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Remembering Emmett Till

Amanda Bird
Reference Librarian

Today is the 52nd anniversary of Emmett Till’s brutal murder deep in the Mississippi Delta. Although many stories from the Jim Crow era are horrifying, it is the haunting images of Emmett that chilled me to the bone and forever influenced my views on hatred, racism, and the American Civil Rights Movement.

On August 28, 1955, a fourteen-year-old African-American boy named Emmett Till was beaten and murdered by two white men in Money, Mississippi. Emmett, a native of Chicago was visiting family when he allegedly whistled at a white woman in a convenience store. Within days, the woman’s husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam decided they would “teach the boy a lesson.” The two men kidnapped Emmett from his great uncle’s house in the middle of the night and drove him to a plantation shed where he was savagely beaten and shot in the head. After tying a large metal fan to Emmett’s neck and securing it with barbed wire, the two men threw his lifeless body into the Tallahatchie River. Within hours, the brothers were arrested on kidnapping charges in connection with Emmett’s disappearance. When Emmett’s body was found three days later, his father’s ring was the only distinguishable feature. Emmett’s funeral gained national attention when his mother, Mamie Till, bravely decided to have an open casket viewing. Mamie wanted the world to see the horror of hatred and racism. Ten thousand people viewed Emmett’s horribly disfigured body and photographs printed in Jet Magazine among other publications shocked and outraged people throughout America. On the day of Emmett’s burial, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were indicted for the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till. The trial became a major media event as civil rights leaders, members of the NAACP, and journalists from as far away as London gathered to demand justice. If the state of Mississippi felt any pressure at all, it did not last. An all white jury acquitted the brothers in less than 67 minutes of deliberation after a five-day trial. The hasty acquittal sparked outrage in both black and white communities and proved to be the last straw for those involved in the civil rights movement. Less than 100 days after Emmett’s death, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus and the Montgomery bus boycott began. Although many people associate the birth of the civil rights movement with Rosa Parks, it is undoubtedly Emmett Till’s death that became the catalyst for the civil rights movement to begin. If you would like to know more about Emmett’s fascinating story, please visit the Hickory Public Library and look for the following titles:

Getting Away With Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case by Chris Crowe **** A Jane Addams Honor Book

364.15 CRO

Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America by Mamie Till-Mobley

364.134 TIL

A Wreath for Emmett Till by Marilyn Nelson; illustrated by Philippe Lardy

**** Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor

811.54 NEL

The Murder of Emmett Till (VHS)

364 MUR

The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till (DVD)

323.1196 UNT