crow s nest, they were allowed to sit at a table on the ground floor not that far from where the white press was seated. that was considered a breakthrough. reporter: among the journalists covering the trial were jet reporter simeon booker and freelance photographer ernest withers. withs photograph of mose wright on the witness stand defiantly pointing to his nephew s murderers captured a rare moment, a black man bearing witness to racial terror in a southern courtroom. the ernest withers photo of moses wright standing up at the trial of till s murderers was taken surreptitiously. i think that s the number one image that most people remember. reporter: the trial lasted 4 and a half days. one journalist called it, the
forever be known as bloody sunday. this airs on sunday night, march 7th. tuesday morning, at 9:00, there are over a thousand people from as far away as hawaii. before expedia, they mobilized instantly. i ve come to selma to put my body where my heart is, to make sure that the negro people recognize that there are white people in the north that are with them in their fight. reporter: the shockwaves from selma reverberated around the world. dr. king made an appeal for religious leaders to come to selma. ministers, priests, rabbis and nuns came and walked across the bridge to the same point where we had been beaten. it was one of the finest hours for people to respond the way they responded. without television, the civil rights movement would have been like a bird without wings.
we were about the same age, the same age as a matter of fact. it was horrifying. it was my 9/11. it was basically, you know, an act of terror. reporter: in 1955, mississippi was ground zero for racial terror in the american south when 14-year-old emmett till arrived from chicago to visit his great uncle, mose wright, in a town called money. he was a big city kid. he wasn t familiar with the dark heart and the social taboos of the jim crow south. black people and white people interacted only on a transactional basis, but they were largely two different worlds. you ll stick to your own kind, we ll stick to our own kind. one day emmett and his cousins go into town, and they go to a little grocery store,
when they get to anniston, some klansmen, white thugs, stop the bus. they firebomb it. there s a reporter, moses newson, on this bus, and neither he nor anyone on that bus imagines that they re going to be able to get out alive. editor has a close brush with death. when i found myself in that burning bus set on fire by the mob, that cold chilling realization that this might be it came over me. they were using boards and chains, daring people to come out and integrate alabama. i decided the best thing for me to do was to stick the camera up under my seat. i had no thoughts about stepping off the bus with a camera hanging around my neck. moses newson quite reasonably
tell who he was, but he happened to have on a ring with initials. and that cleared it up. reporter: in chicago, emmett till s grief-stricken mother, mamie, waited at the railroad station for the casket containing her son s body to arrive. mamie till is essentially confronted with a sealed wooden casket nailed shut by the sheriff. it was mamie till who demanded that that box be opened so that she could see her child. she kind of staggers in and sees this body and she can t believe her beautiful child is this lump of flesh that s lying in this casket and she said to herself, the country is going to have to confront this. i m not going to suffer in this by myself. if this is what you re going to do to black boys, you re going to look at it. reporter: not only did mamie