Murder of Emmett Louis Till

From blackwiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was a fourteen-year-old African American who had been lynched in Mississippi in 1955, convicted of offending a white woman in her family's grocery store. The cruelty of his assassination and the fact that his assassins had been absolved drew attention to the long history of racist repression of African Americans in the United States. Till has posthumously become a symbol of the civil rights movement. [1]

How Till Was Murdered

Emmett Louis Till

Till grew up in a middle-class neighbourhood on the south side of Chicago. His mother cautioned him to take care of his race, but Emmett loved pulling pranks.

On August 24, while standing outside a country store in Money with his cousins and friends, Emmett bragged that his girlfriend back home was blonde. Emmett's African American companions, disbelieving him, dared Emmett to ask for a date for the white woman seated behind the shop counter.

He went in, bought some candy, and on the way out, he heard the woman say, "Bye, baby." There were no witnesses in the shop, but Carolyn Bryant—the woman behind the counter—later reported that he had seized her, made sexual advances, and wolf-whistled her as he sauntered. [2]

On August 28, 1955, around 2:30 a.m., Roy Bryant, the husband of Carolyn, and his half brother, J. W. Milam abducted Emmett Till from the house of Moses Wright. They would later explain violently attacking him, dragging him to the side of the Tallahatchie Canal, shooting him in the head, fastening a huge metal fan used to gin cotton to his neck with barbed wire, and throwing his body into the river. On August 29, 1955, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant were arrested on charges of abduction in LeFlore County in connection with the disappearance of Till. They were being jailed in Greenwood, Mississippi, and held without a bond.

Three days later, the decomposed body of Emmett Till was taken out of the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi. Moses Wright identified the ring body with the initials L.T. [3]

Racial Bias in Policing

In August 2020, it was already 65 years after the broken and swollen body of the 14-year-old Till was trapped in the muddy waters of the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi. His capture, torture and assassination on 28 August 1955 for whistles against a white woman was a seminal moment in American post-war culture. Till is also the focus of a new, raging fight for the truth for the Till’s family. Not a single person has been found responsible for the death of a teenager in all those 65 years. Not a day has been wasted in prison or a cent paid in compensation.

In the first trial ever to be held since Emmett's body was pulled from the water, the two white men who later admitted to killing him were acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury and lived the remainder of their lives in freedom. Two white men confessed to the murder: Roy Bryant, the husband of Carolyn Bryant, and his half-brother, JW Milam. Both men are deceased, just as all other people are closely related to the circumstances leading up to the shooting. With one exception: Carolyn Bryant, and still she is considered to be in ill health.[4]

The jury announced a verdict of "not guilty" on the basis that the state failed to prove the identity of the body. Later, Carolyn Bryant also admitted to lying about what had transpired in the supermarket, saying that Emmett had not touched or abused her.[5] In 2017, Tim Tyson, author of The Blood of Emmett Till, announced that Carolyn Bryant had recanted her testimony, acknowledging that Till had never touched, intimidated or harassed her. "Nothing that boy could ever justify what had happened to him," she said. [6]

Reference

  1. Emmett Till. Wikipedia. Retrieved on Feb 1, 2021.
  2. History.com Editors. Emmett Till is murdered. August 28, 2020. history.com. Retrieved on Feb 1, 2021.
  3. The Murder of Emmett Till. pbs.org. Retrieved on Feb 1, 2021.
  4. Pilkington, Ed. Will justice finally be done for Emmett Till? Family hope a 65-year wait may soon be over. Apr 25, 2020. theguardian.com. Retrieved on Feb 1, 2021.
  5. Emmett Louis Till. echotheatercollective.org. Retrieved on Feb 1, 2021.
  6. History.com Editors. Emmett Till is murdered. August 28, 2020. history.com. Retrieved on Feb 1, 2021.