"Jenny, I've got a story for you." Said Conner (my boss.) My name is Jenny Barton and I am a reporter for The New York Times. My boss had told me that he had just the story for me. I was so excited. Then I found out someone on another newspaper had been working on the story. I said to myself,"I will have the better story." That Friday I took a train to Chicago to find out more about the story. I had the Emmett Till Case. Who knew that so many people had no idea that it had happened. I was about to give up when I found someone who did know about it. It was a black woman. Her name was Katie Smith. She told me everything she knew about Emmett Till. Turns out that she and Emmett's mother were friends. But she did not know much. Then at the end of the interview she told me about Emmett's mother and how sad she was when it happened. Ms. Smith had no idea where she was though. She was not very good friends with Emmett Till's mother. Sense it would take me a while to find out where Emmett's mother was, I decided to put it off until next week and try to write a story with the information I had. It wasn't very much but it was enough to get started. This is what I have. Emmett Till was a black teenager who was very popular amongst his cousins. The reason why is that Emmett had a picture of a white woman he knew back in Chicago (he was in Mississippi at the time) and he told everyone that it was his girlfriend. They believed him. The next day I continued my research on Emmett Till. To bad the only other person who knew about it was Emmett's mother.

I was working on my article back in New York, when my typewriter broke. I had to use someone else's. But no one would let me. I needed to write more of my article because all I had was "The Murder of Emmett Till!" You see why. I stopped and instead I tried to find out more about Emmett Till. I took another train ride. But this time I went to Money, Mississippi instead of Chicago. I figured that if this is where Emmett was killed, and the reason why he was killed had happened in Money, Mississippi, then people would know more about it. I could maybe even find some of Emmett's cousins.

I found out a lot more about the Emmett Till Case. Turns out that there was an all white jury and after a little more then an hour, the jury found Emmett Till not guilty. It was a sad case. After the case was over, Emmett's body was sent back to Chicago and when the train arrived with his body his mother started to cry. It was very touching.

It turns out that the only way people could tell that Emmett Till's body was because that he had an engraved ring. That must have been confusing for those people. It took them 2 days to figure it out. Anyways, I still did not know where Emmett's mother was. She must have been really sad. But she was the one who ordered an open casket funeral so the people could see how awful he looked.

This is what Mamie Till (Emmett Till's mother) said to Emmett before he left to go to Mississippi "Be careful. If you have to get down on your knees and bow when a white person walks past, do it willingly." I guess he did not follow his mother's advice. "Jenny, come here!!!!" Said Conner. "What???" I said. "I think I know where Ms. Till lives." He said. "Where?" I asked, excitedly.

Next thing I knew I was on a train. To Portland, Oregon. When I got to Portland I went to the address that I had gotten from Conner. The address was 1334 31st Street Portland, Oregon 29874. When I got to the house, I saw how beautiful the yard looked and I said "Wow!" When I rang the doorbell I stood there for about 5 minutes and when the door opened I expected to see and old lady but I accually saw a young woman about 35 years old. I told her who I was and she let me come in. She had told me that when Emmett had died there were reporters all around her and it was very confusing so she escaped to Portland and she does not have many reporters come to her door now. "Ding Dong" someone was at the door. "Hi my name is Sandy Stocten and I am a repoter. "Oh no!" I said. "Its Sandy!" Sandy was the other reporter who was doing the same story. I was so angry. I was about to scream "Get out!!!" I could not belive it. Sandy was here to get the same story.

Sandy had been grabbing every opertunity she got to talk to Ms. Till alone. But there were times when I talked to Ms. Till alone and Ms. Till did not tell Sandy anything when she came back but she (Ms. Till) told me what her and Sandy were just talking about. It was cool. After the interview I headed on back to New York to finish my story. I had gotten all that I need. Here is all of my information that I got from books, magazines, Ms. Smith, and Ms. Till.

Emmett was just a little 14-year-old African American boy from Chicago, Illinois. He grew up with no segragation because he lived in the north. So when he took a trip down to Money, Mississippi to see his cousins, he showed his cousins a picture of one of his white friends who was a girl and he told then it was his girlfriend. So his cousins dared him to go and talk to a white girl. But this white girl was Carolyn Bryant. The wife to the owner of Bryant's Grocery. The store owner was Roy Bryant. When Emmett went in Roy was not there. No one is really sure on what Emmett did to Carolyn Bryant but what we do know is that Emmett did something that was concidered offensive to Carolyn and that is why Emmett is dead. The people who killed him were Roy Bryant and his half brother J.W. Milam. Emmett was living peacefuly until they killed him. Then at the case, there was an all-white jury and they said that Emmett Till was inocent. They were nice. After that some people went to an open casket funeral that was ordered by Ms. Till so people could see what had happened to him. He was unreconizable except for his engraved ring.

The next day Conner called me into his office and asked me "Jenny, where is your story?" "Right here!" I said hoping he would like it. After 10 minutes he finaly said "Jenny, this is some great work. It definitly deserves to be on the front page. Good Job." "Yes!" I thought. "He liked it. He really, really liked it."

The next issue of The New York Times said (on the front page) "The Murder of Emmett Till!" By Jenny Barton. It was the happiest day of my life. I finaly get to be on the front page after all of my articles I have written in the past. Mine is finaly on the front page. It was great. Oh and it was better then Sandy's story too! Much better.