Emmett+Till

**The Lynching of Emmett Till**  The lynching of Emmet Till left a huge impact on the civil rights movement in the United States. Till was born on July 25, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois. His parents were Mamie and Louis Till, who later divorced in 1943 (2). One day in 1955, Till went to the town of Money, Mississippi to visit his great uncle, Mose Wright. While he was in Money, Mississippi, he stopped by Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market. When the other African American boys he was with challenged him to "nice talk" with a white girl in the store, he took the challenge and did spoke with her. As he left the store, it is said that he whistled at the white woman worker, Carolyn Bryant behind the counter and said, “Bye, baby.” When Bryant’s husband found out about the insignificant flirtatious goodbye the boy made, he and his half brother J.W. Milam, went on a search to find the boy. On August 28, 1955, they found Emmet Till at his uncles house and kidnapped him. They wanted to “teach him a lesson” for being disrespectful to Bryant's wife. The two men brutally beat Till to death after gouging out one of his eyes. Emmet Till was later found by officials in the Tallahatchee River where Bryant and Milam allegedly dumped Till’s body. Both Bryant and Milam were accused of murder and kidnapping Emmet Till. Till’s murder became nationally known. His story was seen in many newspapers, magazines, radio reports, and t.v. news. It was said that thousands of people attended Till’s funeral because of all of the national attention his story got (1). Till’s mother left her son's casket open with the hope that her son did not die in vain. Her son did not die in vain. Her son’s nationally known brutal story left an impact on the nation. In just a year and a half later in the U.S. Supreme court's Brown V. Board of Education, they decided to outlaw segregation in all public schools and threatened the South’s harsh perspective on the color line. Till’s story rose awareness for civil rights for colored people across the United States.

Emmett Till and his loving mother.



The thousands of people showing up at Till's funeral.

media type="youtube" key="BL1vMFwZEus" height="315" width="420" First part of a documentary on the lynching of Emmett Till

[|1] [|2]