Langston Hughes's "Mississippi—1955": a note on revisions and an appeal for reconsideration

African American Review, Spring, 2003 by Christopher Metress

Unfortunately, I would argue, Hughes's revisions of "Mississippi-- 1955" have effectively erased the presence of Emmett Till from the poem. As a result, the poem suffers the loss of its own historical specificity, and Till--to whose "memory" the poem was dedicated--is in turn purged from the memory of the text. Moreover, Hughes's revisions have had an effect on the present as well as the past. Because Till's presence was revised out of the poem, the collective memories of scholars and historians have suffered. Only a handful of literary studies acknowledge that Hughes was even remotely interested in the Till case; even fewer studies concede that he wrote a poem in response to it. Furthermore, historical studies of the lynching-even those interested in literary responses to and representations of the crime--fail to recognize Hughes's place as the first major African-American literary figure to respond to the lynching. By charting the poem's publication history, marking its multiple revisions, and analyzing the effects of these revisions on both the poem and our collective memories of Emmett Till, this essay seeks to retrieve the original meaning of the poem by restoring its original text and context. In doing so, it hopes not only to reinvigorate the present by recovering the past, but also to encourage a reconsideration of how, through proper remembrance, we can redeem that past.

In order to trace the publication history of this poem, we must actually begin before the beginning. Although the poem first appeared in newspapers throughout the country during the week of September 24-October 1, 1955, the earliest recorded version is dated September 16. Hughes originally wanted the poem to serve as a lead-in to his weekly Chicago Defender column. As a lead-in, the poem did not warrant a distinct title; rather, it was to be used as a sort of extended epigraph, placed below the title that was intended to reflect on the content of the column rather than the character of the poem. Entitled "Emmett Till, Mississippi, and Congressional Investigations," this draft of the poem--held by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University--reads as follows:

OH, WHAT SORROW!
OH, WHAT PITY!
OH, WHAT PAIN
THAT TEARS AND BLOOD
SHOULD MIX LIKE RAIN
AND TERROR COME AGAIN
TO MISSISSIPPI.

Come again?
Where has terror been?
On vacation? Up North?
In some other section
Of the nation,
Lying low, unpublicized?
Jaundiced eyes
Showing through the mask?

OH, WHAT SORROW,
PITY, PAIN,
THAT TEARS AND BLOOD
SHOULD MIX LIKE RAIN
IN MISSISSIPPI--
AND TERROR, FETID HOT,
YET CLAMMY COLD,
REMAIN.

To blend this poem with the following text, Hughes began his column by noting, "This is a poem written in memory of the dead boy, Emmett Till, whose body was found shot through the head, beaten and bruised, in the Tallahatchie River, 120 miles south of Memphis." Connecting Till's death to the lynchings of Charlie Lang and Ernest Green (hanged in Mississippi from the Shubuta Bridge over the Chicasawhay River in October, 1942), Hughes spent the remainder of his column skewering Congress for failing to investigate Southern lynchings.