About my murder- Emmett Till

1955- Emmett Louis Till born on July 25, 1941was an African-American boy who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. Till was from Chicago, Illinois, visiting his relatives in Money, Mississippi when he spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, a married proprietor of a small grocery store there. Several nights later, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J. W. Milam went to Till's great-uncle's house. They took the boy away to a barn, where they beat him and gouged out one of his eyes, before shooting him through the head and disposing of his body in the Tallahatchie River. They weighted his body with a 70-pound cotton gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire. In three days Till's body was discovered and retrieved from the river.
Emmett's body was returned to Chicago. His mother, who had raised him mostly by herself, insisted on a public funeral service with an open casket to show the world the brutality of the killing. Tens of thousands attended his funeral or viewed his casket and images of his body were published in black-oriented magazines and newspapers. This rallied popular black support and white sympathy across the U.S. The trial attracted a vast amount of press attention. Quote from the press, "When an all-white, all-male jury acquitted Bryant and Milam of kidnapping and murder in September, the verdict shocked observers across the country and around the world. And when, mere months later, the men openly admitted to Look magazine that they had, in fact, mutilated and murdered Till, the outcry was so intense and the reaction of Till’s devastated family so dignified that it lit a spark that helped ignite the modern civil rights movement".

Emmet Till's mother standing by Emmet's open casket at his funeral. She was full of emotion throughout this time.

Picture of Emmet Tills body during his open casket funeral.

The hundreds of people gathered around at Emmet Till's funeral. These people were in full support of the trial.

Article in the San Antonio Express paper. This article told about how he was killed and the trials that would come.

People and cars lined up to attend Emmet Till's funeral. Hundreds of people were in attendance.

Picture taken of Emmet Till's grave in remembrance of him.