An Ordinary Child
Emmett Till was an average fourteen-year-old boy from the south side of Chicago, Illinois. He lived with his mother, Mamie Bradley Till, in a working-class neighborhood. In the summer of 1955, Emmett went to visit relatives in Leflore County, Mississippi.
Although Till attended a segregated school back in Chicago, he was not informed of the harsh segregation rules that were in effect. Specifically, he was unaware that black males were not to associate with white females in any way.
An Innocent Dare
While visiting Mississippi, Till and his friends drove to Bryant’s Grocery Store and Meat Market, a country store. Till was dared by his friends to flirt with the shopkeeper, a twenty-one-year-old white female named Carolyn Bryant. Till gladly accepted the challenge, and before he left, Till whistled at Bryant and sweetly said, “Bye Baby.”
A Tragic Loss
Bryant’s husband
heard about the encounter later that night, and needless to say, he was
infuriated. That same night, Bryant’s husband Roy, and his brother-in-law J.W.
Milam kidnapped Till from his bed and drove to the Tallahatchie Rive
r
where they mercilessly tortured him and shot him in the end. They tied barbed
wire around his neck, and dumped his naked body into the river. His body sunk
to the bottom since it had been weighed down by a cotton-gin fan, but three days
later, his body was recovered, and the trial began.
A Bias Verdict
The jury consisted only of white men who listened diligently for the five-day-long trial. After only an hour and seven minutes in deliberation, the jury returned with their “not guilty” verdict. While Till's mother grieved the death of her beloved son, the murderers went about their lives as if nothing had ever happened.
Emmett Till’s untimely and tragic death was just one of the many incidents that occurred in the South during the Civil Rights Movement era. Sadly, many blacks who were ruthlessly murdered never found justice. Their deaths were either classified as “accidents” or the murderers would be found “not guilty.”
