SB 30 Episode 73: David Mason on Ernest Withers, and the Emmett Till trial

StoryBoard 30

“After the trial though, that photo makes a difference… And that photo circulates. Just the act of standing up and testifying as a witness is a big deal - you’ve got a Black man standing up to white power and saying, ‘These men did this thing.’ And yet Friday afternoon the 12 white jurors come in and find the defendants not guilty. From that perspective, what Mose Wright does affects nothing. But it’s a big deal anyway because the photo circulates and embeds that moment in the public consciousness forever after.”

That's writer David Mason, speaking about THE photo, of THE moment of the 1955 Emmett Till murder trial, of Uncle Mose Wright standing up from the witness box and identifying his great nephew's killers. But exactly how 'That Memphis Photographer,' Ernest C. Withers, made that historic photo has been an overlooked topic for generations. Until now. David Mason's article for Issue III of StoryBoard Memphis Quarterly adds yet another new chapter to the Emmett Till saga, and here host Mark Fleischer talks with Mr. Mason, discusses how the writer arrived at a new perspective of how Withers must have made the photo in a crowded, hostile courtroom, in the face of life-threatening circumstances, and how it speaks to the skill and courage Withers needed to make the photo.

Recorded on location in March of 2022 in Sumner, Mississippi, at the site of the trial itself, in the historic Tallahatchie County Courthouse.