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Employment - A Mississippi Murder After Emmett Till
Good afternoon. Today, I learned about Employment - A Mississippi Murder After Emmett Till. Which could be very helpful to me and also you. A Mississippi Murder After Emmett TillOnce the J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant trial in Sumner, Mississippi ended for the murder of Emmett Till, less than a month later in the colse to small cotton town of Glendora, a black assistance middle point attendant and father of four children was killed by a friend of Milam's.
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Elmer Kimball murdered Clinton Melton and then nineteen days later, Melton's young wife was killed, only a week before Kimball's murder trial opened.
Fourteen-year-old Till of Chicago was visiting relatives in the Mississippi Delta at the end of August when he was kidnapped, tortured and killed after he was accused of whistling at a white store clerk.
Then in December, Clinton Melton was murdered only four miles from where Emmett Till's body was dumped into the Tallahatchie River six months earlier. Kimball, Milam's friend, had lived in Glendora for a short time, managing a local cotton gin, and had an account at the gas middle point where Melton worked.
On the day of the murder, Kimball, 35, was driving a car borrowed from his friend, J.W. Milam, one of the two men accused and acquitted of killing Till, when he drove to the gas middle point and asked for a fill-up. Melton's daughter, Deloris Melton Gresham, was a toddler when her parents were killed, but she later was told what occurred at the assistance station:
"When Kimball drove up to the station, my father's boss told my father to go out and fill up his car. But when he was done filling the car, Kimball went into a rage and said he only wanted a dollar's worth of gas, and that he was going to go home and get his gun to shoot him. The gas middle point owner tried to talk him down, but couldn't. He told him my father was a good negro and that he did not deserve to be hurt. He beyond doubt pleaded with Kimball."
As soon as Kimball left, his boss told him that he had better leave, fast. But his car was out of gas and he had to fill it first. Kimball came right back and began shooting at my father. an additional one man was in his car with him, and yelled for him not to shoot. He jumped out of the car and ran into the middle point to hide. On arrest, Kimball claimed Melton shot at him first. McGarrh [the white owner of the gas station] denied this, adding that Melton did not have a gun at any time during the quarrel. A bullet hole was found in the windshield of Melton's parked car.
An angry Southern newspaper publisher, Hodding Carter, reacted to the murder of one of "Mississippi's own," comparing it to the Till case in a Delta-Times editorial:
[Melton] was no out-of-state smart alec. He was home-grown and "highly respected.".... There was no inquire of an insult to Southern womanhood. There was only an consulation about ... Gasoline. There was no pressure by the Naacp, "credited" with the outcome of the Till trial.... So an additional one "not guilty" verdict was written at Sumner this week. And it served to cement the opinion of the world that no matter how strong the evidence, nor how flagrant is the apparent crime, a white man cannot be convicted in Mississippi for killing a negro.
Little concentration was given to the death of Gresham's mother that occurred on or colse to December 21, 1955, practically nineteen days after Clinton Melton was killed on December 3. Officially, her mother's death was blamed on faulty driving. "Later, a relative told me that was not true, that everybody knew she was run off the road," Gresham said.
Gresham, a toddler at the time, recalled being trapped inside her mother's car as it sank to the bottom of a murky bayou near Glendora. A relative driving by saved her life and that of her baby brother. But Beulah Melton drowned.
"My mother was a pretty woman, known for being inviting and outspoken," Gresham said. "People who knew her have told me we are very much alike - both in looks and in personality."
Beulah Melton had been picking up information on her husband's death and would have been a "problem" for Kimball at the trial, Gresham said.
From news accounts and the talk colse to Glendora, there was no provocation of her father's killing. It was outright murder, according to white witnesses, together with the white assistance middle point owner. The Melton family was well known in Glendora. Clinton Melton had lived there all his life and, "for once, white habitancy spoke out against the killing of a negro. The local Lions Club adopted a resolution branding the murder 'an outrage' [and pledging to donate 0 to the family]," Myrlie Evers, the wife of slain civil proprietary leader Medgar Evers, later wrote.
Melton's widow told Medgar Evers she feared justice would not be done if the Naacp interested itself in the case, and asked him not to come to be involved. "Her wishes were respected."
In a later investigation after her death, Medgar Evers discovered the club had given the widow only twenty-six dollars and that a local white priest had given her sixty dollars of his own.
Relatives took in Delores Melton Gresham and her siblings, and Gresham prolonged to live in Glendora with her grandmother. "My grandfather was so upset, he left Glendora and never came back."
Unlike some earlier Mississippi white on black murders, Kimball was expensed for the murder and although not convicted, spent some time in jail:
Kimball Loses Bid for free time on Bond
Sumner, Miss. (Ap) -December 28, 1955 - Elmer Kimball today lost his bid for free time on bond while awaiting grand jury action on a payment of murdering a Negro man.
Three justices of the peace held a first hearing for the white gin operator and refused bond. Officers returned Kimball to jail to await action of the grand jury which meets next March. The hearing was held in the dinky justice building where the sensational Emmett Till trial was held. Bond commonly is refused in cases where a man is accused of a crime which carries a possible death sentence upon conviction.
Kimball is expensed with murder in the shotgun slaying of Clinton Melton, Negro assistance middle point attendant at colse to Glendora and father of four children. The accused man testified he fired in self-defense after man shot at him three times. Kimball said he didn't know who fired until he returned the fire and killed Melton.
Lee McGarrh, Melton's employer, testified that Kimball fired without provocation, and Melton was unarmed. He said Kimball became angry at the Negro during an consulation over gasoline for Kimball's car. McGarrh said Kimball declared he was going home for his gun and [sic] kill Melton.
***
One Wire assistance sent a staff member to cover the Kimball trial, and the only Mississippi newspaper that sent a staffer was Carter's Greenville Delta Democrat-Times. Reporter David Halberstam remained in Mississippi after the Milam-Bryant trial and wrote as a freelancer.
This time cameras were barred, not only from the courtroom but also from the entire justice building property, and no press table was set up. The sentiment [for conviction] was particularly strong in the Glendora society where Kimball shot Melton and where both the deceased and the defendant were well known, according to Halberstam: "Elsewhere in Talahatchie County, of course, it tended to come to be the usual matter of a white man and a black man."
Defining "Good" and "Bad"
Halberstam assessed the environment before the trial got started:
"A friend of mine divides the white habitancy of Mississippi into two categories. The first and largest contains the good habitancy of Mississippi, as they are affectionately called by editorial writers, politicians, and themselves. The other group is a smaller but in many ways more conspicuous faction called the peckerwoods.
"The good habitancy will generally agree that the peckerwoods are troublemakers, and beyond doubt any good habitancy have told me they joined the Citizens Councils because otherwise the peckerwoods would take over the situation entirely. It is the good habitancy who will tell you that their town has enjoyed racial harmony for many years, while it is the peckerwoods who may confide that they know how to keep the niggers in their place; it is the good habitancy who say and mean, "We love our nigras," and it is the peckerwoods who say and mean, "If any big buck gets in my way it'll be too damn bad."
"But while the good habitancy would not act with the rashness of and are not governed by the hatred of the peckerwood, they are reluctant to apply society's normal remedies to the peckerwood. Thus it is the peckerwoods who kill Negroes and the good habitancy who acquit the peckerwoods..."
Despite His Pleas of self-defense, Kimball was denied bond in two first hearings. The biggest question at the trial facing District Attorney Roy Johnson and County Attorney Hamilton Caldwell, according to Halberstam, was swearing in fair and impartial jurors [from] a group "sworn by birthright to protecting the interest and life of the white."
The state had produced three witnesses.
First was McGarrh, "a stern dinky man who was a member of one of Glendora's most respected families." McGarrh, Halberstam wrote, stuck to the same story he had told at the earlier hearings.
"He said he saw Kimball shoot the unarmed Melton. He went unshaken under cross examination. The only infirmity in his story is that although Kimball had given prior warning of his intention McGarrh stayed inside the middle point with his shot gun.'
The next study was John Henry Wilson, "a Negro in whom Kimball said he had a great deal of confidence. Wilson did not study the shooting, but he damaged the self defense theory. He was standing surface the middle point when Kimball returned with a gun. He asked Kimball what he was going to do.
"I'm going to kill that nigger," Kimball said.
"Please, sir, don't shoot that boy. He ain't done nothing to you," Wilson said.
"Get back or I'll kill you too," said Kimball. Wilson ran to the back of the station."
The last study for the state, George Woodson, testified that he was staning about ten feet away from the scene and saw Kimball walk colse to the side of the middle point with a gun, and that he did not see any gun in Melton's hand.
"The defense lacked eye witnesses and thus tried to shake the testimony of the state's witnesses. Its witnesses came up with only minor points," according to Halberstam.
"But more requisite than their testimony were their positions--a sheriff, a deputy sheriff, and a chief of police."
Apparently Kimball did the most damage to himself when he got on the stand, as Halberstam told it:
"[He] got up there before those twelve Mississippians and told them a story about his relations with Melton that flatly contradicts all the Mississippi mores.... Kimball said he went inside and told McGarrh that Clinton was getting pretty nasty and asked him to total up his account and he'd be back and determine up; when he returned a few minutes later man started firing at him, hit him, and he went back to his car and got his shot gun.
"Kimball's story would be hard for any jury to believe, because they would know.... "[You] cannot provoke a Negro attendant to talk like that no matter how much you irritate him, particularly a trusted Negro such as Clinton Melton."
"The jury also knew that "no white peckerwood gin manager, the best friend of J. W. Milam, would let a Negro talk like that without doing a dinky whupping right there on the spot."
After Four And one-half hours, the jurors walked in and announced their decision to acquit:
Sumner, Miss. (Ap) - Elmer Otis Kimball was acquitted of murder late yesterday in the shotgun slaying of a 33-year-old Negro. "I wasn't sure justice would be done," said the 35-year-old white Glendora cotton gin operator, "but I should have known." A 12-man, all-white jury, made up mostly of farmers, deliberated more than four hours before freeing Kimball.
Two witnesses testified they saw Kimball blast Clinton Melton three times with a shotgun December 3 at a Glendora assistance station. Witnesses said the shooting was an aftermath of an consulation between Kimball and Melton over gasoline to be put into Kimball's car. Kimball testified that Melton cursed him during the argument. Defense Atty. J. W. Kellum said Kimball fired the fatal shots in self-defense. Kimball said three shots were fired at him before he opened fire, one wounding him in the shoulder. He showed a scar and brought in a physician who verified the gunshot wound.
But neither Lee McGarrh, white owner of the assistance station, not George Woodson, Negro, who said he witnessed the slaying, said they saw or heard Melton fire. No weapon was found on Melton's body or in his car. The trial took place in the same courtroom where half-brothers J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant were found innocent six months ago of the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, Chicago Negro. Kellum was one of five defense attorneys in the Till case.
****
Times were now more perilous for Mississippi's African Americans. One white Glendora resident, asked by a reporter for his opinion of both the Till and Melton murders told him "There's open season on the Negroes now. They've got no protection, and any peckerwood who wants can go out and shoot himself one."
Clinton and Beulah Melton's daughter never moved from the Delta. She keeps a picture of her mother who looks like she could be her twin. While she has never owned a picture of her father, Gresham said she would have liked to know him better and continues to inquire what happened to her mother on that frightening day.
Yet her story had a happy note. In 2003, Keith Beauchamp, a New York filmmaker, discovered a copy of an old newsreel showing the story of Clinton Melton's murder. Beauchamp incorporated the reel into a documentary on Emmett Till, and made sure that Gresham had a copy for her family. The following year, the documentary was shown on a Chicago television station, resulting quite by chance in one of Gresham's brothers discovering his sister. A family reunion took place that summer.
"It was joyous," Delores Gresham said. "We talk to each other on the phone any times a week, and I'm meeting other relatives through my brother."
(An citation from "Where Rebels Roost, Mississippi Civil proprietary Revisited," by Susan Klopfer. Copyright 2005 Susan Klopfer.)
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