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The Untold Story of Emmett Till; Remnants of Apartheid Linger in South Africa

Aired August 15, 2005 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: "Now in the News," nail-biting negotiations in Iraq. Next hour, the National Assembly is set to meet to vote on a draft constitution. The commission, though, is still trying to resolve two sticking points. If it can't, the assembly could give the commission another two weeks or dissolve the government and start all over again.
Remembering V.J. Day, 60 years later. It was on this date in 1945 that Japan agreed to surrender, effectively ending World War II. Today, Japan's Prime Minister apologized for his country's conduct then, and vowed it would never again take the path to war.

A proposed ban on panhandling. Activists, lawmakers, and the homeless have been camped out outside Atlanta's City Hall in protest. Inside, city leaders may take up this issue again. This hour, actually, a vote was postponed after shouting matches erupted at last month's meeting.

And the winner is, in dramatic fashion, as always, Phil Mickelson playing a storm-delayed PGA Championship. Mickelson hit out of the rough to extend three feet on the pin on 18, then he birdied that hole for the win. It's his second major title in two years, and that's his beautiful wife and gorgeous daughters.

Emmett Louis Till, forever a boy of 14, forever a symbol of the hatred and injustice that permeated this country both North and South, half a century ago. His violent death proved a catalyst for the civil rights movement. Now, it's being re-examined, some say investigated for the first time. Tonight at the United Nations, a special showing of the untold story of Emmett Louis Till. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My God. Number one, when I first saw that box, I just collapsed. That box seemed to me to be a big -- bigger than anything I had ever seen before. But that was just the beginning. The size of the box was really the easy part. When I discovered that the box could not be opened, then I wondered what on earth in the world is going on?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, Keith Beauchamp is the man behind that documentary. Welcome back to LIVE FROM, Keith.

KEITH BEAUCHAMP, "UNTOLD STORY OF EMMETT TILL": Thank you. Thank you for having me.

PHILLIPS: After all these years, after interviewing you, after talking to Mamie, who we just saw there, Emmett's mother. Now your movie is out, now this case has been reopened. I'm going to get to your mission in a moment, but let's talk about Emmett's mom, Mamie, for a while and how she spent every single day of her life trying to get to this point, justice for her son.

BEAUCHAMP: Sure. I mean, I just -- that is still a hard topic. I mean, as we speak of her name now, it means more to me than ever. I mean, Mrs. Mobley worked for 48 years until she could find a way to get her son's case reopened. And during that time, I worked with her for eight years to fight for justice for her son. So to be at this point right now and, you know, and finally having the film done, a film that she hoped would come out before her passing, a film that she wanted to -- wanted it to be reached to the masses.

I mean, it's kind of hard for me. You're speaking of someone who was very dear to my heart and she was very influential in my life and helped me nurture myself into the person I've become today. I've practically grew into this case. I began the process at age 24 and now I'm 34 years old now, and her -- I mean, thinking about her is just still very hard to me, because I never really had an opportunity to mourn her passage since, you know, since 2000 -- I mean, in 2003.

So it's a very difficult topic for me to talk about. It's very emotional for me but, you know, this is a day that she really wanted to take place. She wanted the world to see what happened to her son. She wanted the masses to see this film that speaks the truth.

PHILLIPS: Well, and let's talk about the film that you put together.

BEAUCHAMP: Sure.

PHILLIPS: One of the most amazing things that you've done over the past decade -- and the reason why this case has been reopened now after all these years, is because of the research you did and also the witnesses that you interviewed. And I just want to show a quick clip here, Keith, and then let's talk about that research process.

BEAUCHAMP: Sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What he said inside the store, I don't know, before I got there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He asked for 10 cents, to get 10 cents worth of bubble gum. He put the money into her hand, just like this, and she jerked her hand back. So that was it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He and I left the store together. We didn't have any conversation with Mrs. Bratt (ph). We left together. She came out of the store and went to her car, which was parked on the north side of the store. As she was going to her car, that's when Emmett whistled at her. The famous wolf whistle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: The famous wolf whistle, Keith. Carolyn Bryant, the woman that said Emmett Till whistled at her. And then we know how the story goes from there. Her husband, along with a number of others -- take it from there.

BEAUCHAMP: Well, that -- well, three days after the wolf whistle at the store, which was Friday -- it was 2:00 a.m. in the morning on August 28th, the two men decided they wanted to go to and teach Emmett Till a lesson and they went and abducted Emmett Till, took him from his great uncle's home and -- where they tortured him for a long period of time later on that morning and decided to kill him. And three days later, Emmett Till's body was surfaced in Tallahatchie River with a 70-pound cotton gin fan attached to his neck with barbed wire.

PHILLIPS: Now, all these years later, and all the research you've done, I want to point out Carolyn Bryant, now Carolyn Doham (ph), living in Greenville, Mississippi -- she's still alive. Now that this case has been reopened, could she be arrested? Could she face charges of murder, Keith?

BEAUCHAMP: Well, there's a great possibility that this could happen, but we have to leave it up to our federal investigators, as well as the D.A., D.A. Joyce Childs (ph), who is very -- who was very instrumental in helping get this case reopened and convincing the government to come out and help retry this case. Well, not retry, but reinvestigate this case. So one would hope that Carolyn Bryant would probably have questions that need to be answered. Not questions, but give answers to the questions that we have.

They had a warrant out for her arrest back in 1955. That was one of the things that I located when I was able to get my hands on the FBI records, was that a warrant out for her arrest, in which she was never served. So there's questions that have to be answered that I feel need to take place, and I'm hoping that, you know, the investigation will be leading to that. You also have a number of other people who possibly was involved with the kidnapping and murder that are currently being reviewed at this point as well.

PHILLIPS: And we're going to talk more about that, Keith, as we follow this story. But just another real quick clip I want to show, and that was Emmett Till's funeral and how, truly, this sparked the civil rights movement.

BEAUCHAMP: Sure.

PHILLIPS: Let's listen once again to Emmett's mother and see some of this video.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAMIE TILL MOBLEY, EMMETT TILL'S MOTHER: Trying to get into the church to have the funeral was nearly mission impossible. I had to address the crowd on the way in and assure them that they would be able to hear the funeral services. And when we had finished, we would leave and the church would be open for them to continue to view the body.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: And, Keith, of course, Miss Mobley wanted the world to see that body because of what her son's face and body looked like and how he had been treated and how he was murdered. And it was a moment that not only kicked off the civil rights movement, but inspired Rosa Parks to take a seat in that city bus.

BEAUCHAMP: Absolutely. This case had a profound effect on the mobilization of the American civil rights movement. And it's so important that the public come out special see this film, because it's educational. You're talking about the civil rights movement here.

The Emmett Till case was never supposed to be told, so you had these great people who are -- inspired others to cause this huge movement across the globe. And all this was done by the murder of Emmett Till. August 28th, which is, ironically, the anniversary of the march on Washington, that date was chosen because of the murder of Emmett Till.

You had A. Philip Randolph, who was very instrumental and coming out with protests and things of that nature, throughout the duration of the trial. And so he was the one who actually organized the march on Washington and chose that date to be in memory of Emmett Till, actually.

PHILLIPS: Keith Beauchamp, once again, I commend you.

BEAUCHAMP: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: And congratulations. I know this will be shown at the U.N. tonight.

BEAUCHAMP: Absolutely.

PHILLIPS: We'll watch for it in movie theaters in September.

BEAUCHAMP: Yes.

PHILLIPS: Emmett's legacy lives on because of you and his mother. And I thank you for sharing all of these years of work with us once again.

BEAUCHAMP: Thank you very much for having me.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Keith.

BEAUCHAMP: Uh-huh.

PHILLIPS: Straight ahead, you want to ditch the dimples but skip the surgery? Well, now you can, with a cocktail of injections. You probably know that. But are they a safe alternative to liposuction? We'll have that story coming up next.

And it's been more than 10 years since the end of Apartheid in South Africa, but do remnants remain? We'll talk with CNN's new Johannesburg correspondent about reporting and living there, as an African-American. Also send us your e-mail next hour. Join us for a special LIVE FROM, inside the war on cancer. We're going to have a doctor here to answer questions. Our address, livefrom@cnn.com.

We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

PHILLIPS: Now to another medical fight, one that woman around the world share. The enemy: cellulite. Now American women are experimenting with a controversial treatment European women have been using for years.

Our medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Women hate it, that ugly, bumpy, dimply cottage cheese fat under the skin, usually on the hips and thighs, known as cellulite. Some women opt for plastic surgery and liposuction, but other women who don't want to go under the knife and deal with all that downtime are now trying to combat cellulite with another option called mesotherapy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you ready? If it hurts, let me know.

COHEN: This procedure, developed in Paris in the 1950s, is the injection of a cellulite cocktail into the target area.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mesotherapy involves injection of medications under the skin to affect some changes, such as cellulite removal, reduction of fat, toning and tightening the skin. It requires weekly treatments. And for the cellulite, it's going to take 10 to 15 treatments. So they have to be willing to come in quite often.

COHEN: Even with thousands of dollars in potential expense and weekly injections, some women do swear by this relatively non-invasive procedure.

Dale Rossington, a backup singer for the rock group Lynrd Skynrd is happy with her mesotherapy results.

DALE ROSSINGTON, MESOTHERAPY PATIENT: Suddenly, you see the definition that you thought you weren't going to find again, and you start to see, again, that last little bit that you just really thought wasn't going to go away, that you'd kind of given up in, and you talk to yourself about growing old gracefully, but you know, you didn't really want to. And after those six or seven, then you start to see it just subtly. It's a subtle difference, so you have to be a little more patient.

COHEN: The cocktail is a blend of drugs, including some used to treat heart ailments and asthma. Each drug is approved by the FDA, using them in combination is not, and there's no standardized formula for the cocktail; physicians mix their own. And there have been reported cases of skin irritations and infections. Plastic Surgeon Vincent Zubowicz refuses to recommend mesotherapy to his patients.

DR. VINCENT ZUBOWICZ, PLASTIC SURGEON: So you have a technique where there has been no objective evidence of it being effective, yet a good deal of objective evidence showing that there's potential complications, and some of them quite severe. So if it were an effective alternative, I'd open a mesotherapy booth in my office and go to work. But I'm convinced that it doesn't work, and I'm not going to risk my patients' health with something that's unproven.

COHEN: And there is a bottom line to any fat reduction program.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, I think, whether you're doing liposuction or the mesotherapy, it's very important to eat right and exercise to make it work, and to keep it off long term.

COHEN: Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Focus on South Africa now. A nation of remarkable contrast. It's home to some heroic history-makers, as well as generations of staggering human tragedy.

Joining me now on LIVE FROM, Alfonso Van Marsh, a CNN correspondent who works if South Africa, lives in South Africa, and sees every day the relative Apartheid. Alphonso, great to have you with us.

ALPHONSO VAN MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT; Thanks for having me here.

PHILLIPS: Here's what interesting. We wanted to talk to you about things going on in South Africa. And you said -- you immediately told us about just the whole personal, I guess, reality checks that you've received, starting with a car accident when you got there?

MARSH: Exactly. Living there is absolutely fascinating. A lot of people think it's been ten years since the end of the apartheid, that they've had democracy, they've been moving forward in freedom. But still, it takes time for mindsets to change. And when I was first arriving in South Africa, looking for a place to live in Johannesburg, I actually got in a car accident, riding with somebody from our office who drives around.

And the interesting thing is, we got in this accident -- this white car that you see here actually hit us. And what surprised me is that another car came up to us and started yelling at the gentleman driving my car. The other person in the other car happened to be white. The person driving in the car that I was in happened to be black. And what makes this interesting is, is the second car that came up to us had absolutely nothing to do with the accident, yet in that person's mind, he felt like he had the right to come up to this black driver and start yelling at him, start cussing him out, because he had the nerve to hit a car full of white folks.

PHILLIPS: Wow.

VAN MARSH: It's amazing.

PHILLIPS: So that's probably -- is that one of the first things that you realized was going to be a tremendous challenge working there, was dealing with something -- I mean, you're not used to -- I mean, that's not an everyday occurrence, especially when we work in such a diverse newsroom. And that just doesn't always enter our minds.

VAN MARSH: Well, I think that I'm in a very unique situation living in South Africa. My full name, Alfonso Van Marsh, is perceived as perhaps having Dutch heritage in South Africa. And a lot of our viewers might remember that a lot of white South Africans come from Dutch heritage, even though I don't. So when I'm making phone calls or researching a story, they hear Alfonso Van Marsh, they're expecting to hear from a white guy. And then when I walk into a room, you can actually see on -- sometimes on their faces, that kind of reaction.

PHILLIPS: Wait a minute.

VAN MARSH: It's absolutely amazing. And the reaction you get from folks. Again, because of my name and because of how I look, it's amazing that access and what people feel comfortable saying in front of me.

PHILLIPS: Now, something else that makes you very unique, how you got your name here at CNN, you're a one-man band. I still don't know how do you it. But you shoot, you edit, you do lights, you do the whole thing.

VAN MARSH: Do it all.

PHILLIPS: What is that like? And is that tough, combined with covering such a tremendous continent?

VAN MARSH: Well, the interesting thing about South Africa is there are always stories. I say they are like fruit, just dripping, juicy, waiting to be plucked and shared with the world. And so the freedom I have when I shoot my own video, do my own stories, is I get to really be a lot more intimate with folks.

Say, for example, here, we are looking at some video of Nelson Mandela, Africa's elder statesman, probably one of the most revered public figures on earth. Using that one-man band technology, our digital news gathering technology, I get so close to the man. I mean, I'm no further away from you right now than I was with Nelson Mandela. He was coming out for his birthday celebrations. And there's this intimacy, this way of getting close to stories, which is just so fascinating, and it makes me -- I love what I do. I absolutely love it.

PHILLIPS: Well, and you're up against, still, a lot of violence. I mean, from where you live. Kind of set the scene for us.

VAN MARSH: Well, it's quite a contrast. My last post with CNN was in Istanbul, where I had this gorgeous apartment overlooking the Bosphorous (ph), the great mosques of Turkey in Istanbul. And now I've traded that for a 13-foot wall, barbed wire and electric fence on top of that. And the reality is that, yes, there is still violence in South Africa.

I think Johannesburg gets a bad rap for being overly violent, but there are some realities that you do deal with. For example, when you stop at a stop sign in some neighborhoods at night, you stop, look to left, look to the right, and keep going. You don't wait for the light simply because there are carjackings. Violence still is an issue. It's getting better, but you still need to be careful.

PHILLIPS: As we can see, even by the protests that you cover on a regular basis, too, there -- well, we look forward to the good stories, too, of course. You always bring us great stories of interesting characters and human interest stories.

VAN MARSH: And that's exactly the thing. I think a lot of our viewers, a lot of Americans, forget the relevance between South Africa and the United States. Just to give you a couple of examples, Oprah, huge in South Africa. She has her magazine out there, she's syndicated four, five times a days. The diamonds, a little bling, bling you got going on there, South Africa is one of the world's biggest exporters of diamonds, one of the world's biggest exporters of gold. Even fresh oranges. Chances are, the fresh orange juice you had this morning, the oranges came from South Africa. There's a lot going on between South Africa and the United States.

One other thing I'll mention, something I learned when I was out doing this South Africa orange story, was the number of African- Americans who live in South Africa. I think after Apartheid, a lot of white folks in the United States talk the talk, but a lot of black folks walked to the airport. They went, invested, started doing business, are living in South Africa. It's a fascinating place to live and work.

PHILLIPS: We always love your stories. Alphonso Van Marsh, thank you so much. Look forward to more.

All right, we're going to take a quick break. Second hour of LIVE FROM coming up. Inside the war on cancer. We're going to talk to survivors and specialists and we're going to be taking your questions. You can e-mail us right now at livefrom@CNN.com. "Taming the Beast," that's coming up at the top of the hour. Don't go away.

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