Till arrived at the home of Mose and Elizabeth Wright in Money, Mississippi, on August 21, 1955. On the evening of August 24, Till and several young relatives and neighbors were driven by his cousin Maurice Wright to Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market to buy candy. Till's companions were children of sharecroppers and had been picking cotton all day. The market mostly served the local sharecropper population and was owned by a white couple, 24-year-old Roy Bryant and his 21-year-old wife Carolyn.[28] Carolyn was alone in the front of the store that day; her sister-in-law Juanita Milam was in the rear of the store watching children. A number of other local youths were playing or watching a checkers game on a board the Bryants had set up outside the store.
The facts of what took place in the store are still disputed. Journalist William Bradford Huie reported that Till showed the youths outside the store a photograph of a white girl in his wallet, and bragged that she was his girlfriend.[29] Till's cousin Curtis Jones said the photograph was of an integrated class at the school Till attended in Chicago.[b] According to Huie and Jones, one or more of the local boys then dared Till to speak to Bryant.[28] However, in his 2009 book, Till's cousin Simeon Wright, who was present, disputed the accounts of Huie and Jones. According to Wright, Till did not have a photo of a white girl, and no one dared him to flirt with Bryant.[33] Speaking in 2015, Wright said: "We didn't dare him to go to the store—the white folk said that. They said that he had pictures of his white girlfriend. There were no pictures. They never talked to me. They never interviewed me."[34] The FBI report completed in 2006 notes: "[Curtis] Jones recanted his 1955 statements prior to his death and apologized to Mamie Till-Mobley".[35][c]
According to Simeon Wright and Wheeler Parker,[40] Till wolf-whistled at Bryant. Wright said "I think [Emmett] wanted to get a laugh out of us or something," adding, "He was always joking around, and it was hard to tell when he was serious." Wright stated that following the whistle he became immediately alarmed. "Well, it scared us half to death," Wright recalled. "You know, we were almost in shock. We couldn't get out of there fast enough, because we had never heard of anything like that before. A black boy whistling at a white woman? In Mississippi? No." Wright stated "The Ku Klux Klan and night riders were part of our daily lives".[33][41] Following his disappearance, a newspaper account stated that Till sometimes whistled to alleviate his stuttering.[42] His speech was sometimes unclear; his mother said he had particular difficulty with pronouncing "b" sounds, and he may have whistled to overcome problems asking for bubble gum.[43][44][45] She said that, to help with his articulation, she taught Till how to whistle softly to himself before pronouncing his words.[44]
During the murder trial,[d] Bryant testified that Till grabbed her hand while she was stocking candy and said, "How about a date, baby?"[46][29] She said that after she freed herself from his grasp, the young man followed her to the cash register,[46] grabbed her waist and said, "What's the matter baby, can't you take it?"[46][e] Bryant said she freed herself, and Till said, "You needn't be afraid of me, baby",[46] used "one 'unprintable' word"[46] and said "I've been with white women before."[46][47] Bryant also alleged that one of Till's companions came into the store, grabbed him by the arm, and ordered him to leave.[46] According to historian Timothy Tyson, Bryant admitted to him in a 2008 interview that her testimony during the trial that Till had made verbal and physical advances was false.[48][49][50] Bryant had testified Till grabbed her waist and uttered obscenities but later told Tyson "that part's not true".[51] As for the rest of what happened, the 72-year-old stated she could not remember.[52] Bryant is quoted by Tyson as saying "Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him".[53] However, the tape recordings that Tyson made of the interviews with Bryant do not contain Bryant saying this. In addition, Bryant's daughter-in-law, who was present during Tyson's interviews, says that Bryant never said it.[54][55]
Decades later, Simeon Wright also challenged the account given by Carolyn Bryant at the trial.[56] Wright claims he entered the store "less than a minute" after Till was left inside alone with Bryant,[56] and he saw no inappropriate behavior and heard "no lecherous conversation".[56] Wright said Till "paid for his items and we left the store together".[56] In their 2006 investigation of the cold case, the FBI noted that a second anonymous source, who was confirmed to have been in the store at the same time as Till and his cousin, supported Wright's account.[35]
Author Devery Anderson writes that in an interview with the defense's attorneys, Bryant told a version of the initial encounter that included Till grabbing her hand and asking her for a date, but not Till approaching her and grabbing her waist, mentioning past relationships with white women, or having to be dragged unwillingly out of the store by another boy. Anderson further notes that many remarks prior to Till's kidnapping made by those involved indicate that it was his remarks to Bryant that angered his killers, rather than any alleged physical harassment. For instance, Mose Wright (a witness to the kidnapping) said that the kidnappers mentioned only "talk" at the store, and Sheriff George Smith only spoke of the arrested killers accusing Till of "ugly remarks". Anderson suggests that this evidence taken together implies that the more extreme details of Bryant's story were invented after the fact as part of the defense's legal strategy.[57]
After Wright and Till left the store, Bryant went outside to retrieve a pistol from underneath the seat of a car. Till and his companions saw her do this and left immediately.[47] It was acknowledged that Till whistled while Bryant was going to her car.[35] However, one witness, Roosevelt Crawford, maintained that Till's whistle was directed not at Bryant, but at the checkers game that was taking place outside the store.[58]
Carolyn's husband Roy Bryant was on an extended trip hauling shrimp to Texas and did not return home until August 27.[59] Historian Timothy Tyson said an investigation by civil rights activists concluded Carolyn Bryant did not initially tell her husband Roy Bryant about the encounter with Till, and that Roy was told by a person who frequented their store.[60] Roy was reportedly angry at his wife for not telling him. Carolyn Bryant told the FBI she did not tell her husband because she feared he would assault Till.[61]
