Emmett Till, known to friends and family as Bobo, arrived in Mississippi by train on either Saturday, August 20 or Sunday, August 21, 1955 – accounts differ on the exact date. By the 21st, he had moved into the home of a great uncle, Moses Wright, near Money.
On Wednesday evening, August 24, Emmett went to Bryant’s with a group of local black youths. Among them were 18-year-old Ruthie Mae Crawford, who spoke years later of being able to see Emmett the whole time through the store’s plate-glass window, and 12-year-old Dill’s cousin, Simeon Wright.
Emmett went into the store to buy a small item, probably two cents worth of bubble gum.
Mr. Bryant, moonlighting as a trucker, was out of town hauling loads of shrimp from New Orleans to Texas. Mrs. Bryant was tending the counter; His sister-in-law Juanita Milam, JW’s wife, testified in court that Bryant cared for the boys and her own two children.
By most accounts, Emmett was alone with Mrs. Bryant for no more than a minute before one of his companions — who, according to Simeon Wright’s recollection, was — worried that Emmett did not know how to behave himself around a Southern white woman. to fetch him.
“When I was in the store, Bobo didn’t do anything inappropriate,” said Mr. Wright described it in his 2010 memoir, “Simeon’s Story.” “Bobo didn’t ask her on a date or call her ‘baby.’ There were no awkward conversations between them.
