Mississippi Trial, 1955

“I followed Grampa to the truck and climbed into the cab. He handed me a thermos of Gramma’s cold lemonade. Hot from the time I’d spent in the sun, I gulped it down, no longer thinking about the black men and their backbreaking work out in Grampa’s fields.”

As a young boy in Greenwood, Hiram would accompany his Grampa when he went to check on his fields. He remembers the black men working hard with no relief under the hot Mississippi sun. In this one instance, he offers to help one of the men, who playfully gives him a tool to break up some of the earth. When Grampa sees this, he is furious. He explains to Hiram that black men are made for this type of intense labor because they are not affected by the heat and sweat. Hiram is too young to really understand this, and this moment is easily wiped away when the men are out of sight and he is enjoying his Gramma’s refreshing lemonade.  

“Behind those morning smells lingered the mellow scent of mildew, wood, and Ivory soap. To this day, if you dropped me blindfolded at my grandparents’ home, I’d know I was there as soon as you opened the door.” 

Memory plays a big role throughout the text, but there is also the danger of false memory. These warm, comforting smells bring back a certain childlike happiness for Hiram the first morning waking up in Greenwood over his summer vacation. However, he comes to find that Greenwood is not really how he remembered it: the people and places he knows are there, but the character, actions, and social environment are revealed to him much differently as an adult. This passage also highlights just how transporting the senses can be, and, in this particular case, scent becomes a means of triggering for Hiram the memory of how significant his upbringing in his grandparents’ home was for him.

“Now the war’s over, these damn Yankees are trying to tell us how to run the South. You’re still little, but you remember this, son. Our way of life is precious. It’s the way I live, the way my daddy lived, my granddaddy, and his daddy before him. It’s going to be the way you live too, if I have anything to say about it.”

One of his first lectures about politics with Grampa, and Hiram gets a sharp glimpse into his Grampa’s Southern-entrenched social and political beliefs. Grampa reads the local newspaper every morning and evening, and it is evident that the paper showcases sentiments that are anti-North and post-segregation. That this is a “way of life” he deems sacred and unchanging becomes the driving passion and force behind all of Grampa’s actions and his overall agency and role in the town.

“I stand right in the middle and look over the railing and watch the water move by. And I think about my mother […] I’ll share it with you anytime. You get to missing your gramma—or anybody you love—and you just go there and look into the river and you’ll feel better. It can be our place.” 

Following the shock of his Gramma’s death, Hiram takes a walk with Naomi Rydell. She brings him to the cemetery and shows him the unmarked location of her own mother’s grave. Afterwards, she brings Hiram to the bridge overlooking the Yazoo River and explains that this is her secret space to go to when she just needs to think about her mother and feel the difficult feelings associated with death, loss, and sadness. She offers to share that space with Hiram, and it becomes their understood meeting place when either is in need of the other’s comforting companionship. 

“I didn’t care what Ruthanne or anybody said: I wasn’t like my father. I was my grampa’s boy, always had been, always would be.” 

When he first returns to Greenwood from Arizona, Hiram is continually likened to his father, now that he has physically grown and started to mature. He is resistant to this comparison, given how often he battles with his father at home. He desperately wants to disassociate himself from his father and align himself with his Grampa, a naive misconception that he will come to realize over the course of his stay in Greenwood. This also highlights what comes to be called the Hillburn stubbornness, though he eventually sees that he is more like his father than he ever knew.

“But as I was saying, Harlan, you best let your father know you’re going fishing. No telling what kind of trouble you might get into out there on the water. Why, just last year we had a boy drown over in Tallahatchie County. Fishing alone. No one knows for sure how he ended up in the water, but he was good and dead anyway.”

Caught in a confusing conversation with quirky neighbor Ralph Remington, Hiram keeps being mistaken for his father, Harlan. Though Hiram corrects him several times, Ralph continues to address him as a young version of his father, warning him that he should really let his father know that he is going fishing. His message about the dangers of drowning is foreshadowing, as Emmett Till, who Hiram has only met in passing at this point, will be founddead in the Tallahatchie River.  

“I tell you, son, mixing Negroes with our white students is going to ruin our schools and all America, but down here, we’re not going to allow it. Some good folks formed White Citizens’ Councils to keep things sensible in the Delta...I tell you, son, around here, we’re not going to take this integration craziness lying down.” 

Grampa starts to speak in more detail about his political and social stance regarding segregation. Hiram does not know much about what is going on down in the Delta, which surprises Grampa, who assumed Hiram’s father (who holds opposing views to Grampa’s) would have said something to him about it. All of Hiram’s initial information about segregation comes from his Grampa. These “good folks,” Hiram comes to realize over time, are not the “sensible” beings Grampa describes, and Hiram notices just how heated his Grampa becomes simply discussing the matter. The tension of the day becomes too much for Hiram and he wishes to change the topic of conversation altogether. 

“This is Mississippi, Hiram. The South. Most colored schools are lucky to see ten cents of every school tax dollar. The rest goes to the white schools, the kind you went to when you lived here. Jim Crow laws keep things separate not equal, and if those White Citizens’ Councils have anything to say about it, Jim Crow will rule the South until doomsday.”

Shortly after listening to his Grampa’s view on school segregation, Hiram has a more sobering conversation with Mr. Paul while visiting him at his store counter in the courthouse. Hiram does not understand why whites and blacks would want to share the same school if they would just be happier on their own, not realizing that separate is not the same as equal. Mr. Paul is able to give him more specific details about what the consequences of segregation actually are, explaining that the conditions in black schools are absolutely terrible and the overall governing system is unjust and will continue that way until there is some significant move to overturn the Jim Crow laws. 

“Maybe R.C. was so miserable himself that he was always looking for somebody or something he could make worse off than he was. But he always took it too far; it’s one thing to have a little fun with someone, teasing and stuff like that, but R.C. was just plain mean. And to tell you the truth, he scared the crap out of me.” 

Hiram always knew R.C. Rydell to be a little over the top, but now that they are older, Hiram starts to consider why R.C. is the way that he is. Coming from a broken household with an abusive, alcoholic father, it dawns on Hiram that R.C.’s tendencies to treat others so meanly probably stems from his own unhappiness. Even with this realization, and having seen the way he so cruelly treats someone like Ronnie Remington, Hiram is terrified to stand up to R.C., lest he fall into the line of fire as well. 

“My childhood memories with Grampa might be something, maybe one of the only things, Dad and I had in common, and I made up my mind that when I got back to Tempe, I’d ask Dad about it.” 

As he becomes more aware of the ways of the South, and, particularly, with the personality of his Grampa, Hiram begins to think more about the connection with his own father. Knowing that his father and Grampa do not have much of a relationship anymore, he starts to fear that his memories, like fishing adventures, with Grampa might just be Grampa’s way of substituting what he should have shared with Hiram’s father. Knowing whether or not Grampa and Hiram’s father had these types of moments together becomes very important to Hiram, and he wants to know that he is not somehow filling in the space that his father should have. 

“I wanted to say something, to yell that I was sorry, that I thought R.C. was evil and messed up, but they were too far to hear by then. Besides, I’d had my chance to do something, but all I’d done was watch R.C. humiliate that boy. I felt dirty and weak. And ashamed.” 

During their fishing excursion, R.C. torments and humiliates Emmett when he naively approaches Hiram and asks to have some of the lunch that Ruthanne has packed. Hiram was already nervous about R.C. seeing Emmett and it turns out to be even worse than he anticipates. R.C. forces Emmett to the ground and force-feeds him fish guts, making Emmett physically ill. While all this is happening, Hiram is frozen still and does nothing to intervene except to say once for R.C. to stop. The look that Emmett gives Hiram as he stumbles away makes Hiram feel completely ashamed and ridden with guilt, but also helpless.

“I didn’t know what to think, and I didn’t want to talk to Grampa any longer […] Some of what Grampa said about R.C. made sense, but I couldn’t think of anything anybody could do to deserve getting treated the way Emmett had been. Why had R.C. been so hateful to a kid he didn’t even know? And what if lots of people like R.C. existed? What if they all got together?” 

In light of his guilt, Hiram feels like he has no one to vent to except his Grampa. However, that conversation does not assuage him in the least and he only ends up feeling worse about the situation. Grampa does not condone R.C.’s cruelty, but he also shifts some of the blame onto Emmett for being too friendly and familiar with white people. More so, Hiram starts to wonder what if this toxic mindset of R.C.’s is actually much more pervasive than Hiram thought. His thought process is slowly revealing to him the injustice that is entrenched in much of the South and he realizes just how sweeping in nature it is. 

“I’d been thinking a lot about Dad and Grampa, about how the three of us were connected even though on the surface we seemed to be pretty disconnected. My life felt like it had been tied into a giant knot, one that would take a long time to untangle. I was looking forward to going back to Tempe, because maybe I could finally talk to Dad, and we could start undoing some of the snags we’d gotten all caught up in.” 

Hiram does not want the relationship with his father to turn out like the one between his father and Grampa. Realizing now how much the three of them are intertwined, despite their differences, Hiram intends on reestablishing a healthy father-son relationship before it is too far gone. As he comes to see some of the hard truths that are affiliated with growing up, he aims to maintain the relationships that matter.  

“Fool boy forgot where he was and what he was, and it’s a fact somebody’s sure to give that boy a talking to. It’ll do him good to learn how things work here in the Delta.”

The next time Hiram has an encounter with R.C. following the incident with Emmett, R.C. tells him that Emmett was harassing some white woman up in Money and that the woman’s husband and his friend intended to teach him a lesson. Hiram fears what could possibly happen to Emmett if this threat is real and is convinced of R.C.’s involvement in the matter. While Grampa does not seem to take the threat seriously, Hiram takes it upon himself to make a call to the Sheriff’s office. He speaks to a deputy in the office who seems even less concerned than his Grampa.

“As I sat alone on the bank of that river, the secure, loved feeling I had savored with Dad bled out of me, and a horrible emptiness replaced it. My heart ached for that feeling to return, but it didn’t. I knew that moment with Dad was lost forever, and I sat on the riverbank crying for my father. And for me. When I woke up, the ache in my chest lingered, and I felt lonelier and sadder than I had ever felt in my life.”

Hiram has a vivid, lifelike dream about being on the riverbank with his father, spending the quality father-son time they are not accustomed to sharing with one another. For some reason, dream-Hiram walks away from his father briefly, and when he returns, his father is no longer there, and it feels as if he is gone for eternity. The intensity of the dream, the visceral sadness, and the notion of loss emphasize just how badly he wants to patch up the relationship with his father before it is too late.

“Before we know it, the NAACP and all those bleeding-heart Northerners are going to use this as another excuse for integration. They’re going to come down here and cry about how we treat our Negroes and how we’ve got to mix the races in our schools. That’s what really makes me mad, son: Those ignorant boys have stirred up a hornet’s nest of trouble.”

Upon finding out the news that Emmett was murdered and left in the Tallahatchie River, Hiram is greatly upset and in a state of distress. However, his Grampa’s response is not at all in line with his own feelings and reactions. Grampa instead sees this news as a platform for the North to come down and try to make changes in the South that focus on equality between the races. That the push for integration is what really “makes him mad,” rather than the unjust death of a child, is an appalling reaction that Hiram cannot process. Grampa is strictly seeing this murder as a political scheme that continues to pit North against South.  

“I wanted to yell at Grampa. A boy was murdered just for acting cocky! I wanted to say something mean and hard that would knock some sense into him, but I knew nothing I could say would change him, and I had a glimpse into why Dad and Grampa never got along.” 

As Hiram becomes privy to the real character and mindset that his Grampa inhabits, he comes to sympathize more with his own father. The anger that he feels towards his Grampa for showing no remorse for the death of an innocent boy is his first real awakening into the reality of living in the South and he equally realizes that his own personal opinion will not be enough to change the prejudice that has become so deeply rooted there.

“Grampa sounded so wrongheaded, I couldn’t believe it. Maybe some of what Dad was always spouting about equality and the American dream had rubbed off on me. ‘Don’t American laws apply in the Delta? What R.C. and those two men did was wrong, Grampa. It makes me sick just to think about it.’”

As he continues to think about the injustice of Emmett’s death and the overwhelming responses in the town towards it, Hiram tries to logically think about things in their legal sense. Feeling more in line with his own father, he considers just how troubling it is that the legal system might somehow potentially fail in Greenwood, despite the fact that there is just one true legal system for all of the country. He begins to be more aware of how the law may be manipulated and just how unfair society can be, especially when it is fueled by a passionate racism. 

“Do you really think that a jury made up of white Delta men is going to take your word over that of a local boy? Like I said, if you tell everything in that trial, the only thing you’re going to do is get yourself hurt and embarrass me.” 

This reality of the unfairness of the legal system is directly highlighted when Hiram brings up the possibility of testifying in the trial. He is technically an outsider and his Grampa assures him that his word will not stand against a Southern man and that a jury will not take what he says into consideration if it means a conviction. Grampa is not concerned with exacting justice; rather, he is worried about the safety of his grandson lest he stand up for a black man, and even more so he is worried for his own reputation, thinking about how embarrassing it would be for a White Citizens’ Council leader to have a family member with such oppositional beliefs. 

“If I knew something that proved those two did not kill that boy, I’d feel obliged to testify, and if I had something that would convict ‘em, well, I’d have to plan on closing my shop and heading somewhere far away from Mississippi. But I’d speak up.” 

Hiram wrestles with his conscience and suffers through an internal debate about how he should act if he is called to the witness stand. Again, he finds himself in a deep and meaningful conversation with the good-natured Mr. Paul. Mr. Paul gives Hiram the hard truth of things, speaking on matters of duty and obligation in the sense of a moral right. He recognizes the danger of doing what is right, but even with that knowledge, he tells Hiram that he would still do what he knows to be morally correct, even if it means he needs to take other measures external to that truth to protect his own well-being. 

“Who was I? Hiram Hillburn, a kid from Arizona. Son to an English professor who hated everything about the South, grandson to a gentleman farmer who loved everything about it. Both men had heads harder than cement, and both charged ahead full speed with whatever they thought was right. What they had in common is what kept them apart.” 

Feeling pressed to be even more introspective and self-assessing, Hiram thinks about his own personal character and moral fiber. He considers his roots and his upbringing and acknowledges the overt tension between being raised by both his father and his Grampa. He sees that they are equally stubborn and passionate, but that they are so intensely that way on completely opposite sides of social issues and he must decide for himself where on the spectrum he lands. 

“You know, there’s some folks, some groups, rabble-rousers and the kind, that would do anything to stir up trouble down here. They’re bent on disrupting our way of life, and I wouldn’t put it past them killing somebody, sticking some boy’s ring on him, and throwing his body in the river. Could be that Till boy is right now sitting in Chicago or somewhere up north having a good old time with this trouble going on down here.”

During the trial, Sheriff Strider is called to the stand and presents a series of off-the-wall reasons for why the trial is a complete joke and a ruse by the North. He suggests that Emmett’s murder was a staged event and he believes that the North and the NAACP so badly want to overturn the ways of the South that they would go as far as to commit murder themselves and pretend the dead body to be Emmett’s in order to prove a point and force integration and change. Again, we see a different version of oppositional stubbornness not wholly unlike that between Hiram’s father and Grampa. There does not seem to be any space in the course of the trial for any just meeting of the minds.  

“The killing of Emmett Till was a cowardly act committed by the two defendants you see sitting before you. I know what you are and where we are, but I beg you to put aside race, tradition, and prejudice, and consider the facts of this case that we have so clearly presented. This is not an issue of Negro versus white. This is not an issue of North versus South. This is a simple issue of law: Two men murdered a child. You have no other choice but to convict them for murder.”

In his closing remarks, the prosecuting lawyer Mr. Chatham rests his case on the simple fact that this was an unjust murder of a child. He strips it down to its most bare elements, removing all political and social elements of race and prejudice and the fact that they are in the South. He entreats the jury to see this matter exactly as it is: two adults taking the life of an innocent child. The defense remarks that follow completely undermine Chatham’s, focusing on what he calls the lack of evidence and calling these men “real patriots” (188) and again there is the suggestion that this is all a big setup by the NAACP to wreak havoc in the South. 

“The weight of his words and the weather and everything else from that Mississippi summer squeezed all the air out of me. I half staggered back into the house.”

Shortly after the trial is finished and the men are exonerated, Hiram cannot stop thinking about the details of everything, especially the mention of a third man involved. Grampa keeps encouraging him to drop the matter, seeing it as a closed case not to be discussed any further. It was not until he runs into Ronnie Remington and has another confusing conversation that he starts to more clearly piece things together. Coming to the realization that his own Grampa was involved is an utter blow and not one he can fully comprehend, but also something he cannot choose to ignore, either.