Emmett Till Essay Thesis

African Americans were freed from slavery in 1865 and were granted civil rights in 1875. However, In the 1950s and 60s African Americans were restricted under Jim Crow laws, these laws segregated African Americans into “Separate but Equal” facilities and prohibited them from doing things we do normally today. On August 28th, 1955 a young African American boy was kidnapped, tortured and murdered for allegedly whistling at a Caucasian store owner. This young boy was known as Emmett Louis “Bobo” Till. Emmett Till’s murder outraged the African American community and aided the push for desegregation and equality amongst all Americans regardless of race on a national level. As tragic as his murder was, Emmett Till became an important symbol during the Civil Rights Movement. Emmett Till’s death came only one year after the Supreme Court ruled on the Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregation in schools at state level. For the very first time, African American’s had the law on their side but still struggled for full equality. Emmett Till’s mother, not wanting her son’s murder to go unheard, allowed for the media to pick up Emmett’s story and it spread across the nation. People across the United States were shocked at the cruelty of Till’s senseless murder. This allowed late Emmett Till to become an iconic figure in

Though, we can report the huge impact his death had on the memory of the hugest civil rights activist during that time. His death “Inspired Rosa Parks, the ‘Mother of the Civil Rights Movement,’ to challenge discrimination in Montgomery on 1 December 1955, a couple of months after” (The Legacy of Emmett Till). His demise also “empowered numerous young black leaders in the 1950s and 1960s forward – Eldridge Cleaver, Anne Moody, Joyce Ladner, Sam Block, and Muhammad