Emmett Till was a 14-year-old boy from Chicago visiting his cousins in Money, Mississippi. On August 24, 1955 Till allegedly whistled at/flirted with Carolyn Bryant, the white cashier at a grocery store. Four days later Roy Bryant, Carolyn’s husband, and his half brother J.W. Milam kidnapped Till in the middle of the night.They beat him, shot him in the head, tied his body to a heavy metal fan with barbed wire, and shoved his remains into the Tallahatchie River. Moses Wright, Till’s uncle, reported the abduction and 3 days later Till’s body, severely mutilated and unrecognizable, was pulled from the river.
Till’s body, mutilated beyond recognition, was brought home to Chicago where his mother elected to have an open casket funeral, with her son’s body on display for five days. In addition, two Black publications printed graphic images of Till’s body, sparking national outrage. Thousands of people came to see the result of a hate crime against a young boy and to pay their respects. Mamie Till felt that she had to “let the world see what has happened, because there is no way I could describe this. And I needed somebody to help me tell what it was like.”
"With his body water-soaked and defaced, most people would have kept the casket covered. [His mother] let the body be exposed. More than 100,000 people saw his body lying in that casket here in Chicago. That must have been at that time the largest single civil rights demonstration in American history."
— Jesse Jackson
After a four day trial and 67 minutes of deliberation, an all-white, all-male jury found Bryant and Milam not-guilty despite overwhelming evidence against them. This includes being identified in court by Moses Wright, Emmett’s uncle, in an extreme act of bravery and at great risk to his own life. Four months later the brothers gave an interview for $4,000, in which the admitted to and described the murder, secure in the knowledge that they could not be prosecuted twice for the same crime under the double jeopardy rule. Carolyn Bryant Donaham admitted in a 2007 interview that she had lied about Till making advances on her all those years ago, allowing the case to reopen in 2018.
Emmett Till’s death is widely regarded as one of the main catalysts for the 20th century Civil Rights Movement.
"People really didn't know that things this horrible could take place. And the fact that it happened to a child, that make all the difference in the world."
- Mamie Till
(from an interview with Devery S. Anderson, author of Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement, in December 1996)
Today we are overwhelmed with the images and videos of Black People being murdered, to the point that many have become desensitized. We know who killed Breonna Taylor, just like we know who killed Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and Elijah McClain. While today we remember the murder of a young boy which forever changed our country, we must also recognize that unarmed Black men, women, and children are still being killed, while their murderers walk free.
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