Emmett Till did not live a very long life. He was 14 years old when he was killed. He was born July 25, 1941 and died August 28, 1955. Till’s murder was the action that pushed forward the civil rights movement. Born in Chicago, Illinois he was an only child to Louis and Mamie Till He never knew his father, who was a private in the army during World War II. His parents separated in 1942. Three years after that, the family gotten information from the army that Louis Till had been executed for “Willful misconduct” while serving in Italy. On the other hand his mother Mamie, was the fourth black student to graduate from Suburban, Chicago’s mostly white Argo Community High School. She made the “A” honor Roll. Till’s Nickname was Bobo. To others he was viewed as a …show more content…
It wasn’t exactly stated what happened, but Till had made a mistake that caused him his life. After purchasing bubble gum, he either whistled at, or flirted with the cashier. The woman was the wife of the owner. August 28, 4 days later at 2:30 in the morning, Carolyn Bryant husband, Roy and his half-brother went to Till’s uncle home. They knocked on the door looking for Emmett Till. They told his uncle if he wasn’t the right one they would bring him back. They also told his uncle that if he remembered their faces, that they would come after him also. His uncle knew that it would be their last time seeing him, so he called in for a missing child. The two men made Emmett carry a 75-pound cotton-gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River. Once he got there, they ordered him to take off his clothes. They then nearly beat him to death. They gouged out his eye, cut his private part of and put it in his mouth, and then shot him in the head. After that they threw his body, tied to the cotton-gin fan with barbed wire into the river. 3 days after his report of being missing the corpse found his body and pulled it out the river. The only way he was identified was by the ring his mother gave him on his