Chapter 02Emmett Till
Who Was Emmett Till?
(Need caption)
Emmett Till was raised in a middle-class Black neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. By the summer of 1955, 14-year-old Emmett was a popular classmate at McCosh Grammar School, known for telling jokes and singing and dancing to the music of the Flamingos, the Coasters, and other doo wop groups. Like many African Americans who migrated to Chicago from the South during the Great Migration, Emmett Till’s family hailed from Mississippi. That summer, Emmett visited Mississippi to spend time with his cousins and his great-uncle Moses Wright.
The Decision to Go to Mississippi
Emmett Till with his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley
Mamie Till and her son Emmett lived in Chicago, and she was not eager to have him visit relatives in Mississippi. But while she was traveling to Nebraska, young Emmett convinced her to let him go to Mississippi despite her misgivings. Mamie Till’s Mississippi relatives assured her that things were improving, and that her son would be all right. When Mamie Till put her son on a train at Chicago’s Central Station, it was the last time she saw him alive.
The Disappearance of Emmett Till
Emmett Till was abducted from his uncle Moses Wright’s home.
Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market, where Carolyn Bryant claimed Emmett Till insulted her
Four days after leaving Chicago, 14-year-old Emmett Till and his cousins stopped in a local grocery store in Mississippi. Carolyn Bryant, the owner’s wife, claimed Emmett insulted her. Several days later, her husband and his brother-in-law kidnapped Emmett from his uncle Moses Wright’s home. He was never seen again. Wright reported the abduction to the local sheriff, but the men claimed they left Emmett Till unharmed.
Discovery and Publicity
Three days after Emmett Till’s disappearance, someone saw a body floating down the Tallahatchie River. The police later retrieved Emmett Till’s mutilated body, a bullet hole in his skull. Moses Wright identified his nephew, and the local sheriff hurried to bury Emmett Till. But Till relatives intervened to stop him, and at Mamie Till’s behest her son’s body was brought back to Chicago.
The Tallahatchie River, where the body of Emmett Till was found
Mamie Till’s Decision
Mamie Till weeping over her son Emmett as his body arrives in Chicago
Thousands of mourners lined up to view Emmett Till’s body.
After viewing her son’s body, Mamie Till decided to have an open casket at his funeral in Chicago—she was determined not to hide what happened to him.
At Emmett Till’s funeral, lines stretched out of Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ and onto the street. Thousands of people viewed the body. Emmett Till was buried September 6, 1955, in Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.
Two months ago I had a nice apartment in Chicago. I had a good job. I had a son. When something happened to the Negroes in the South I said, ‘That’s their business, not mine.’ Now I know how wrong I was.
Mamie Till-Mobley, 1955
Sensitive Content
The image includes graphic and violent imagery.
Jet magazine. Vol. VIII No. 20
Testimony and Aftermath
Moses Wright testifying at the trial
The trial of Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam began on September 19, 1955, in front of an all-white jury. Mamie Till watched as her relative Moses Wright identified the men who kidnapped her son. Despite convincing evidence, the men were set free.
Outraged at the acquittal, African Americans boycotted the Bryant grocery store and nearly put it out of business. Emmett Till’s death sparked a new determination within the Civil Rights Movement. Within three months, Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama.
I thought about Emmett Till, and I could not go back.
Rosa Parks