Category: Emmett till

Emmett was a huge cultural influence on the Civil Rights Movement and for the history of African American freedom too. Emmitt Louis Till was a 14 year old African American boy born on July 25, 1941. He was born in Chicago, IL at Cook County Public Hospital. Emmet also known as Bobo, grew up in Chicago in a middle class black neighborhood. Chicago isn’t far from Mississippi but it has a huge cultural difference. Money, Mississippi is a very rural and is a lot more conservative and they decided to go there. Chicago on the other hand is very urban and it’s a big city where people are more open-minded. Then, Emmit decided to visit his family in Money, Mississippi and stay down there for the whole summer. “Till used to go to a school at McCosh Elementary School before he headed down for his summer vacation”. “Emmett’s mother took him down to get a train down to Mississippi on August 21st, 1955 after she gave him his father’s ring before she saw him the last time”. “His mother Mamie Till, was a single mother taking care of an only child”. “Emmett never met his father, Mamie got divorced from him in 1942”. Till’s father eventually got executed for “willful misconduct” while he was serving in the war in Italy.

“Emmett stayed with his great uncle, Moses Wright down in Mississippi. He spent some time working in the cotton harvest during that summer”. Then, “on August 24th, Till went with a group of teens some friends and some family to Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Store after working just to hang out and that’s when Tills life took a major turn for the worse”. We don’t know exactly what happened that lead to this incident but there was a woman in the store and he apparently whistled at a woman, touched her hand and waist, and flirted with a white woman named Carolyn Bryant. “Emmett’s cousin described the whistle as being a wolf like and that’s when his cousin realized it was a big problem towards social conduct between blacks and whites”. Carolyn was apparently the cashier at the family owned store but this happened when she was about to leave the store for her brake. One kid said this was a dare from one of the other kids when they spoke in court (Ray Michael). When he got home he never mentioned anything to his parents and just moved on with his business.

A few days later on August 28th, Carolyn’s husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam broke into Till’s uncle’s house at 2:30 AM and took Till while pointing a gun at his head. After they took him out of his house they beat him up and gouged out one of his eyes. Later that day the two white men took Till down to the Tallahatchie River where they shot him in the head which immediately killed him. After Till died the two men tied him up to a large metal fan with barbed wire to dump him into a lake (Ray Michael). This boy was murdered so brutally that they couldn’t make out the person after they found his lifeless body at the bottom of a river. Moses Wright called the police to report a kidnapping soon after he was taken out of the house and they started searching. On August 31st, 1955, Emmett’s body was found eight miles down the river not even recognizable, they find out it was Till after seeing his father’s ring on his finger. A man named Robert Hodges found the victim’s feet sticking out of the stream while he was down fishing. On September 2nd, Till’s body was shipped by train to Chicago where his mother is waiting. This was a big importance to the Civil Rights Movement so Mamie Till decided to have an open casket funeral for five days to show the world what happened to her son. Thousands came to the funeral looking at who once was a 14 year old boy going to school and having the time of his life to now having a brutally destroyed face and body, now not being able to grow into a man or father because of these two horrible men.

The trial of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam started on September 19th, 1955 with the first witness being Moses Wright. The jurors where supposedly an unbiased, all-white, and all-male jury in the 1950’s when the people who committed the crime are white males killing an African American so I simply don’t believe they were unbiased. The other witness called to the stand was an undertaker, a police identification officer, Mamie Till and surprise witness Willie Reed. “Willie had a very specific story stating that at 6 A.M. there was a truck with four white men and three African Americans in the back of the tuck till was taken into” (Professor Douglas O. Linder). These witnesses made it fairly obvious that Bryant and Milam committed murder and abduction crimes. The next set of witnesses were Carolyn Bryant, Sheriff H.C Strider, H.D Malone, and lastly a white physician to convince the jury that they were not guilty. After all they got their chance to speak it was finally the moment people have been waiting for, from the people in the room to people listening to it on the radio to reading it in the paper, the verdict. They stated that the defendant was not guilty of murder and abduction and they go off Scott Free which started a revolution in the Civil Rights Movement. This has left African Americans infuriated and whites were beginning to believe they wouldn’t get in trouble. “African Americans were now boycotting Bryant’s Grocery Store and the boycotts eventually shut down the store before J.W. Milam and Bryant died from cancer. Some other people who testified have since grazed the face of death with many assassination attempts”.

After the trial this changed Mississippi in many ways. “Two months after the verdict, a white man went into a gas station and told the African American cashier that the prices were to high and the man told him that he wouldn’t lower the prices so the white man killed him right on the spot because he didn’t like the price. Later, they had a trial for that but found the defendant not guilty once again which led to 21% of the African American population in Mississippi to leave the state”. About 50 years later “in 2004, they spent three years reopening the case of Emmett Till where not only did they clarify the body but also concluded that the gun used way a .45 Caliber gun”. After they both died the police found some tapes with Milam stating that he killed Emmett and was going to take him to the hospital but his injuries were too severe that he wouldn’t survive so they just killed him and dumped them in the river.

This has been a tragedy for many years and it has been a great impact on Civil Rights and freedom today. If this didn’t happen there would still be murder trials like this going on all around the U. S. And now his casket can be seen among many in a famous museum. When the case was closed in 2007 “Till was put in a new casket and his old one was placed in storage in the Burr Oak cemetery in Alpis, Illinois” (Ray Michael). But recently, “Till’s family has been so gracious enough to give away his casket to The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D. C so you can go see anytime you’d like”. The store is now in ruins, it has been destroyed after it was left alone for many years. They have also a Museum now in Mississippi for Emmett and also an Interpretive Center in Sumner that have photographs and artifacts of Emmett (Douglas O. Linder). Till has also been remembered in many songs and movies. “For example, one of the most famous songs is by Bob Dylan which was written in 1962 to make a turning point in civil rights history”.

I think this incident was devastating for many people around the U.S. I cannot believe someone can be so cruel to another human being, especially when it’s over skin color. People were segregated throughout the Civil Rights Movement from different schools to different water fountains. I’m glad that African Americans embrace and told their story about gaining their rights, I just want everyone to be equal. The human race isn’t defined as color, gender, or sexual preferences we are all unique and it’s amazing to look at the differences and also not be hateful towards it. We used to be a world where everyone was close minded and traditional but the more I look around and hear about what happened in the past I realize that we are slowly opening up our minds to many new things in the world. Being willing to learn new cultures is a very good asset to have for many jobs and opportunities. The world turns every day and as it turns it changes and becomes different every day in a good or bad way. We just learn from our mistakes and move on from there which affects everyone and we can tell how time has changed compared to the 50’s or just any decade really. The diversity of our world should bring us closer together not tear us apart but sooner or later people will learn how to overcome our differences and celebrate for who we our as a society

Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy in 8th grade at the McCosh school, was visiting his cousins in Money, Mississippi during August 1955. He was originally from Chicago, and he lived with his mother. On August 24, he went into a grocery store to buy a pack of bubble gum while in Mississippi. On his way out, he whistled or flirted with the white female store clerk who took great offense to it, and she told her husband, Carolyn Bryant. Four days after this incident, Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Millam, kidnapped Till from his uncle’s home. They then beat him and killed him, shooting him in the head. They also tied him to a large piece of metal with barbed wire and threw him into the Tallahatchie River. His body was found three days after the incident. His face was so badly injured and distorted that the only way the police could identify him was his ring, which was originally his father’s. Eventually, the brothers were charged with the murder of Emmett Till, and, on September 19, 1955, the court case was started. However, the jury was all white, and the brothers were acquitted although there was an overwhelming amount of evidence against them. The deliberation only lasted around an hour, which is extremely short. In January 1956, the brothers admitted that they murdered Till and gave the full story to Look magazine. In the magazine, one of the last things that the brothers tell Till is, “Goddamn you, I’m going to make an example of you – just so everybody can know how me and my folks stand”. The brothers killed Till to send a message, that they did not approve of African-Americans being able to “flirt” with white women. They could not be charged again however because of the double jeopardy laws. Even more recently in a 2007 interview the store clerk told the press that Till never whistled or tried to flirt with her and that she made it up. This interview was later released in 2017. Throughout the history of this murder, many civil rights activists and other members of society spoke out against it, including Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan, who was originally named Robert Allen Zimmerman, was born on May 24, 1941, the same year as Emmett Till. He grew up in Duluth, Minnesota and he always had an interest in music. He began to make a name for himself while performing folk music during college under the name Bob Dylan. He was inspired by the famous folk singer Woody Guthrie, who also sang protest songs. Dylan arguably wrote this song for the same reason Guthrie wrote his songs, to try to draw attention to an unjust cause. He tried to follow in his idol’s footsteps and write a prevalent protest song. During the time that he wrote the song, there were many pressing issues relating to racial justice. One of the most prevalent issues was Brown V. Board of Education in 1954. During this Supreme Court case, the “separate but equal” clause was created stating that facilities could be separate for whites and African Americans if they were equal. However, these facilities were rarely equal with the white facility usually being nicer. In the 1960s, when the song was written, the fight for equal rights in America was becoming more prevalent as Dr. King would give his famous “I Have a Dream” speech about a year after Dylan wrote his song. Later in his career, Dylan said that the main reason he wrote this song was to write about something topical. However, this song still had a positive impact because it was able to shine even greater light on Emmett Till’s murder.

“The Death of Emmett Till” was a very literal song that went straight to the point, that the racial injustice in the south needed to change. He sang this song in the folk genre, which he is most famous for. Dylan uses simple and direct language to speak to his audience to get his point across. In the song, Dylan skips almost no time and begins to describe the story of Emmett Till. He says, “The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till. Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up. They said they had a reason, but I can’t remember what”. Dylan begins by just giving some of the facts of the situation. He also says that the brothers had a reason, but he doesn’t remember. By doing this, he is discrediting the brothers and condemning their “reason.” Soon after, Dylan says, “They tortured him and did some evil things too evil to repeat. There was screaming sounds inside the barn, there was laughing sounds out on the street”. Dylan is commenting on how this situation and murder was acceptable in southern culture. He argues that this murder was even supported by the community. The brothers even admit this, because when the brothers were taking Till to the river, Milliam says, “When we got to that gin, it was daylight, and I was worried for the first time. Somebody might see us and accuse us of stealing the fan’. The brothers were more worried about someone seeing them with the fan than stopping them from getting rid of Till. This shows the reader that this behavior was completely acceptable in southern culture. Later Dylan is talking about the trial of the brother for the killing of Till. He says, “Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till. But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit this awful crime”. Dylan believes that the only reason the brothers were not charged with this crime was that the jury was made up entirely of white men because there was still racial discrimination while picking juries. Although there was enough evidence for a convention, the brothers were acquitted. Dylan decides to end the song by reminding us that “But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could give, We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live”. Dylan tries to remind his audience that the ideology and thoughts that allowed Till’s killers to get away still exist and that we need to fight against them.

Bob Dylan was able to convey the right emotions in his song by singing in as a folk song. The lack of other instruments besides his guitar makes his voice more prevalent and captivating. He sings this song in a somber mood to show that Till’s death was a tragedy and something that should not be taken lightheartedly. He believed that this was a serious topic, and he wanted his song to reflect his opinions. He sang this song with a pain in his voice that almost convinces the listener that he had a personal connection to Emmett Till, although he did not. He sang this song like this so that people would remember it and remember the injustice of the murder of Emmett Till. Overall, Dylan sings this song so that the form fits the function. He sings in a way that the listener remembers, and in a serious mood.

The legacy of this song changes greatly from the time it was written. At first, Bob Dylan was proud of his song. He was proud when he heard it on the radio for the first time in 1962, and said that he was during interviews. This song helped improve his reputation as a folk singer, as he was not very well known at the time. Later, however, he was not proud of how literal the song was and the reasons he wrote it. He also later called his song a “bullshit” song after he released some of his better works. Because of these other works, this song has been overshadowed and it is usually not remembered as Dylan’s greatest songs. Although it is not one of Dylan’s best, it is still remembered as one of the first protest songs that Dylan wrote, and the song did help draw attention to the murder of Emmett Till. Dylan’s song shows his attitude toward racial intolerance and shines a light on one of the most unjust murders and court cases of all time.

In the research project I will be researching about Emmett Till. In This paragraph I will be talking about Emmett Till’s Childhood. Emmett Till was born on July 25 but unlike like most he died when he was only fourteen on August 28, 1955. Till’s nickname was Bobo. He didn’t have a normal childhood either, in fact he had polio at age 5. Luckily he recovered but he still had a slight stutter for the rest of his life. He was born in a middle-class neighborhood, has black owned businesses, in Chicago. Emmett Till’s mother’s name was Mamie Till, who graduated from a predominantly white school and got all A’s. Emmet father’s name was Louis Till who separated from Mrs.Till when Emmett was 1 year old, and died at France away for the military when Emmett was 3 years old. So Emmett never really knew his dad, while his mom was a single parent who worked more than 12 hours of the day at the Air Force.

In this paragraph I will talk about Emmett Till’s reason for being in Mississippi. Emmett Till was known to be responsible, funny, and high spirited. Till attended an All black McCosh Grammar School. His friend, Richard, also agreed that Till was a funny person. His Great Uncle, Moses Wright was visiting them in Chicago when Till begged his mom to go back with him to Money, Mississippi to see his cousins. His mom didn’t really want him to go, and she preferred for him to go with her on a road trip to Omaha, Nebraska. She eventually agreed for him to go with his Uncle Moses. So Till went back with his Uncle to visit his cousin.

In this paragraph I will be explaining what happened to Emmett Till on August 24, 1955 causing him to die on August 28, 1955. While Emmet Till was in Mississippi, him and some other teenagers decided to go to the store for a drink after a long day of cotton picking. While at the store Till was accused of whistling at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman who was a cashier at the grocery store. Four days later Bryant’s husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam kidnapped Till at 2:30am and beat him. Then he was shot in the back of the head, and was tied with barbed wire to a metal fan and shoved into the Tallahatchie River. Three days later his body was found eight miles downstream by a boy named Robert Hodges.

Last this is all about the trial of Emmett Till’s Murder. The two men, Mr.Bryant and Mr. Milam, was arrested on the same day of Till’s murder but was allowed bail for a certain amount of money. On September 19, 1955 their jury selection began. With all the evidence pointing them guilty, they were found not guilty. Later his family had an open casket funeral, and 50,000 people showed up, helping emerge the Civil Rights Movement. Later about 60 years later, older Carolyn Bryant admitted in an interview that she had lied about Till whistling at her because she felt bad for Till’s Mom. I conclude my research project about one of the major reasons that emerged the Civil Rights Movements.

In a time in American history when inequality was the leader of our country and murder and violence were an everyday occurrence, Emmett Till was a fourteen yearold boy who was visiting Mississippi when he allegedly flirted with a white woman and was lynched by two white men who were the woman’s husband and brother-inlaw. This terrible act of blatant racism created an uproar across America that is still relevant today, especially because of the current Black Lives Matter movement and increase in police brutality specifically against young black men. Not only did this heinous act occur, but the two men, even after confessing to the kidnapping and murder, were acquitted of their charges. Till did not live in Mississippi, he lived in Chicago, he was only visiting the south. His mother demanded there be a public funeral for Till in Chicago to force America to look at his mutilated body and send a message about the horrors that racism causes. Thousands of people attended Till’s funeral and the photo of his body was in many black newspapers and magazines.

The kidnapping and murder opened the eyes of society to how inequal blacks and whites really are. In response to the murder, many famous artists and musicians put out works and songs protesting the death and court case. Bob Dylan’s The Death of Emmett Till and Nina Simone’s Mississippi Goddam are both great examples of activist music that protest the death and court case of Emmett Till. Dylan has a more direct approach in his message and Simone addresses inequality as a whole.

Bob Dylan’s The Death of Emmett Till is a musical recounting and reflection of the murder and court case of Emmett Till. Dylan directly addresses his audience multiple times and calls out America for its blatant racism in a very blunt way. The song is very detailed and direct and a good example of this is when he says “The reason that they killed him there And I’m sure it ain’t no lie He was a blackskin boy So he was born to die.” While Dylan sings this in a very poetic way, it is a very obvious message with an extreme meaning. The Death of Emmett Till was one of Dylan’s first songs that he ever wrote so there was no huge reaction to it. Later on in his career, Dylan even went as far as to say it was a “bullshit song” because of it’s lack of songwriting skills (chimesfreedom). However, this song is continuously addressed more and more today than it ever was in the 1960s. Dylan was heavily involved in the civil rightsmovement and wrote multiple songs regarding it. As a black ally, Bob Dylan’s music inspired many Americans, especially white Americans, to not simply stand by and let racism ruin our society. This is explicitly shown in this quote of The Death of Emmett Till when Dylan says “If you can’t speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that’s so unjust Your eyes are filled with dead men’s dirt, your mind is filled with dust…” Also, because he was a prominent white figure in America he helped assist a movement that changed the lives of thousands of people.

Nina Simone’s Mississippi Goddam, while it may not specifically be about Emmett Till as Dylan’s song is, addresses racism in the southern states of the United States. However, this song also thoroughly expresses the same aspect of shock and horror at the violently racist acts occurring in the south that Dylan shows in his song as well. At start of the song, Simone starts listing off her disbelief at certain southern states, which she repeats multiple times throughout the song, when she says “Alabama’s gotten me so upset Tennessee made me lose my rest And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam!” Alabama and Tennessee were both prominent places during the civil rights movement and were home to many civil rights battles that occurred in the 1960s. Mississippi was basically a homebase for hostile whites and the Klu Klux Klan during the civil rights movement and had hundreds of kidnappings and murders like Emmett Till’s. In addition to this, Medgar Evans, a prominent civil rights activist, the president of Regional Council of Negro Leadership, and someone Nina Simone looked up to, was killed in Mississippi right before she wrote Mississippi Goddam. Simone also repeats a lot of the same line in the song. For example she says “They keep on saying, “Go slow!”But that’s just the trouble, do it slow. Washing the windows, do it slow. Picking the cotton, do it slow. You’re just plain rotten, do it slow.” In this quote of the song, Simone is explaining her frustration with white people and how they want change to come slowly and that one day it will come. However, she is repeating the statement over and over again to try and get America to listen and know that black people are being murdered and denied basic civil rights everyday and in the south. She is saying there is no time for any kind of slow change, a change needed to happen immediately. This song was unlike many of Simone’s other songs because she usually did not address political issues like Bob Dylan often does. Even at the premier of this song with a primarily white audience, Simone sang many of her lighter songs before revealing this frustrated song. Also, before performing the song she said “this is a show tune for a show that hasn’t been written yet.” At the beginning of the song, it sounds like a light-hearted show tune that the white audience would enjoy only before the song starts to get more and more angry and the current state of inequality in our country.

Both songs, The Death of Emmett Till and Mississippi Goddam, call out America’s racists and bystanders for the horrific acts happening all over the country to black Americans. They both also have affected society in some type of way through their frustrated tone and specific mentions of very real events happening in America. The tragedy of Emmett Till’s death was one of many terrible events that caused ripple effects through the country and prompted many to speak out and do something about the racism problem in the United States. Bob Dylan and Nina Simone are two advocates for black rights who were brave enough to put out controversial music to a very critical and closed-minded society and that is something to be highly respected and admired. This is especially true in today’s current civil rights movement, the Black Lives Matter movement, because songs and artists like that are what actually open racist minds and can and will change the world.

The murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 brought nationwide attention to the racial violence and injustice prevalent in Mississippi. While visiting his relatives in Mississippi, Till went to the Bryant store with his cousins, and may have whistled at Carolyn Bryant. Her husband, Roy Bryant, and brother-in-law, J.W. Milam, kidnapped and brutally murdered Till, dumping his body in the Tallahatchie River. The newspaper coverage and murder trial galvanized a generation of young African Americans to join the Civil Rights Movement out of fear that such an incident could happen to friends, family, or even themselves. Many interviewees in the Civil Rights History Project remember how this case deeply affected their lives.

Two of Emmett Till’s cousins, Wheeler Parker and Simeon Wright, witnessed Till’s kidnapping on the night of August 28, 1955 at the home of Moses Wright. They both describe their family’s background in Mississippi and Chicago, the incident at Bryant’s store, and the terror they felt when Bryant and Milan entered their home and took Till. Parker describes the funeral in Chicago, which drew thousands of people: “The solemn atmosphere there, you know, it’s just – it’s just unbelievable, I guess you could say. The air was filled with just, I guess, unbelief and how could it happen to a kid? People just felt helpless.”

Two journalists, Moses Newson and Simeon Booker, were assigned to cover the murder for the Tri-State Defender and JET, respectively. Booker attended the funeral with photographer David Jackson, who took the famous image of Till in the coffin. In this joint interview, Booker explains: “JET’s circulation just took off when they ran the picture. They had to reprint, the first time they ever reprinted JET magazine. And there was a lot of interest in that case. And the entire black community was becoming aware of the need to do something about it.” The two journalists also covered the trial and were instrumental in helping to find some key witnesses. Bryant and Milam were acquitted, however, which outraged the African American community nationwide.

African American children and teenagers, particularly those in the South, were shocked by the photographs in JET and the outcome of the trial. Sisters Joyce and Dorie Ladner, who grew up in Mississippi, remember keeping a scrapbook of every article about Till and their fear that their brothers could be killed too. Dorie Ladner was inspired to learn more about the law after Bryant and Milam were acquitted: “That’s where the light bulb went off: Why aren’t they being punished? And that’s when I went on my quest to try to understand the whole legal system and equal rights and justice under the law.” Joyce Ladner discusses how she coined the term, “Emmett Till Generation,” which she uses to describe the African American baby boomers in the South who were inspired by Till’s murder to join a burgeoning movement of mass meetings, sit-ins, and marches to demand their equal treatment under the law.

Cleveland Sellers was 11 years old when he learned about Emmett Till through JET. He remembers, “I was devastated by the fact that Emmett could have been me or any other black kid around that same age. And so, I related to that very quickly. And we had discussions in our class about Emmett Till. I had a cover of the JET, took it to school. Some other students had the same thing. And so, we had rational discussions about it. And, you know, the question comes up: How do you address that? And I think, for us, it was projected out, that that would be our destiny to try to find remedies to a society that would allow that to happen, would condone that, and would actually free those who were responsible for that murder. And I think that that was a way in which we actually got away from revenge and hatred and those kinds of things. We talked about how we were going to use Emmett Till to build on, that we would rectify in our work and in our effort the dastardly tragedy that happened to Emmett Till.”

Many people would agree that the world we live in today is not the best place. For three innocent men, this statement is nothing but the truth. These men are known as Dred Scott, Emmett Till, and Trayvon Martin. Although they may have been accused of different things, they definitely have a lot in common with the similarities of their cases.

In the year of 1846, Dred Scott began the court process. He appealed to a local St. Louis district court in his first trial, but he prevailed in a second trial. The Missouri State Supreme Court’s decision was to overturn the ruling. In 1854, Dred Scott filed another federal case against John Sanford, the brother of the widow Emerson and executor of his properties. Scott couldn’t have done it without the help from local civil rights activists. Scott appealed to the United States Supreme Court when the decision was in favor of Sanford. Eleven years prior to the first suits, the decision of Dred Scott vs. Sandford case was issued in 1857 by The Supreme Court. Out of the nine judges, seven were in favor with the decision of Justice Roger Taney. He declared that in Federal Court, blacks had no rights because they were illegal residents. To grant Dred Scott and his family freedom, Mrs. Emerson remarried and returned them to the Blows family in May of 1857.

Emmett Till was a fourteen year old, African American boy from Chicago, Illinois. In the year of 1955, Emmett Till was accused of flirting with a white woman named Carolyn Bryant, who was a cashier at a grocery store. On August 24th, a few of Emmett’s cousins, friends and himself were waiting outside a country store in Money, Illinois. Emmett claimed that back at home, he had white girlfriend. The African American friends with Emmett, refusing to believe him, dared Emmett to ask the white woman behind the register, on a date. He went inside the store to buy some candy and while walking out, he was heard saying “Bye, baby” to the cashier (History.com Editors 2010). This accusation was unfair because the only witness was the cashier, Carolyn Bryant. When Bryant’s husband, Roy Bryant, returned home from a trip, she told him what Till had said to her a few days prior. Her husband was so infuriated that he and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, went to the home of Till’s great uncle, Mose Wright, and demanded that they see the boy. Despite the pleas from Wright, they forced Emmett into their car. They ended up beating Till in a toolhouse that was close in proximity to Milam’s home, then drove him down to the Tallahatchie River. Three days later, Emmett Till’s corpse was found in the river, but they had beat him so badly that he was unrecognizable. The only way that they could tell that it was him was an initialed ring that he had on (History.com Editors 2010). Authorities wanted to bury the body quickly, but Till’s mother asked that his body be shipped back to Chicago, where he had an open casket funeral. His mother did this to show the world what these racist murderers had done to her innocent son. This was a bold move, but it was her way of bringing attention to the issue of racial profiling to raise awareness and get justice for Emmett.

The case went to trial on September 19th,1955. At this point in time, blacks and women were excluded from having to serve jury duty, Bryant and Milam were convicted in front of an allwhite, all-male jury (Biography.com Editors 2020). As Moses Wright took the stand, he identified Bryant and Milam as kidnappers and murderers of Emmett Till. On September 23rd, Bryant and Milam were found guilty of murder by the jury. Their hearings only last sixty-seven minutes long.

Trayvon Martin was an innocent, seventeen year old, African American teenager. He was born on February 26, 1995 in Miami, Florida. As Trayvon Martin was walking back home from a trip to the grocery store, George Zimmerman, a community watch member monitoring the Retreat townhouse community at Twin Lakes in Sanford, Florida, shot and killed Martin. Zimmerman later admitted that after a physical conflict, he shot the unarmed seventeen year old out of self-defense.

Since Zimmerman, whose father is white and mother is Hispanic, was originally not detained by police, the incident caused an uproar and started national debates concerning racial profiling and self-defense regulations. Zimmerman was then later arrested and charged with second-degree murder. He was cleared of the allegations against him, despite a high profile case that shocked America.

Although these cases may seem different, the underlying issues remained the same throughout each trial. All three of these men were African American men, which showed proof that they were being discriminated against because of their ethnicity. Another similarity is that the pain that Dred Scott, Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin went through, not only scarred them, but also the other victims involved in this situation. These people include close friends and family members of the men that also suffered emotional pain and distress. Although these cases all happened in different time periods, the issue continued throughout the generations. This shows that racial profiling may have started early on in Dred Scott’s days, but even after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, people still continued to discriminate against race. These problems carried onto generations forward like Trayvon’s, and still lives on today.

In conclusion, we as people, have evolved and learned lessons that will hopefully impact more people for the rest of time so nothing like this will happen in the future. This is why it is important for their stories to be told, so their legacies could be carried out by others. They never deserved the terrible things that happened, but if it weren’t for them, we might not have the mindset and equality that we have today. Because of this, all three men will always be an inspiration to people worldwide. With the society that we live in today, there will always people who are racist, which makes the world a bad place, but thanks to Dred, Emmett, and Trayvon, it is definitely more positive.

In Mississippi there is no statute of limitation on the time when one can be arrested for murder. However, it is not permitted to charge the same person for the same crime. What the police force can do is charge the people with a different crime, and try and put them away for as long as possible with that secondary crime. People can reopen any case and look for other suspects and people involved, and can arrest any newly found suspects that haven’t been tried before. The length of time allowed to reopen a criminal investigation is determined by the crime itself. Less severe crimes will have a shorter time, while more severe crimes could be open indefinitely. Many discrimination laws had not been put in place at the time of several racial hate crimes of the civil rights era, including beatings and murders. Many of the criminals walked, without murder charges. However, after new anti-discrimination laws were passed, these perpetrators could then be tried and charged on these discrimination charges instead of the original murder charges.

In the trial, the plaintiff, Emmett Till’s mother, took the case to a criminal court in the hopes to convict the men who brutally murdered her son and send them away to jail. The defense, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, were charged with first-degree murder. Although the jury claims to have due process and grant all rights to all citizens, due to the Southern prejudices at the time, blacks were often shirked of certain rights and whites had biases against them. The jury found the defendants “not guilty” after only 1 hour of discussion and as a result, they were not sentences.

At the time of the Emmett Till case, the statute of limitations in Mississippi was five years (federal court). Since the murder happened while this five year long statute was in place, new discrimination laws that were passed later could not affect the case. It wasn’t until the statute of limitations was changed in 2004 that the case was reopened and attempted to appeal and change the verdict by convicting other people that may have assisted Milam and Bryant in the murder.

The third part concerned the trial of J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, the two men involved in the Emmett Till case. Neither Milam nor Brant was charged guilty for the murder or kidnapping of Emmett. There were several arguments: The sheriff at the time H. C. Strider claimed the body could not be positively identified as Emmett Till. The family argued against the sheriff, and were sure the body was Emmett’s. Milam and Bryant claimed to taking Emmett from his home, but did not admit to murder. The two men weren’t charged on kidnapping anyway. Additionally the jury was made up of entirely white males. Even though African American had the legal right to serve on a jury, none were permitted to serve on the jury for this case.

In 2004 the statute of limitations on murder cases was changed, and the Emmett Till case was reopened. Till’s body was positively identified. Though Milam and Bryant had both died by this point, accomplices working with them in the beating of Till were investigated.There are several possible theories as to what happened the day of the crime.

One theory is that, since Emmett had polio and a stuttered in speech, his father told him to whistle to relieve the tension. It is believed that when he walked into the shop he whistled at Carolyn Bryant, the woman behind the counter, because he was nervous. Another possible theory was that his friends dared his to do it. Emmett at the time claimed he was dating a white woman and his friends didn’t believe him. He claimed he could get any women he wanted. They basically told him if he could get any white women he wanted, then go into the store and hit on that woman. So to prove himself he want into the store and whistled at the women. His mother also claimed he was a jokester and it sounded like something he would have done.

Carolyn Bryant, claims he grabbed her saying things like, “how bout a date baby?” and “I’ve been with a white women before don’t worry.” Bryant ran to her car to get a gun and ordered him to leave, and he proceeded to whistle at her. Finally, some believe he was actually whistling at the checkers game across the street in an attempt to get their attention. There are many different theories about the events of that day, but it will be difficult to know for sure. The only positive thing is that Emmett Till, a young teenager, was brutally beaten to death, in a senseless and cruel crime that would become a catalyst of the civil rights movement.

In conclusion, Emmett Till did not die a hero; he died and was preserved as a martyr, representing the unfair and cruel treatment of African Americans. He symbolized, and continues to symbolize to this day, the black man’s lack of rights under the law in 1960’s America, despite the addition of the 14th Amendment. His murder triggered resistance movements and even more cries for racial equality throughout the country and furthered the civil rights movement in the south. The absence of punishment for his assailants, and for many other white perpetrators who received no punishment under the law, remains a scar in our nation’s history.

Emmett Till was a 14 year old boy who got killed for whistling at a white woman. On August 28, 1955 Emmett was taken from his great- uncle’s house by two white men, Roy Bryant and JW Milam. Emmett Till lived in Chicago, but traveled south to visit relatives in Mississippi. Emmett Till was on a train with his great-uncle Moses Wright. Emmett’s murder sparked the upsurge of resistance and activism which became known as the Civil Rights Movement. Emmett Till was brutally beaten and killed by J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant who later disposed of his body by in a nearby river.

Emmett Louis Till was born on July 25, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois, he was an only child of Mamie and Louis Till. Emmett Till lived with his mother, and never knew his father who was a private in the United States Army during World War II. Emmett’s mother worked long hours for the Air Force as a clerk in charge of secret and confidential files, and still found time to take care of Emmett as a single mother. It was normal for Emmett’s mother to work more than 12 hours a day, so he took on his full share of domestic responsibilities from a very young age. “Emmett had all the house responsibility. I mean everything was really on his shoulders, and Emmett took it upon himself. He told me if I would work, and make the money, he would take care of everything else. He cleaned, and he cooked quite a bit. And he even took over the laundry”, said his mother Mamie Till.

Emmett had arrived in Money, Mississippi on August 21, 1995 with his great-uncle Moses Wright. Three days later on August 24, 1995, Emmett went into Bryant’s Grocery with a group of his friends to buy some refreshments after working in the sun all day. No one will ever know the exact story of what went down in the store that day, but everyone knows that it upset several people. Four days after Emmett and his friends went into the store at approximately at 2:30 in the morning Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam kidnapped Till. They brutally beat Till, dragged him to the bank of the Tallahatchie River, shot him in the head, tied him up with barbed wire to a metal fan, and shoved his body into the water to stay there forever.

Emmett had a pretty good family life. Learned how to take care of himself, and supported his mother while she was working long hours at the office by helping out around the house while she was away. Emmett Till was also very loved amunsted his family. He always listened, and was polite to everyone. He would do almost anything people asked him to do instantly. No one could quite understand why someone would abuse, and kill him like the two men did.

Emmett Till’s death had a very powerful effect on Mississippi Civil Right activist, and the whole countries view on the Civil Rights Movement. For many years people thought that African Americans bodies were not supposed to reemerge, and they certainly weren’t supposed to stir international news. His funeral was in Chicago, and over 100,000 people came to pay their respects to Emmett and his entire family. Emmett Till’s death carried into the 60s. The 60s was known as “the Emmett Till Generation,” though most white people did not see the pictures. 63 years later there are still articles, and people talking about the death of Emmett Till.

By 1955, African Americans across the country, including in the segregated South, had begun the struggle for justice. Emmett Till’s murder was a spark in the upsurge of activism and resistance that became known as the Civil Rights movement. The sight of his brutalized body pushed many who had been content to stay on the sidelines directly into the fight.

Months before Emmett’s death in 1955, two African American activists in Mississippi had been murdered. An NAACP field worker, the Reverend George Lee, was shot and killed at point blank range while driving in his car after trying to vote in Belzoni. A few weeks later in Brookhaven, Lamar Smith was shot and killed in front of the county courthouse — in broad daylight and before witnesses — after casting his ballot. Both were active in black voter registration drives. No one was arrested in connection with either murder.

Emmett Till’s death had a powerful effect on Mississippi Civil Rights activists. Medgar Evers, then an NAACP field officer in Jackson, Mississippi, urged the NAACP national leadership to get involved, and along with NAACP field workers Ruby Hurley and Amzie Moore, conducted a secret search for black witnesses willing to take the serious risk to come forward.

Other local leaders courageously stepped forward after the Till murder. Physician and Civil Rights leader Dr. T. R. M. Howard of the small, all-black Delta town of Mound Bayou was already known in Mississippi for his activism. Howard, whose life had been repeatedly threatened, had armed bodyguards to protect him and his family. During the trial, Howard extended this protection to the black witnesses and to Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley. After they testified, Howard, Medgar Evers and other NAACP officials helped the black witnesses slip out of town.

After Till’murderers, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, were acquitted, Howard boldly and publicly chastised FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover: ‘It’s getting to be a strange thing that the FBI can never seem to work out who is responsible for the killings of Negroes in the South.’ In December 1955, after the national black magazine Ebony reported that Dr. Howard was on the Ku Klux Klan’s death list and that several others on the list had already been killed, Howard sold most of his property in Mound Bayou, packed up his family and relocated to Chicago.

For Dr. Howard and others, the immediate impact of the acquittal of Till’s killers was increased repression in Mississippi. Still, the momentum and mobilization that followed Till’s murder fed the next stage of the movement. One hundred days after Emmett’s death, a black woman, Rosa Parks, refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery city bus and was arrested for violating Alabama’s bus segregation laws. The Women’s Democratic Council, under Jo Ann Robinson, called for a citywide bus boycott and asked a young, 26-year-old minister to help. His name was Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

In 1955, when 14-year-old Emmett Till traveled from his home in Chicago to stay with a great-uncle in Tallahatchie County, Miss., his mother was nervous. Though the world was changing — the Brown v. Board of Education decision had come the year before — the Deep South was still a dangerous place to be black. Till’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, who had grown up in the rural county (a “snake-infested swamp,” as TIME described it that year), warned him of the risks. She told him “to be very careful… to humble himself to the extent of getting down on his knees,” per TIME.

“Living in Chicago,” she explained at the trial of his murderers, “he didn’t know.”

The teenager was abducted at gunpoint from his great-uncle’s home on this day, Aug. 28, 60 years ago, by two white men who accused him of having whistled at a white woman in a grocery store. His body was found in the Tallahatchie River three days later. He had been brutally beaten and shot in the head.

An all-white jury acquitted the defendants (the husband and brother-in-law of the woman who complained about Till), who later confessed to the killing in a raw, unremorseful interview with Look magazine. One said that they had intended only to beat the teen, but decided to kill him when he showed no fear — and refused to grovel.

“Well, what else could we do? He was hopeless,” J.W. Milam, the woman’s brother-in-law, is quoted as saying. “I’m no bully; I never hurt a [n—–] in my life. I like [n—–s] — in their place — I know how to work ’em. But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, [n—–s] are gonna stay in their place.”

Because Milam and his accomplice had already been tried once for Till’s murder, the public confession did not yield more charges. But it provoked national outrage and became as powerful a catalyst in the civil rights movement as Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her bus seat just a few months later. As the Los Angeles Times later put it: “If Rosa Parks showed the potential of defiance, [some historians] say, Emmett Till’s death warned of a bleak future without it.”

Sixty years later, at a time when race relations are once more at the front of the American mind, Till’s name is still invoked as a reminder of the worst consequences of ignoring the problem. Not coincidentally, his story has inspired a resurgence of interest from historians and scholars as well as from TV and movie producers. Jay Z and Will Smith recently announced that they are collaborating on an HBO miniseries about him; Whoopie Goldberg is working on a film called Till, scheduled to begin production next year; and two more films are in the works, based on the book Death Of Innocence: The Story Of The Hate Crime That Changed America and the play The Face of Emmett Till, respectively.