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Why Is Emmett Till Still Remembered Today

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American history is full of power. The struggle to get power, to keep power, or to take it away. America is a great country, though it has gone through dark times. One example of this would be the story of Emmett Till. Emmett Till was just a young boy who was murdered because of hatred. Emmett Till was an african-american fourteen-year-old boy who was lynched in 1955 during a trip to visit family in Mississippi. In the world today we need to be able to connect to the past with our present. We need to remember Emmett Till and his tragic death as a reminder that even the youngest can be victims of hate. The murder of Emmett Till was a terrible event the showed the climate of the 1950s south and it still remembered today. Emmett Till was born …show more content…

Emmett never knew his father, Louise Till, he’d died in World War 2 when Emmett was four-years-old. Mamie Till Bradley remarried to “Pink” Bradley and they moved back to Chicago to live with Mamie Till’s grandmother. “Pink” Bradley and Mamie Till divorced in 1952 and “Pink” moved back to Detroit by himself. Mamie Till began to work as a civilian clerk for the U.S Air Force. Emmett Till was a sickly child according to his mother; when Emmett was very young he contracted polio and a speech defect that caused him to stutter (Crowe 37-39). Emmett was an only child and did his best to take care of his mother so she wouldn’t become too stressed or tired. Emmett Till told his mother when he was just twelve-years-old, “Mama if you can go to work and make the money, I can take care of the home.’ From that day on he took over most of the household chores, …show more content…

They demanded to see Emmett. Mose Wright, Emmetts uncle knew of the political climate in Mississippi. Mose let Roy and J.W take Emmett without too much of a fuss based on the hope that they would return Emmett in the morning (Crowe 14-16, 58, 60). They kidnapped Emmett and he was never seen alive again. Roy Bryant and J.W Milam drove to a plantation and took Emmett into a shed. Emmett was held captive and brutally beaten for hours. Emmetts injuries showed intense cruelty with the intent to cause pain and suffering. Emmetts left ear was missing, he’d been castrated, his teeth knocked out, drill holes on his body and head, skin pierced with an awl, a side of his face caved in, his wrists were broken along with other bones, these are not even the full extent of his injuries. Emmett officially died from a bullet to the head that gouged out his left eye. Emmett was found four days later floating naked in the Tallahatchie River with barbed wire around his neck and tied to a 75-pound cotton gin metal fan. Emmett was so disfigured that the only way his body was identified was by the ring that his mother had given him prior to the

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Emmett Till was kidnaped, tortured, and was killed by Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam. They were very cruel. They gouged out his eye, threw him into a river, and tried him to a fan. There was no justice because when the case was taken to court, it was an all-white jury. They were found innocent.

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175 Words | 1 Pages

Emmett Till since the age of five suffered from polio. The white clerk didn 't know and was insulted and told her husband. Emmett Till was kidnapped, tortured, and killed by J.W Milam and Roy Bryant, husband and friend of the clerk. When they found his body they couldn 't identify it. They

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322 Words | 2 Pages

J.W Milam and Roy Bryant, Emmett’s attackers, savagely assassinated Emmett Till, yet he did not get justice. Roy Bryant was the store clerk’s husband and J.W his half brother, these two shot and tortured Emmett and shot him in the head. After the murder when the trail was held the two murderers

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277 Words | 2 Pages

Upon arrival Emmett began to brag about how he had a Caucasian girlfriend back in Chicago. Knowing this was forbidden Emmett’s cousin listened in

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Although the owners of the barn, Bryant and Milam, had a different story, Till was most likely shot and killed in the barn (“Emmett Till Murder” 1). Before ditching the body in the Tallahatchie river, Milam was seen at J.W. Milam’s store in Glendora with a pool of blood on the ground. When he was questioned about the dripping blood he claimed that he had killed a deer, and when that did not hold up, he pulled back the cover in the bed to reveal Till’s body and said, “This is what happens to smart niggers.” (“Emmett Till Murder” 1).

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806 Words | 4 Pages

Later that night, Roy Bryant and his brother in law went to his uncle's house unannounced, to have a “talk” with Emmett. But, they had kidnapped him and took him to the Milam’s residence and beat him. Then, they went down to Tallahatchie River where they threw his deformed body, tied to the cotton-gin fan with barbed wire. His body stayed at the bottom of the river for three days, until it was found. According to “ Emmett Till Biography” from biography.com, “ They then beat the teenager brutally, dragged him to the bank of the Tallahatchie River, shot him in the head, tied him with barbed wire to a large metal fan and shoved his mutilated body into the water.

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1388 Words | 6 Pages

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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482 Words | 2 Pages

Emmett was left mutilated and horrendous looking for all of the world to see when his mother decided to have an open-coffin funeral. News of Emmett’s story spread through the nation like a forest fire, outraging and devastating people all over, saying how brutal the murder was, or how it wasn’t brutal enough. Emmett’s trial took place less than 2 weeks after he’d been killed, and somehow his trial was more unfair than his death. During trial, Mr. Breland harassed Till’s Uncle Mose, “And yet you could see clearly, clearly enough to accuse to white men of murder, to claim that the men on your porch were Mr. Bryant and Mr. Milam over there… No problem with white folks, yet there you sit accusing two of our upstanding white citizens of barging into your home in the middle of the night, pointing a gun and a flashlight in your face, and hauling off your nephew”(170/171). Even though Bryant and Milam both admitted to kidnapping Emmett, the possibility of the two men not even being there to take Emmett is beyond irrational, even when both men stated their names at Moses 's door.

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1842 Words | 8 Pages

Emmett Till was visiting his cousins in Money, Mississippi for a few weeks that summer. When he went into a grocery store to buy some bubblegum on August 24, proceeded to do something that got him killed. It is alleged that Emmett Till whistled/cat-called one of the female members of the white family who owned the store, Carolyn Bryant. This led to his capture 4 days later by Roy Bryant and his half brother, J.W. Milam. They captured Till and tortured him until they eventually shot him in the head and dumped his 14 year old body in the Tallahatchie River, they found him in the water three days later.

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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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2315 Words | 10 Pages

Bryant and Milam, Carolyn’s husband and his friend, worked together to kidnap Emmett. During the kidnapping, Mose Wright, Emmett’s uncle, was threatened by the two men. They said if Mose knew who they were he wouldn’t get to see the age of 65. (Transcript- Emmett Till Trial, Mose Wright). When they came up to a farm near Drew, Mississippi, the two men and several others took Till into the barn for good pistol whipping.

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1088 Words | 5 Pages

Emmett Till was killed in Money, Mississippi, in 1955 by two white men. After rumors spread that Till had flirted with a white woman at a grocery store, he was taken hostage, brutally beaten, shot in the

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760 Words | 4 Pages

Emmett would go on to live with his mother. He grew up in the richer part of South Chicago. His mother worked 12 hours a day so he learned he learned many responsibilities at a young age. He attended an all black school, McCosh Grammar School. At the age of five, he was struck with polio.

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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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750 Words | 3 Pages

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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