Emmett Louis Till

I am not a relation and I am not in the habit of creating a memorial for someone I have never met
and could never have met.

But this terrible case really had an effect on me. This happened long before I was born and in
another country but when I came across this in the Mail, I felt compelled to do something.Bless that
poor little boy and eternal shame on all who played a part in his tragic murder.

Below is a copy and paste about the case. I will not add the terrible photographs of little Emmetts
body as they are so disturbing and i feel that if you wish to look them up to see the true horror of
this murder you can do so.

Emmett Till Travels to the Mississippi Delta.
Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was excited about his trip from his home in Chicago's south side to
the Mississippi Delta to visit relatives. Prior to his departure, his mother, Mamie Till Bradley, a
teacher, had done her best to advise him about how to behave when interacting with Southern white
people. Till's mother understood that in Mississippi race relations were a lot different than in
Chicago. In Mississippi, over 500 blacks had been lynched since 1882 and racially motivated murders
were not unfamiliar, especially in the Delta where Till was going. Racial tensions were also on the
rise; the United States Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which ordered
the end of segregation in schools, created dismay throughout many Southern white communities.
Furthermore, the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacy groups began working to maintain life as
they knew it.
With his mother's warning and wearing the ring that had belonged to his deceased father, on August
20, 1955, Emmett Till setoff with his cousin Curtis Jones on the train to Mississippi. When Till and
Jones arrived on August 21, they stayed at the home of Till's great-uncle Mose Wright, just on the
outskirts of Money, Mississippi.


Emmett Till is Kidnapped and Murdered
On August 24, the boys drove Wright's car into the small town of Money and stopped at Bryant's
Grocery store to buy some candy. Prior to entering the store, Till pulled out some pictures of his
white friends in Chicago and showed them to some local boys outside of the store. The boys dared
Till to talk to Carolyn Bryant, the store clerk. Till went into the store, purchased some candy, and
what happened as he was leaving is unclear. Till either said, "Bye, baby" or he whistled at Carolyn
Bryant.
Neither Till nor Jones understood the magnitude of Till's act, so they did not tell Mose Wright what
had happened. They continued to think nothing of the event as three days passed without incident.
However, on the fourth day early Sunday morning, Roy Bryant, Carolyn's husband, and J.W. Milam,
Roy's half-brother, knocked on the door of Wright's home. With a pistol and flashlight in hand, they
asked Mose Wright whether three boys from Chicago were staying with him. Wright led them to the room
where Till was sleeping, and the men told Till to get dressed. Wright unsuccessfully pleaded with
them to just whip Till. As they were leaving, they threatened to kill Wright if he told anyone.

Several hours later, Mamie Till was notified of her son's kidnapping. A search of the area was
conducted, and Mamie Till notified Chicago newspapers of her son's disappearance. Wright told
Money's sheriff who had taken Till, and he arrested Bryant and Milam for kidnapping.


The Mutilation of Emmett Till’s Face
Three days later, Till's body was discovered in the Tallahatchie River. It was weighted down by a
seventy-five pound cotton gin fan, which was tied around Till's neck with barbed wire. His face was
so mutilated that when Wright identified the body, he could only do so based on the ring that Till
was been wearing.
Although Mamie Till experienced difficulty in getting her son's body sent to Chicago, when it
finally arrived she made the decision to have an open casket funeral. Mamie wanted the world to know
what had happened to her son. His right eye was missing, his nose was broken, and there was a hole
in the side of his head. Fifty-thousand people attended the funeral. Jet magazine ran photos of
Till's body; soon Till's murder became an international story.




THE TRIAL OF MILAM AND BRYANT

Meanwhile, Milam and Bryant had garnered support. Whites in their community claimed they were
innocent and supported their defense financially. The trial began on September 19, 1955 in Sumner,
Mississippi. The entire jury was composed of white men from the defendants' home county. At trial
they asserted that the body recovered from the river was not Till's body. Instead, claimed Milam and
Bryant, they had taken Till but had let him go. They alleged that the NAACP and Mamie Till had dug
up a body and claimed that it was Till. According to their defense, Till was hiding out in Chicago.

Finding witnesses was difficult for the prosecution. In the South, it was dangerous for blacks to
testify against any white person, so those who knew anything were reluctant to come forward.
However, white and black reporters and the NAACP were able to find witnesses against the defendants.
Willie Reed testified on the stand in barely a whisper that he had seen Bryant, Milam, and another
man with Till. Further, he testified that he heard screaming coming from the Milam barn. When Milam
came out of the barn with a .45 on his hip, Milam asked Reed if he saw anything, and Reed said no.
Mose Wright had decided from the beginning that he was going to testify. When Wright took the stand,
he testified that Milam and Bryant had taken Till at gunpoint from his home. After Reed and Wright
testified, they were quickly escorted out of Mississippi by the NAACP.

Testimony also came from Mamie Till. She testified that the body she buried was her son, Emmett
Till. Neither Milam nor Bryant testified. The trial lasted five days. In the defense's closing
argument, Milam and Bryant's attorney forewarned the jury about convicting the defendants: "Your
ancestors will turn over in their grave, and I'm sure every last Anglo-Saxon one of you has the
courage to free these men." The jury deliberated for only 67 minutes; according to one juror, it
lasted that long only because they stopped to drink soda. The jury found Milam and Bryant not
guilty. They concluded that the prosecution had failed to prove that the body recovered from the
river was Emmett Till.


Milam and Bryant Confess to Murdering Emmett Till
On January 24, 1956, Look magazine published the confession of Milam and Bryant, who had agreed to
tell their story for $4,000. According to their confession, they beat Till with a .45 in Milam's
barn. They proceeded to take him to the Tallahatchie River where they had him undress and then shot
him. A gin fan was tied around his neck with wire in order to weigh the body down in the river. They
proceeded to burn Till's clothes and shoes.
Justice Never Prevails
Milam and Bryant were never charged with any other crimes relating to Till’s murder. After the
trial, blacks boycotted the Bryants' store, which forced them out of business. Both Milam and Bryant
remained in Mississippi until their deaths; Milam died of cancer in 1980 and Bryant died of cancer
in 1994.

The murder of Emmett Till was a shocking example to the world of the danger, inequality, and
prejudice that blacks often faced in the South. However, Till's murder helped spur the civil rights
movement. It was only one hundred days after Till's death that Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back
of the bus.