Emmet Till

EMMETT TILL

WHO IS EMMETT TILL?:

Emmett Till was born on July 25 1941, in Chicago Illinois. He was the only child of Louis and Mamie Till. He never knew his father who was serving the United States Army during the second world war because his parents separated in 1942 and also because Louis had been executed for ''willful misconduct'' while he was serving in Italy.

Defying the social constraints and discrimination, his mother faced as an African-American woman growing up in the 20s and 30s. She was one of the rare black student to graduate from Suburban Chicago's white Argo Community High School and became a clerk in charge of confidential files for the Air Force.

Emmett went to a thriving, middle-class black neighborhood on Chicago's South Side.

WHAT HAPPEN TO HIM:

In August 1955, Moses Wright, who was the uncle of Emmett came from Mississippi to visit his family in Chicago. At the end of his stay, Moses Wright asked Emmett if he would like to go back with him to see his cousins in Mississipi, at first Till's mother was opposed to the idea but Emmett who was at this time aged of 14 years old, begged her and she finally accepted to let him go.

Three days after they arrived in Money, Mississipi on August 24 1955, Emmett and a group of teenagers went to Bryant's Grocery to buy some refreshments. No ones know what exactly happened that afternoon but some of the kids who were in the store with Emmett report that he flirted and also touched the hand of the white female who used to work there and who was also the owner's wife, Carolyn Bryant.

Four days later on august 28 at 2:30a.m Roy Bryant, Carolyn's husband with his half brother Milam kidnapped Emmett. Then they beat him, they ripped his eyes, dragged him to the bank of the river, shot him in the head, tied him with barbed wire to a large metal fan and threw his body into the water. Three days later, the police pulled his body out of the river. His face was so mutilated that his uncle didn't recognize Emmett but he could identify him by the ring he was wearing, engraved with his father's initials ''L.T".

Mamie Till choose to display the body of her son during five days to show people what they did to her son because she said that she couldn't describe this. During those five days thousands of people came to see how brutal was this crime. The Jet magazine and the Chicago Defender published a picture of Emmett's body which aroused indignation throughout the country as also the fact that blacks or womens were barred of the jury .

During the trial of Bryant and Milam, Moses Wright put his life in danger by identify Bryant and Milam as the kidnappers and the murderers of Emmett, because at this time colored people could be killed for that.

Even if there were many evidence of defendant's guilt the jury acquitted Bryant and Milam of all charges.

Few weeks later in january 1956, they confessed the murder of Emmett Till and had accept to talk about the kidnapping and the murder to Look magazine for 4,000$ because they were protected by the double jeopardy law which say that someone can't

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