Emmett Till Thesis

He liked to goof around. He was killed because he was black and he supposedly whistled inappropriately at a white woman. Emmett lived in a working class neighborhood with his mom Mamie, and his siblings on the southside of Chicago, Illinois. Emmett's dad died while serving in the U.S army in Italy in 1945.

Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, Illinois 14 years of age was brutally murdered for flirting with a white woman while visiting family in Money, Mississippi. His killers, the white woman’s husband and her brother, made Emmett carry a 75 pound cotton gin fan to the banks of the Tallahatchie River and made him to take off his clothes. The two then beat Emmett nearly to death, took out his eye, shot him in the head, and then threw his body, tied to the cotton gin fan with barbed wire, into the river. August 24, while standing with his cousins and some friends outside a country store in Money, Mississippi Emmett bragged that his girlfriend back home was white. They all disbelieving him and dared Emmett to ask the white woman sitting behind the store counter on a date.

Till’s devastated mother insisted on a public, open casket funeral for her son, which she hoped would shed light on the systemic violence inflicted on blacks in the south. How did this person impact the world during the Civil Rights Movement? “Till's murder is noted as a pivotal catalyst to the next phase of the Civil Rights Movement. Events surrounding Emmett Till's life and death, according to historians, continue to resonate. Some writers have suggested that almost every story about Mississippi returns to Till, or the region in which he died, in

Emmett Till was an African-American boy from Chicago, IL. He was born on July 25, 1941, as Emmett Louis Till. Unfortunately, he passed away at a very young age. At just the age of 14, Emmitt was murdered for reportedly flirting with a white woman on August 28, 1955, in Money, Mississippi. Due to the brutality of the murder, attention was drawn to the mistreatment of African-Americans.

On the day of August 24, 1955, 14 year old Emmett Till was on vacation to Money, Mississippi when he was murdered because he was flirting with a white woman. He was killed by the woman’s husband and her brother. The murderers made him carry a 75 pound cotton gin to the banks of the Tallahatchie River, where he was forced to take off his clothes, and was beaten to death, had an eye gouged out, shot in the head, and then tied to the cotton gin with barbed wire. He was then thrown into the river to die. Till grew up in a working class neighborhood south of Chicago, and he went to a segregated school, but he wasn’t ready for the segregation he would face in Mississippi.

It was reported that, on August 28 of 1955, the men “…eat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, and then threw his body, tied to the cotton-gin fan with barbed wire, into the river” (History.com Staff). What made this incident so horrid was the fact that Till simply made a flirty comment towards the woman, but she proceeded to tell the two men that killed Till that he lustfully touched her. Therefore, Emmett Till’s death was caused by the exaggerated story that the woman created. After the news of the boy’s death spread, his mother decided to hold an open-casket funeral to inform the world of the horrible way that the men disfigured her son. After Emmett’s killers went to trial and were set free, numerous people around the nation were infuriated with the result.

Emmett Till was a young African American male, who was fatally beaten to death for a , now proven, false accusation. On August 21, 1955, Emmett Till went to stay with and visit his family members in Mississippi. Mississippi in the 1950’s was a very segregated state and followed the Jim Crow Laws. After an incident that occurred in the store with a White American woman, Emmett Till was kidnapped and murdered by the woman’s husband and half brother, August 24, 1955. On August 31, 1955, Emmett Till’s body was found beaten to where identification was hard from his mother was hard and a bullet hole in his head.

Emmett Louis Till was brutally murdered after he whistled at a twenty-one year old white woman, named Carolyn Bryant in Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market in Money, Mississippi. When Emmett Till was murdered it became the primary cause that sparked the Civil Rights Movement. The murder of Emmett Till can be viewed as culturally, politically, and socially and can be related to the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the aftermath protests that occurred. On August 24, 1955 Emmett Louis Till was allegedly bragging to his friends that he had relationships with white girls and was dared to flirt with a white woman running into the store.

Thomas revealed that Till was shot and tossed over the Black Bayou Bridge in Glendora, Mississippi, near the Tallahatchie River. The group drove back to Roy Bryant's home in Money, where they reportedly burned Emmett's clothes.(Wikipedia

The murder of Emmett outraged many blacks and sympathetic whites. The outcome of the trial also angered the same people because of the amount of evidence against Roy and Milam. But the most important event was the picture of Emmett taken by David Jackson. Mamie wanted to have an open casket at his funeral. She wanted this to “Let people see what they’ve done to my boy.”

This spread of awareness impacted so many things and affected our own history. Till's case impacted a new growth in the civil rights movement that would never have changed if it wasn't to Emmett Till's story. In an article the text states, ¨Thus, historically Till´s murder opened the eyes of blacks and whites to the vicious side of those who sought to eliminate African Americans from the social fabric of America¨ (Alford 3). Another quote states, "Till´s brutal murder, then, is the true ugliness of American racism, which both electrified and galvanized the black community into the next phase of the civil rights movement¨ (Alford 2). As written before Till's case allowed people to take a serious realization that the stages of hate for African Americans are increasing.

On the morning of August 28th, 1955, the mutilated corpse of teenager Emmett Till was thrown into the Tallahatchie River, after savagely being abducted, tortured, beat, and shot in the head. His murder was because of an accusation that he whistled at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant. She later told her husband and brother-in-law of the incident, which led to their criminal acts. They kidnapped Till and forced him into the back of their car, and dragged him to the Tallahatchie River. They didn’t intend on killing him but decided to do so when Till didn’t suffer while being tortured like they wanted him to.

“Emmett Till and I were about the same age. A week after he was murdered . . . I stood on the corner with a gang of boys, looking at pictures of him in the black newspapers and magazines. In one, he was laughing and happy. In the other, his head was swollen and bashed in, his eyes bulging out of their sockets and his mouth twisted and broken.

It was three days before Till’s body was discovered in the river. When his mother Mamie received his body back in Chicago, she decided to have an open casket. The reasoning for the open casket being so the world can see just how cruel racism is. A fourteen-year-old boy was lynched and justice needed to be served. However, when the trial came, Milam and Bryan were acquitted by an

Emmett Till was a loving, fun fourteen year old boy who grew up on the Southside of Chicago. During 1955, classrooms were segregated yet Till found a way to cope with the changes that was happening in the world. Looking forward to a visit with his cousins, Emmett was ecstatic and was not prepared for the level of segregation that would occur in Money, Mississippi when he arrived. Emmett was a big prankster, but his mother reminded him of his race and the differences that it caused. When Till arrived in Money, he joined in with his family and visited a local neighborhood store for a quick beverage.