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The Reason For Emmett Till's Murder

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“Have you ever sent a loved son on vacation and had him returned to you in a pine box, so horribly battered and water logged that someone needs to tell you this sickening sight is your son lynched?” Mamie Till knows what this feels like because that is what happened to her after her son, Emmett Till, was murdered on August 28, 1955. The reason for Emmett Till's death is because he “wolf whistled” at a white female named Carolyn Bryant. Emmett Till was a fourteen year old boy who, after his death, helped fight racism during the civil rights movement. His death made a huge impact to not only his family, but to others around the United States. The murder of Emmett Till was unjustified because he didn't hurt anyone, he was murdered because of his …show more content…

Once he leaves the store, a white woman named Carolyn Bryant also leaves the store. As Carolyn Bryant was walking to her car, Emmett Till “wolf whistles” at her, which ultimately caused his death. They quickly left the area. On a Sunday morning a man named Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, who had a pistol in one hand and a flash light in the other, approaches Moses Wright's home. Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam say they want the boy from Chicago that “has done all the talk.” Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam searched the house and took Emmett Till. Emmett was taken to Sheridon's Plantation where he was beaten and murdered. Emmett Till's body was found three days later in the Tallahatchie River attached to a 70 – pound cotton gin fan with barbed wire. “...We found the body, which didn't have any clothes on at all. The body was so badly damaged that we could hardly just tell who it was, but he happened to have on a ring with his initials, which let it up,” says Moses Wright. Emmett's tongue was cut out and pushed back in, one of his eye's were lying on his cheek, his other eye was gone, his nose was chopped up, he only had two teeth, one of his ears were missing, there was a hole that reached from one side of his head to the other because of being shot, and the front and back of his head was slightly separated due to being hit with an

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Emmett Till was born July 25, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois and was killed August 28, 1955 in Money, Mississippi at the age of 14. He suffered serious consequences for telling a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, “Bye Baby” leaving out of a local corner store. Several days later Emmett was taken from his home by Bryant’s husband Roy and his half-brother J. W. Milam, they beat and mutilated him before shooting him and sinking his body in the Tallahatchie River. Till’s body was

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Reed the son of a nearby sharecropper, testified that he heard sounds of beating and cries of help. Afterwards three white men loaded something wrapped in a tarp onto a pickup truck. At this point no one knew if Emmett was still alive. Bryant and Milam then took Emmett to the Tallahatchie River and made him strip. When Milam noticed Emmett did not seem regretful he decided to shoot Emmett.

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Emmett Till, a 14 year old boy, who was brutally beaten and murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Emmett was visiting relatives in, Money, Mississippi. Emmett and his friends went to a small store, where Emmett met a white woman, that worked as a cashier in the store. His friends may have dared him to ask the cashier out. Emmett accepted, he went in asked her, but since he had polio, it caused him to have a slight stuttered, other than that he was taught to whistle before he said a hard word, which caused him to have a hard time to talk or speak.

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The next eyewitness was Willie Read, a farm hand at Bryant's farm. He testified that he, "...heard someone getting licked pretty good inside there, and lots of crying"(180). This shows that even if Bryant and Milam didn’t kill Till, they knew who did. The prosecution also had the testimony of the undertaker that got Emmett's body out of the river. The undertaker said, "...his head was beaten up pretty bad, so it'd a been hard to tell right off who it was no matter what..."(174)

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Carolyn Bryant had accused Emmett Till a black, 14 year old boy from Chicago, of assaulting her. During the time of Emmett Till’s death many southern white men and women felt that Till had deserved his death because he was a black northern boy who shouldn’t have put his hands on a white women or whistle at her. But to African Americans, Emmitt Till’s death was unjust and triggered the Civil Rights Movement, Because of Emmett Till’s death and his mother Mammie Till’s courage to show his disfigured face in an open casket open to the world, Emmett Till was known known all around the world which showed how bad southern racism was. Even though there was no questioning who killed Emmett Till a white jury acquitted Roy and Milam

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Emmett Till was a loving, fun fourteen year old boy who grew up on the Southside of Chicago. During 1955, classrooms were segregated yet Till found a way to cope with the changes that was happening in the world. Looking forward to a visit with his cousins, Emmett was ecstatic and was not prepared for the level of segregation that would occur in Money, Mississippi when he arrived. Emmett was a big prankster, but his mother reminded him of his race and the differences that it caused. When Till arrived in Money, he joined in with his family and visited a local neighborhood store for a quick beverage.

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367 Words | 2 Pages

In this PBS documentary, The murder of Emmett Till, Stan Nelson illustrates a racial hardship and crime against the African-American community. Lynching is a mob of Caucasian people that hang in African-American in a public place to show white supremacy. Emmett Tills murder trial was completely tried in a completely biased courtroom and there was even circumstantial evidence which places JW Millam and Roy Bryant kidnapping young Emmett Till, whose body was later found. I believe that in this murder and trial we see truly how far hatred and racism can rise by just one simple act. The murder of Emmett Till caused an uprise in the civil rights movement.

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Emmett Louis Till was a fourteen-year-old African American boy from Chicago. In August 1955 white women falsely claimed that Emmett till cat whistled at her in Money, Mississippi. Emmett Till did not know that he had broken the unwritten Jim Crow laws. Three days later, Emmett Till was pulled out of his bed in the middle of the night and was beaten and shot by two white men. Due to the gruesomeness of Emmett Till's murder and the way he was killed his mother demanded an open burial and an open casket.

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Emmett Till was not just murdered, he was tortured, beat up, strangled, and drowned in a lake. This was beyond the level of murder. It was a heartless act committed by people without

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Although there are doubts about who was involved in Emmett Till’s death, the only perpetrators that were tried in court were Roy Bryant, and J.W Milam (Anderson). August 28, 1955 was the day Till was kidnapped and murdered (Emmett Till Biography). Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam went in Mose Wright`s house and demanded the Chicago nigger (Linder).Till was wake up out of his sleep to be dragged to the back of a pickup truck (Linder). He was shot in the right ear, beat with a 45. Colt, and had a gin fan wrapped around his neck with barbed wire (Huie).

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The unfortunate events leading up to Emmett Louis Till’s death and unfair trial were for one reason only- he was black. “The word is some nigra boy from Chicago made ugly remarks and then whistled to Miz Bryant.’ The deputy chuckled. ‘Fool boy forgot where he was, and it’s a fact somebody’s sure to give that boy a talking to.

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982 Words | 4 Pages

Less than two weeks after he was buried, Roy and Bryant went to trail in a segregated courthouse in Summer, Mississippi for the murder of Emmett Till. There were witness beside Mose Wright At the time in the south, you couldn’t get in trouble for killing a black person with murdering a black person was not illegal, so on September 23, they were found not guilty for killing Emmett. They didn’t show any remorse but justification to say what they did to him, like he got what he deserved “ Overall they were charged with kidnapping, people all over was so offend and

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1393 Words | 6 Pages

It’s hard to imagine how much courage that would have taken. Emmett Till’s story and the author teach us a lot about courage, like courage can be hard to show but when you do it can lead to great things. Emmett Till was a 14 year old boy who lived with his mother in Chicago in the 1950s, when blacks were discriminated against in the South. Emmett went down to his uncle’s

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356 Words | 2 Pages

“Emmett Till and I were about the same age. A week after he was murdered . . . I stood on the corner with a gang of boys, looking at pictures of him in the black newspapers and magazines. In one, he was laughing and happy. In the other, his head was swollen and bashed in, his eyes bulging out of their sockets and his mouth twisted and broken.

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As a class requirement, we were obligated to watch a documentary about Emmett Till. The documentary, titled “The Murder of Emmett Till” was a tell-all about a tragic story of a fourteen-year-old boy from Chicago. Emmett Till was sent to Money, Mississippi to spend the summer with some relatives. In the 1950s, life in Chicago was different than life in Mississippi. Racism was stronger in the south than in the north and Emmett Till was walking into an environment he had never encountered before.

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