This is just a reflection on the (in)famous incident that occurred so long ago in Money, Mississippi
I grew up in New Orleans in an integrated neighborhood. I attended Judah P. Benjamin Elementary school just 2 blocks away from my home. Attending from kindergarten through 8th grade in the 1940s and 50s, of course it was segregated, all white. Names after the first practicing Jew to be elected to the US Senate - from Louisiana, and long before Henry Kissinger and Madeline Albright, Benjamin was the first Jew to be included in an American President's Cabinet as Secretary of State. That was under Pres. Jefferson Davis, CSA. The building took up about 1/4 of the block, behind which was some paved area, and most of the other half was grass where we could play. Also there was a small home where the janitor resided. Directly across the stree from that home, was a small grocery store, owned by Mr. Johnson. All the rest of the block around our school were other homes. I ate lunch at home, and in that hour had lots of time to go to and fro. We also had a 20 minute recess during the morning, and some of would ruch to Mr. Johnson's store an buy a large dill pickel for a nickle. He would reach into the big jar with a fork, remove a pickle and surround it with brown paper to hand to the children. Mr Johnson was black, and some of the signs in the store showed Pet Milk for a baby, and in the ad, the baby was black. Occasionally, my mom would call that grocery and order some foods. His daughter, Iantha delivered them. One afternoon I came home and Iantha was seated beside my mother crying, my mother comforting her. My entrance ended the conversation, but later my mother told me Mr. Johnson, whose wife had died (Iantha's mom) had left a void, and Mr. Johnson had found a new woman, and something went wrong, and she was scheming to take away his grocery. Then things changed, and we stopped going at recess because the school siad were were not to leave the school grounds at that time. Next time I did go, a black woman was seated and running the store. A few years later, I walked across a big bridge to the Carrollton shopping center: a Walgreens, a bowling alley, an early Maison Blanch satellite store (moving some business from downtown) and a National Food Market chain. Outside, was Mr. Johnson sweeping the pavement. Seemed he was now a lowly employee at the chain store.
Carolyn Bryant ran a small grocery in Mississippi. She undoubted had both black and white customers. She probably needed both to stay in business. She may have been friendlier to white customers overall, but she might have been friendly to some of the blacks too. She needed both.
Emmett Till's assault on her was sufficient to totally upset her. When she told her husband and then his brother, she might have realized there would be repercussions. She may well have realized that her grocery store might be lost. But, should she not tell her husband about the incident that so upset her? Remain silent? Hope that he does not come in again, or that his friends do not try the same play? The murder of Till is an outrage, a punishment that does not fit has actions. But then, the store went out of business. Good will is required on both sides if a business is to succeed in integrated communities.----HUGH MURRAY
