Exemplification Essay: The Murder Of Emmett Till

Less than a century ago, a black boy was murdered in Money, Mississippi. The murder began when Mamie Till had reluctantly sent her son to Money, Mississippi for two weeks, on August 20 of the year 1955 (Emmett Till; Linder). Emmett had desperately wanted to go to Mississippi to have fun with his cousins and for three days his wish was fulfilled. Then on the fourth day, Emmett went to town with his cousins and arrived at Bryant's Grocery and Meat for refreshments (Emmett Till). No one witnessed what happened that day when Emmett was alone with Carolyn Bryan, the female clerk for just one minute. After exiting the shop, Emmett whistled at Carolyn, the others knew it was a dangerous violation of the social conduct between black and whites.

Later on in the week Emmett Till was kidnapped at approximately 2:30 in the morning on the twenty-eighth by Roy Bryant, Carolyn Bryant's husband, and John W. Milam (Linder). The disappearance of Till was reported by Moses Wright, then three days later a disfigured body was pulled out of the Tallahatchie River(Emmett; Linder). Moses Wright had been only able to identify the body by the ring it was wearing, it was a ring with the inscribed initials of "L.T", the ring of Mamie Till's deceased husband that was given to Emmett the day before he had left (Emmett Till). The body was shipped backed to Chicago, Bryant and Milam were both tried for murder a few weeks later. The fourteen-year-old boy was murdered for flirting with a white woman. The death of Emmett Till was a trigger for African Americans to fight for their

A rally occurred in New York City on October 11, 1955 protesting the verdict of the trial (Linder). Bryant and Milam's stores were closed or sold within fifteen months after they were boycotted for the business of their shop were exclusively to blacks (Linder). No blacks worked on the Milam farm and Strider's delta plantation, J.W. turned to bootlegging (Linder). During the first four years after the trial over twenty-one percent of the population had moved out of Tallahatchie County. Both national and Mississippi newspapers criticized Sheriff Strider, then in 1957 he barely escaped an assassination (Linder). The death of Emmett Till hadn't just affected the state of Mississippi, it activated many civil rights movements. One was the yearlong Montgomery Bus Boycott that transpired only a hundred days after Emmett Till's death (Emmett Till). Rosa Parks had refused to give up her seat on the bus. Rosa Parks said, "I thought about Emmett Till, and I couldn't go back [to the back of the bus] (Emmett Till)." Emmett Till's death, affected not just himself but many others as well and connected many of them