Hicks, Part 4: Reporters on Till case threatened repeatedly

Jimmy Hicks Tells Inside Story of Infamous Mississippi Lynch Case

James L. Hicks

Cleveland Call and Post, October 22, 1955

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The next day Willie Reed, Mandy Bradley and others took the stand and testified. I filed straight copy of their testimony but I was eating my heart out to file copy on the fact that “Too Tight” Leroy Collins was in the Charleston jail, that Sheriff Strider knew he was there and that he would not produce him.

After they testified word came that the prosecution was going to close down its arguments. I couldn’t believe it. How could they close without trying to put “Too Tight” on the stand.

I went to the Prosecutor Gerald Chatham and asked if it were true. He said it was. I asked him how about “Too Tight.” He said Sheriff Strider told him that “Too Tight” was not in the Charleston jail. He said he couldn’t produce him if the sheriff would not produce him.

I asked him what did he think had happened to “Too Tight.” He said[,] “I wouldn’t like to say.”

Witness Seen

That night I received information that there was a person in Charleston who had been to the jail the day before and talked with “Too Tight.” The person was at a certain spot[;] an NAACP official was there too and they wanted to know what should be done.

He told the person to be ready to testify the next day. Then we got word to the prosecutors by phone of what we had learned. As tactfully as it could be done it was pointed out that perhaps Sheriff Strider had been mistaken.

But the next morning the prosecution stated again that despite the fact that someone was willing to go to the jail and identify “Too Tight” he could not go there because the sheriff of the jail had already said he was not there.

The case actually went to the jury on that note and to this day no one got a chance to go there and talk to “Too Tight” Collins.

I think he is still there. If he is not there I think Sheriff Strider should be made to tell where he is.

Could Clear Mystery

And I believe if either he or Loggins could be put on a witness stand they would clear up once and for all the mystery of what they were doing on that truck with Emmett Till and what happened to Emmett Till when he was taken into that barn on the night of August 28.

Perhaps the reader will still condemn me for not dashing off reports on the above story day by day and hour by hour as it happened.

I should like to add these additional facts, unrelated as they might seem:

On the night that I filed my first copy from Sumner I was in my hotel room at Mound Bayou rather sure that no one in Sumner knew where I was living.

I got a phone call from Sumner long after midnight. The voice said he was a reporter from Louisiana and that he had met me earlier in the day. When I said I didn’t remember him he said it was not important. That what he really called was for me to go to Memphis with him. He said he was working on a new angle on the story and asked me if I wanted to come along.

He said he realized Mound Bayou was not on the road to Memphis but that he was sleepy and would gladly drive out of his way to come by for me if I would agree to go so that I would help him drive back.

I told him that I couldn’t possibly break away to go. When I said that he began asking me how long would I be at my hotel in Mound Bayou. I told him that I was just preparing to go south to Greenville and work on a new lead I had found. He said he could reach Sumner in about a half hour and that he wanted to talk to me. I told him I was leaving right away.

Given a Weapon

When the conversation ended and I told some of our group what had transpired a local Mississippian went out to his car, returned to my room and gave me a loaded .38 Smith and Wesson pistol. “Here, boy,” he said. “You sleep with this tonight.” I did.

About an hour later a carload of people drove up the side of my hotel and knocked on my door.

I lay there with my hand clutching the loaded gun and said nothing. Then they went next door and knocked on the door of Simeon Booker. He did not answer either.

By this time I got up and came to the door. I tested the lock to make sure it was locked and then I began peeping with gun in hand through the three small windows up at the top of the door of my hotel.

Beneath the street light outside I could see a carload of colored people. I was close to them as 30 feet. The light was playing full on the face of a colored woman I had seen before as she sat on the front seat of the car with the door opened.

The man doing the knocking was standing talking with her with his back to me and I could not see his face. I heard him say[,] “He’s not in there.”

Then the man walked around the other side of the car still with his face from me and went around the motel to the home of Mrs. Anderson[,] who owns the motel. I crossed the room, still with the gun in my hand, and watched him ring the bell until she answered the door.

Then he left after talking with her a moment and came back to the car parked in front of my door. He got into the car from the driver’s side and soon they drove south toward Cleveland.

I went back to bed with the gun under my pillow. Then next morning Mrs. Anderson told me that the people had asked her if she had any vacant rooms. What I couldn’t understand and still don’t was why they knocked on the door of my motel room instead of first going to the office of the motel.

Feared Trap

On another occasion Murray Kempton of the New York Post called me in Mound Bayou. I got his message and called him back. He was not in. But as soon as I hung up the phone rang for me. A voice on the other end of the wire in Clarksdale said his name was Ferguson and that he knew I had called Murray a few minutes ago. The voice said he and Murray were good friends and that I could tell him anything that I was going to tell Murray and that he would pass it on to Murray.

I told the voice that he was on the wrong track, that I had not been calling Murray to tell him anything but that I was simply returning a call Murray had put through to me from Clarksdale.

The voice insisted[,] “Come on Hicks. You know plenty. Let me in on it.” He gave the impression that he was another newsman. I told him I simply did not have any leads to work on and he finally hung up.

Face Trickster

Then next day in Sumner I told Murray about the incident. We went to James Featherson and accused Featherson of trying to get me to give him some information under his name.

But the last day of the trial Featherson came up to me in Kempton’s presence and swore that he had never talked with me by phone. I told Murray that the man on the other end had used the name Ferguson. And in reflection I’m not sure that it was not the voice of Featherson.

Who was it? I haven’t the slightest idea.

One more incident. Sheriff Strider gave out press passes which were supposed to enable reporters to use the backstairs which the jury used in getting in and out of the courtroom to avoid going through the crowd.

Barred By Deputy

The day after I gave the sheriff the name of “Too Tight” Collins I started up the back steps to go to the courtroom. A deputy was standing on the narrow stairway and as I approached him with the card in hand he put one foot against the wall of the narrow stairway, leaned against the other and barred the way.

I said[,] “Press” and held the card up higher. He said to me[,] “No niggers are going up this stairway.” I bit my tongue, turned around and started for the front stairs where one had to push his way through the hostile crowd.

On the way I met John Popham of the Times and I told him what had happened. I also told him what a loaded thing it was to push one’s way through the hostile crowd. He suggested that we get together and try to go up.

With Popham leading the way we went back to the stairs. Several white reporters walked on past the deputy before we reached him.

Then Popham walked past him. I followed. But as I put my foot out to mount the first stair, up came the deputy’s foot again and barred the way. Popham, who had already passed him turned and said[,] “He’s a reporter. He’s got a card. The sheriff said the press could go up this way.”

The man snarled at me[,] “You’re not going up this way. G’roung.” He had a gun. I had no choice. I went around.

No action Taken

I know that this information was given to Strider. But we still never were able to use the back steps.

All of these things gradually beat me down at Sumner. A deputy threatened to knock Simeon Booker’s “head off” because Booker held up the press card and asked the deputy to help him get through the crowd.

A man who walked up to the press table and called all of us “niggers” was sworn in five minutes later as the bailiff.

Reporter Fired Upon

An English correspondent who talked to a colored woman was later fired at twice the same night be the deputy who arrested me.

A cross was burned fifty yards from the courthouse during the trial. There was no investigation that I heard of.

They allotted us chairs at the Jim Crow press table but during the noon recess while we were trying to get our stories filed in a colored restaurant the crowd would come in and take the chairs from our table. I stood up more often than I sat down.

Congressman Diggs and Dr. Howard brought their own chairs to the Jim Crow press table. On the last day of the trial the crowd took them.

This was the trial at Sumner as I lived it. Other colored reporters will verify that portion of my story where our paths crossed, and they crossed often. There are other colored reporters who could possibly tell even more fantastic stories. But they are all true.