From 1955-1958 African Americans all throughout America pushed for their civil rights. An extremely famous event that sparked African Americans to stand up for their rights was the Emmett Till Murder on August 28, 1955. This tragic murder gave blacks courage and strength to stand up for their rights. Emmett Till became a national icon for African Americans, and gave them the voice they needed to speak up.
Emmett Till was a 14-year-old black boy who was brutally murdered for whistling at a white woman. 14-year-old Emmett left his native city of Chicago to visit his cousins down in Mississippi for a while. They boys one day decided to go to a candy store to buy some bubble gum. Roy Bryant ran this store, but Roy was out of town so he had left his wife, Carolyn, in charge. Whilst in the store Emmett whistled at Carolyn because he found her attractive. When Carolyn saw this African American boy whistle at her she got upset, and chased Emmett out of the store and went to her car to grab something presumably a gun. While at her car Emmett and his cousins ran and got away.
Just two days after Emmett Till whistled at Carolyn Bryant, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam exacted their revenge. In the middle of the night of August 28th Bryant and Milam barged into Emmett’s home pushed past his grandparents and took him from his bed to the Tallahatchie River. Once at the river, Emmett was beaten brutally and would of been beaten to death, but one of the kidnappers picked up his wallet and saw a picture of a white girl, which was his girlfriend. Seeing a black boy having a picture of a white girl enraged him and he shot Emmett in the head. After shooting Emmett, Roy and Milam tied one end of the barbwire around Emmett’s neck, and the other end around a 60-pound cotton gin wheel. While in the river the water and fish horribly disfigured his face and body. They threw Emmett and the gin wheel into the river so Emmett’s body would not be seen again.
The trial was held September 6th, 1955 in Sumner, Mississippi, where the murder happened. Press came from Chicago to report on this, but any black press people were segregated into a separate part of the courtroom. Prosecutor Gerald Chatham was assigned to prove that Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam murdered Emmett Till. Emmett’s grandfather was an eyewitness of the kidnapping, as Emmett was staying at their house, and the murders even admitted later in the trial to kidnapping Emmett. Emmett’s body was found a few days later, dead in the river after the kidnapping. But the sheriff of the police made a remark saying that this was not Emmett’s body because he was too big to be a boy, the body was as white as he was, and said that Emmett was still alive. The only way they could tell it was Emmett was the ring on his finger. Even though all the evidence was pointing to Roy and Milam murdering Emmett Till, the jury found them not guilty. But it was rigged from the start as the jury was all white and it was said that the town’s people did not want to send Roy and Milam to jail.
On September 6th, 1955, the same day the trial happened for the murder of Emmett Till, the funeral for Emmett Till happened. Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till, wanted an open casket funeral to show to the world what those men in Mississippi have done to her child. 3,000 people came to see the body of the brutally beaten child. It shocked people seeing how badly he looked. It did not come across to people at the time how racist, and horribly blacks in the south were treated. This funeral was inspiration for many black people to stand up to white oppression, and many people sent letters to the district attorney stating how terrible Till’s murder was. Some people said you could smell the body from 3 blocks away. The body was finally laid to rest in peace in Chicago, where Emmett was born as a reminder of what happened and a memorial to this murder turned national icon.
Only two days after the murder of Emmett Till, Hundreds of letters were being sent to the District Attorney’s office, and even more were sent after the open casket funeral and the atrocity of a court case. These letters were either stating how terrible of a crime Emmett’s death was, or how Emmett deserved everything he received. Many of the letters wanting justice for Till were from angry citizens. These letters talked about how the court didn’t do justice to Emmett, that this event shall forever shame Mississippi and America, and these letters also frequently called for the FBI to get on the Till murder case. On the other hand some of the letters stated “ A Job Well Done” or “Kill Them Rats” regarding that Emmett deserved what he got, and that he should of never whistled at Carolyn. These terrible letters told about how African-Americans don’t belong, and how we should kill all of them or die ourselves.
50 years later this kind of horrible injustice still exists in America. Just three years ago in California Trayvon Martin was shot and killed. After receiving a ten-day suspension from his high school Trayvon went to visit his dad in Stanford California. Martin was walking home with a bag of Skittles and Arizona iced tea. George Zimmerman saw him and reported him as a suspicious character to 911. 911 instructed him not to follow Martin or get out of his car but he did. Then George shot Martin and killed him. This has many similarities to the Emmett Till case. In both cases an innocent black boy died, the perpetrators never had justice exacted on them, both killers were found to be racist, and both deaths became national icons. Many people say Trayvon Martin’s death could become the next Emmett Till case. This may just become true.