for one another ah we were less like one world they can't be friendly you just challenges to play and have fun and neighbors reappearance as well as your free as resources and brothers nyse before he was like a very dear friend to all of our cities unnamed we could walk for a box and never turn off a danger with certain areas we couldn't go into we knew this but that was really too far west even think about going to the neighborhood at the time dr floyd just i thought

it was just a name for years it was a thing that is in chicago that would pare pay you open for a pair of emmett till for mississippi no no it was not because if that was the case he might've mentioned the fact that he would hit a victim a man best time we've made to have to go down south to visit my grandmother because you know down that instant the south at me feel that you can't go and if not do we have to go in a bag was a sad to work he never let that on and we don't have that type of car iraq either we never knew that we could get on the elephant that tally at the l train supposed to do but that he never let on that there was that type of fear or what we heard when we heard that he had been tom it would have occurred in mississippi who are very devastated by that

do you remember telling the story of where you know where you heard what went well form from back that time to get back to us through word of mouth through one other teenagers perhaps in the neighborhood and we were very very shocked because the toll how what happened when he went to visit his grandmother after visiting her and what had happened to his body and and we just all shocked because we are doing it but if we are to the funeral but another layer to that but what occurred to him with any opposed to you know maybe you don't remember when you first heard how you heard the way i was i felt we also actually crab no fear because of the way it occurred

will vary say that because i i don't know the particular person who told me that word of mouth got to us it was just a game of us that sit around talk and you hear that in that we had been killed while visiting his grandmother in the way he had to you know so we all became very very i sit behind that very upset do you remember if you know you went to the fuel your added value of the above the difference in that this unrest and yes it has the discretion if you all right it was about and that was about five or six of my girlfriends and myself we went to the us to the funeral to the church and the line was very long and we stood in line people with little children but it was all of us stand in and i

was like well it was very solemn there was no argument on on it one was just anticipating what you're going to see when they get in the church because it was a second because he had heard that when it happened and we just threw out the things that he had maggie and crying tears ain't her and i think we just wanted to see for ourselves and once we did get inside it was very very shocking to see something that could've happened because of it was our free and you leave us levees in what i have a summer vacation and you come back oh mommy and then it was very it was very devastating you know to all of us and we all ethnicities person came out crying

is causing obesity in the state without it do you tell use of communication was okay the funeral on it was on a sunday afternoon on one thing it was a sunday afternoon and immediately we came down on video about five or six friends of my my girlfriends myself and we got to the church we realize the low abundance of people that was standing in line for older people to young children just to see what had happened to our this young man and also we were just we we stood in a line and i mean it was like four and twenty inches deep people just standing there but it

was a common is there was no power there were crying and they have not seen in that but we just waited in line for good maybe one or two hours also to stand and wait to see what happened to our freedom to have when on a triple that in joplin and say a c when i get back hopefully go to school only been that and down the list that we know that this is the way we would see him return as people left the church they were crying a as well as we all were cry not know that our good friend return on this week that the city is why he thinks so many people you have been everywhere i've seen pictures of both of the alliances that we everybody didn't know until you know my surrogate service a curiosity is curiosity because of them if it had been presented i imagined truth the cd that this type of thing had

happened to him the way that he worked was murdered so i think it was just that they want to see people will come from afar to see something and this was this was out of the ordinary and that's what i want to see i mean you must think a lot of people offer mississippi may want to see me do what had happened in their home this is where i grew up and down and be an inquisitive but to bring it didn't show and they just wanted to see how and why this occurred is just a show of him in us from photos this corner and see that yes great scene where you saw you away you ate alive and some of

it really suck upcoming story of years you wait long has lived for a long time pretty hat we get to that to the end to the church all that well in the words that it was a surprise and it was also a calm around the church again and that was it church was very calm the line was very orderly and as we went into the church my girlfriend and myself we walked up to the casket and it was covered with a delay as in to me as i say before we all look down and that feature because in its face was wrapped in he was our power complex genome and interior looking at someone that is white than from like being and as it is that being in the war for so long we were looking at us a lot of money into the us and this was our friend lame little like the

monster in a casket and calm sure we all cried because you only knew had just left out to train it here you are laying a mummified person in a casket and as we wept when we left the church we left with kurt and we were very angry thomason same we didn't have to do this but that's the way we felt it had steel there was no one coming out cars and fasten it was a calm it was not hot it was very comfortable so maybe that had something to do with the stamina and no one was loud boisterous or anything of that nature you calm yesterday vitali that basket after you you know and you really get angry at some white folks just interacting you can't tell you know what what would add because i think that that is it so perfect for you know you know how people must have felt was what that does that well allegra friends and myself we left and we get

that to go to the l and as we were standing on the l platform back those days they still may have certain ailes went to surge stations the stops that yielded be and it was a it was a comfortable evening and the windows were somewhat up but yeah i'm on one train ahead to go buy cigarettes top of that the people get off at this particular spot well we eat we it was like we discuss is this what we're going to do it was a reaction they regret it or why it's that we saw because he wanted to try to beat them up not to murder and we just wanted to beat them up because you had just learned how different and we did we did that we'd get jump a few people not we didn't put him in an asteroid they've always felt like if we put him a little bit too long they called sin i admit now they were very frightened because you have five people and the other females be you it's comfortable a sea of may and being beat the five young

ladies and i mean literally beat you know but then we get back home i do remember that i told my mother what had happened to him and she was quite surprised as well so there was i think a really important about this about the horn until case was that was on tv it was on the first times they knew this stuff was on it we don't receive any of the trial yes i have a television with my family one of the fortunate ones we hear our first name rubio a television and yes i do remember seeing the trial and again showing him pulling him out of the river and we also the rubber france's i hit the tv in the area we would sit sit down on the floor and watched this again and dark is just it

was just so hard to believe and no idea it was summertime so great school but one of the schoolteachers lived in the neighborhood that taught at a preschool that we all attended together and i were talking with her about it and sometimes it was same mate you know this time maybe the teasing went too far and we just sat around a disgusted because assessing before he was a fat gentle boy while he was joe young may have an idea who all twelve thirteen years all and plan at that time and that is that you know you're describing to me and saying like the levees jerusalem advantage when we missed all of the bells so the media world showbiz beat it and he was he was a farm we left the lab and in the fifties we left we hit on this clip clean fine

in what would walk over to our walk cause i think there was a family that at large family so we would play on my neighborhood knew that in it was fine and we were all oreos were fine we would let them teasing joke one another again with the joking a young man and cheese about well i'm one down to mississippi on his vacation in and which is fine totally fine you know and to the neighborhood and that the time and you know we were like one big world family and flee into college essays on a vacation was not that so this isn't strange to see see this the story on on this new thing that that that that set new tv fb fb