Nobody really knows - Bryant has changed her story in recent years and now says "that part's not true". Maybe she was lying the 1st time, maybe she is lying now. Whatever he did was well short of rape and not deserving of death. Apparently, the original plan was to abduct Till and beat him up a little bit, which would have been appropriate folk punishment for what he supposedly did, but things got out of hand. Even the evil racist white people of Mississippi in 1955 thought that murdering Till was excessive and the Bryant family had to leave town afterward because they were persona non grata.

Replies: @Art Deco, @Sean

Didn’t he go behind the counter, grab her from behind, and dry hump her?

The meme generators are hard at work. I don't think the defense attorney tried to sell that one.

Replies: @anon tinkers are still around

Till deserved an ass whipping but not a murder. He clearly was violating the norms of that society left and right and if not stopped someone or other was going to kill him. Someone pointed out that the husband went with a doofus, violent friend/neighbor/relative who probably took things over the top.

Very few white Mississippians were happy he'd been killed. He was a punk city kid that needed a little discipline but killing him was almost universally not approved of.

Replies: @anon tinkers are still around

Mitchum did like to smoke weed. It was well known.

" How did this moron ever qualify as a doctor"

Well I can give you a few hints, seeing as I was in fact married to an MD for four years, late eighties, and my current brother in law , plus my niece and her husband are all Medicos, my brother in law is retired, and he, aside from stating that he would willingingly donate, (he is quite wealthy) a large sum of money to the German "Linken", he did in fact gift his beautiful Gibson jazz guitar to somone else, and he can't remember who, instead of to myself an active jazz player. He strived to learn jazz guitar decades ago, but gave it up as it was "too difficult".
My point being that they are a strange lot, disturbed and neurotic,and biased beyond description, the bulk of them.
The study of medicine has no correlation with "education" per se', and if you would conduct an interview with a cross section of medical students , you would come to the realization that most of them are bizarre "wierdos", and not the kind of guy/gal with whom you would sit down to a few beers with, of course there are always the occasional exceptions, but rest assured, most of them are stranger than fiction.

Authenticjazzman "Mensa" qualified since ^1973, airborne trtained US Army vet, and pro jazz artist.

tinker, Old saying but..."Do you know what they call the person who finishes last in their Medical School Class?...Doctor."

Liston had a serious drink problem, and was drunk the night before he lost the title, and the promoter publicly said this afterwards. The Kearns allegation was in 1964 so not the original or main one, it was known to be impossible because the wrappings are always checked by opposing corner-men and Kearns was saying Dempsey didn't know. Forget about that. However, there is reason to think there was something fishy if you look at Willard.

http://www.boxingnewsonline.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/jack_dempsey.jpg


None of the contemporaneously published newspaper accounts of the fight suggest anything but an extraordinary amount of damage on the right side of Willard's face, which was a "fountain of blood" Willard's claim soon after the fight was that he had been defeated by "gangsterism". Willard was saying back in the imediate aftermath that Dempsey had used some kind of knuckleduster. Willard only seemed to get really hurt in 90 seconds of the first round, all damage was on the right hand side of his face, and there is a peculiarity about the damage too. Ferdie Pacheco (Ali's doctor) wrote about it in a book and said the injuries to Willard face and cheekbone looked very like they had little bone fractures underneath them ,and and more consistent with his face being impacted with with a small hard surface like a ball pein hammer than a boxing glove, now matter what was in it. Kearns and Dempsey had a massive bet for a first round KO and would have made a million dollars in todays values.

The real allegation is Dempsey had an object resembling a rail spike in his left for part of the first round, during which he knocked Willard down seven times, It was the only round of the fight in which Willard was knocked down. Thinking it was over, Dempsey rushed out of the ring at the end of the first round, and there was a long delay before he could be got back and the second started, ( if Willard had used professional corner man they would have insisted the bell be rung for the round 2 and Dempsey would have lost by forfeit). But why rush away like that as soon as he thought he'd won? When the fight restarted, Dempsey could not put Willard down again.

Nothing about the recovered 42 year old Willard verses Fripo and the 29 year old Dempsey verses Fripo suggest that aged 37,Willard was someone Dempsey could have come to close to a first round KO of without the help of his pal "Dusty". One British boxing writer recalled interviewing Willard when he was an old man , he invited the writer to palpitate his head and the tissue gave way, there was a large dent in the side of his noggin.

Good correction on Doc Kearns (falling out) and I read Sean,s interesting comment below...it’s hard to believe the story of the spike in the left hand...unless it’s a true knuckleduster, which would have been impossible to hide. A knuckleduster works by preventing the deceleration as a fist/knuckle distorts/collapses upon impact..this lessens the impact energy into the head of the opponent..aside of course from breaking bone (impact vs momentum transfer). So a knuckleduster would be great to knock down a much bigger man several times in the first rounds..but a spike gripped inside a clenched glove.. is that what was alleged? That makes no sense...this would increase the mass of the fist, but it might also reduce its velocity, so final KE would diminish (square of the velocity) and the knuckles would still flatten, although I suppose that the gripped spike would stiffen the overall fist, so maybe that would end up reducing distortion.. on balance though, gripping a metal rod would make punching more difficult as it would not feel natural. What round did Dempsey knock out Firpo.. I checked it was the second round...even though Firpo also knocked him through the ropes, the point is that Dempsey put the 220 lbs Firpo down several times before knocking him out in the second round. That shows very considerable punching power...easily enough to knock out the out of condition 245 lbs Willard.. and, my apology for mistaking Tex R as being the one who fell out with and then badmouthed Dempsey, but Doc Kearns did, right (I am too tired to check) so why should he be believed when he had motive to knock his former mealticket?

Replies: @Steve Sailer

Meat cutters in markets are different from real butchers. They mostly slice and wrap.

My meat cutter friend calls his Excalibur He has only one knife. It looks like a short machete.

Replies: @anon tinkers are still around, @Jack D

A quick perusal of bishop-accountability.org would seem to argue against you.

My experience as an altar boy (can you still use that term?) in the 60s in a parish with four priests named Murphy, Sullivan, Walsh, and Quinn tells me that most of the frocked sons of the Olde Sod are drunks, not diddlers.

Replies: @Steve Sailer

My great grandmother had her 10th child at age 49...