Emmett Till's cousin recalls being last surviving witness to his abduction

Aug. 28 will make 70 years since Emmett Till was murdered in Mississippi.

He was a 14-year-old boy in the Jim Crow south who was murdered for whistling at a white woman.

Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr., Till's cousin, stopped through the Spencer Museum of Art's exhibit for Emmett Till in Lawrence on Wednesday and had a clear recollection of what happened.

He remembered picking cotton earlier in the day, a task that he could do well at 16 years old.

Later, he was with Till at a grocery store. It ended up being the last place they went together.

"We know what happened. He wolf whistled," Parker Jr. said. "If we could've disappeared in the earth, we would've disappeared."

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A white woman, Carolyn Bryant, was outside the store.

Till, Parker Jr. and their family made a beeline to their car because they knew that was an offense that couldn't be taken back.

"Some people still say he must’ve done something," Parker Jr. said. "He didn’t have to do anything. People got killed and harmed for reckless eyeball. You couldn’t even look at a white woman."

Parker Jr. was Till's family, but they were also best friends and neighbors. He described Till multiple times as a "prankster" and a 14-year-old who always wanted to have fun.

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"[Till] catches this fish and snatches it up, and the fish is bouncing around, so he decided he was gonna wash it off," Parker Jr. said. "He washed the fish off, and you know that was the last time he saw it, right?"

A kid didn't have the luxury of being a kid back then. After two white men, Roy Bryant and JW Milam, showed up for Emmett that night, Parker Jr. realized they certainly didn't get any second chances.

"They entered my room, no lights on anywhere, dark as a thousand nights, with a pistol in one hand and flashlight in another," Parker Jr. said. "I closed my eyes to die, to be shot. I opened my eyes, and I hadn’t been shot. They went to my right, and they couldn’t find Emmett. They went on to the next room and found him in the third room."

Parker Jr. is the last surviving witness to Till's abduction. He remembered Till leaving peacefully. That was the last time he saw his cousin alive.

"After he was gone, some things happened," Parker Jr. said. "I had to see his mother, and I guess I had a spirit of guilt that I survived and wondered, 'how did she feel?' I'm here and her son didn't come back."

Parker Jr. knows history can't change, but he will preach to anyone that's heart can.

"Hate destroys the hater. I can't afford hate, so I said at my high school once, 'Don't hate," he said. "A little girl said, 'Appreciate,' so I have everyone always say, 'Don't hate, appreciate,' two to three times, and maybe they'll lose some of the hate."

The Emmett Till exhibit will be on display at the Spencer Museum of Art through May 19.

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