Who Killed Emmett Till Sparknotes

How did the death of Emmett TIll sparked the change of the Civil Rights Movement?. 14 year old boy Emmett Till whistled at a white casher and for a consequence he wa brutally beaten and murdered. The death of Emmett Till sparked the change of the Civil Rights Movement by making the world realize that all the lynching and all the killings that were happening in the South. The murder of Emmett

“I say to you, gentlemen, your forefathers will absolutely turn over in their graves if you don’t set these boys loose. ”(191)These were the last words spoken to the Jury during the trial of the Murder of Emmett Till as told in Chris Crowe’s, Mississippi Trial, 1955. How could the prosecution have lost in a case so black and white? The only thing I can think of that would cause the Jury to acquit the defendants is a lapse in judgement. The prosecution should have won because the defense lacked in evidence, they had eyewitness accounts, and Bryant and Milam confessed.

Roy and his brother were put on trial again but wasn’t convicted because of the double-jeopardy law. Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, on August 24, 1955, when he reportedly flirted with a white cashier at a grocery store. A few days later, two white men kidnapped till, beat him and shot him in the head. The men were tried for murder, but an all-white jury acquitted them.

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.

Although there are doubts about who was involved in Emmett Till’s death, the only perpetrators that were tried in court were Roy Bryant, and J.W Milam (Anderson). August 28, 1955 was the day Till was kidnapped and murdered (Emmett Till Biography). Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam went in Mose Wright`s house and demanded the Chicago nigger (Linder).Till was wake up out of his sleep to be dragged to the back of a pickup truck (Linder). He was shot in the right ear, beat with a 45. Colt, and had a gin fan wrapped around his neck with barbed wire (Huie).

One of Emmet’s cousins Simeon Wright was a key witness and decided to testify. He confirmed the events that happen on August, 24th. He said “J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant died with Emmett Till's blood on their hands… And it looks like everyone else who was involved is going to do the same. They had a chance to come clean.

On August 24th, 1955, Emmett Till came from Chicago, to visit relatives in Money, Mississippi. He and a group of teenagers went to Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market. Till was allegedly accused of flirting and whistling at Carolyn Bryant, the wife of the owner of the store. “Four days later, at approximately 2:30 a.m. on August

Milam were tried for murder. At that time white women and African Americans couldn't serve as jurors. Bryant and Milam were tried in front of an all white male jury. In an surprising act of bravery Moses Wright (Emmett's uncle) took the stand and accused Milam and Bryant of murder and kidnapping which was unheard of since it was very unusual for African Americans to accuse whites during court. Moses Wright put his life in incredible danger when he when he did this.

In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, the author, Harper Lee, uses the character of Tom Robinson to give her insight on the recent crime of Emmett Till. The trial was a very controversial case in the 1950s, involving the brutal murder of a young black boy, in racist Mississippi. In the real-life case, there is a woman named Carolyn Bryant who accuses Till of cat-calling and using vulgar language. However, Till was innocent, yet received punishment. Lee also recreated the persona of Carolyn into Mayella Ewell, who is the women that accuses Tom Robinson of raping her.

This was, even more, the case because Emmett’s mother had an open casket funeral and the picture of his remains was in newspapers. This is a clear case of racism because even if Emmett Till whistled at Carolyn Bryant he was only a 14-year-old boy and didn’t deserve the brutal death he was given or death at all. Moreover, in 2017, Carolyn Bryan admitted she lied and Till didn’t do anything she accused him of doing. She had testified “that Emmett had grabbed her hand, she pulled away, and he followed her behind the counter, clasped her waist, and, using vulgar language, told her that he had been with white women before.” So, in the end, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy, was killed for a “crime” he didn’t

Manslaughter is defined as “a homicide committed without intent, although there may have been an intention to cause harm” (CBC News). Although Carolyn Bryant may not have had the end goal of Emmett ending up dead, she knew exactly what she was doing to explode the situation. Black Americans face discrimination daily, but in the 1950’s it was to the extent that if a white person were to come out saying a black person had caused them harm in any way, there inevitably would be a terrible ending. Ms. Bryant had prejudices and these prejudices caused her to wish harm against the people whom she had these judgments against. It just so happened to be that Emmett Till was the person she decided to inflict pain onto, and any type of inflicted pain should come with discipline and consequences.

This accusation caused Emmett Till his life. Roy Bryant and Milam Bryant kidnapped Till and brutually killed him. While this case is extremely heart wrenching, it gets even worse. Carolyn Bryant in 2007 admitted that the alleged whistling was not true. In “New Insights on Emmett Till,” article one quotes Bryant saying, “That part is not true,” (Weller, 2.)

“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.

Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was murdered in cold blood on August 28, 1955, after he was accused of flirting with a white married proprietor of a small grocery store. What Till was accused of violating the code of conduct for an African American male in the south. After the event Roy Bryant, husband of the woman from the grocery store, and J.W. Milam, his half-brother, kidnapped Emmett Till from his home. The fourteen-year-old was beaten, maimed, and shot him in the head before drowning his body in the nearby river.

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.