Research Assignment #3
Emmett Till: The murder that shocked the world and propelled the Civil Rights Movement, is an interesting account of a brutal murder in Money Mississippi in 1955. The author compiled several documents that had been previously unavailable to the public, interviews with family members, and newspaper articles to tell the story of a fourteen year old African American boys life and death. Emmett Till was raised by a single mother and his grandmother in Chicago.1 The author gives a very detailed account of not only Emmetts short life but of his mothers life shortlyt before Emmetts birth until after his death. Emmett and his mother were victims of racial prejuidices and voilence. In july of 1955, Emmett turned fourteen, he was five feet and three
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In August 1955, Emmett went down south to Money, Mississippi to visit family for the first time since he was nine years old. His mama tried to remind him of the different laws for blacks in the South but like most teenage boys, it went in one ear and out the other. A few days into his visit, Emmett entered the general store and innocently flirted with the clerk,Carolyn Bryant. A few days later two male members of the clerk's family kidnapped Emmett from his uncle house. They beat him, gouged out his eye, tied him to a cotton gin fan with barb wire and then threw him into the Tallahatchie river. The men accused of this murder were found not guilty by an all white jury but later told a Look Magazine that they did commit the crime. This murder is believed by some to be what fuel the flames of the Civil Rights movement. Emmetts mother insisted on an open casket service so that everyone could see what had be done to her son. People began to see more clearly the brutallity of Jim Crow laws in the South and they