On July 25, 1941, Mamie and Louis Till had a son, Emmett Louis Till. Emmett’s mother Mamie was from the South, but her family moved to Chicago because of the discrimination faced by African Americans. Mamie was an Honor Roll student and only the fourth black student to graduate from Argo Community High School. Emmett’s father Louis was from Missouri. He was an amateur boxer. On October 14, 1940 Mamie and Louis married, only to separate two years later. Louis Till died when Emmett was only four years old. When his father passed, his mother was given the ring his father was wearing when he died.
In the summer of 1955, Emmett Till was fourteen years old. He wanted to go stay with his family for two weeks in Mississippi, for his summer
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The jury was made up of twelve males, all of them white, because blacks and women were not allowed to serve jury duty. The court room was filled with people. The temperature inside the court room was said to be one hundred and eighteen degrees. The windows were open and the ceiling fans were going inside the court house. During the trial, Sheriff Strider testified, that he believed the body that was pulled out of the Tallahatchie river, could not have been that of Emmett Till. The sheriff stated that he believed that body had been there ten to fifteen days. Too long to be that of the body of Emmett Till. Also at the trial Moses Wright, Tills great Uncle testified for the prosecution. Wright testified that Bryant and Milam came to his home on August 28 and carried his relative off into the night. When asked to identify the two men, Wright arose from his seat very dramatically and pointed his finger directly at Bryant and Milam. Wright told jurors he identified the body pulled from the river as being Emmett Till and that he was "looking right at" the undertaker as he pulled the ring with the inscription "L.T." from one of Till's fingers. Wright, then identified the silver ring in the courtroom. The ring was one of the prosecutions key