69 Facts About Emmett Till

Emmett Louis Till was a 14-year-old African American youth, who was abducted and lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store.

Emmett Till spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the white, married proprietor of a local grocery store.

Three days later, Emmett Till's mutilated and bloated body was discovered and retrieved from the river.

Emmett Till's body was returned to Chicago, where his mother insisted on a public funeral service with an open casket, which was held at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ.

Emmett Till's decision focused attention on not only American racism and the barbarism of lynching but the limitations and vulnerabilities of American democracy.

Emmett Till's murder was seen as a catalyst for the next phase of the civil rights movement.

The Emmett Till Antilynching Act, an American law which makes lynching a federal hate crime, was signed into law on March 29,2022, by President Joe Biden.

Emmett Till was born to Mamie and Louis Till on July 25,1941, in Chicago.

Emmett Till's mother, Mamie [nee Carthan], was born in the small Delta town of Webb, Mississippi.

For violating court orders to stay away from Mamie, Louis Emmett Till was forced by a judge in 1943 to choose between jail or enlisting in the US Army.

At the age of six, Emmett Till contracted polio, which left him with a persistent stutter.

Mamie and Emmett Till moved to Detroit, where she met and married "Pink" Bradley in 1951.

Emmett Till preferred living in Chicago, so he returned there to live with his grandmother; his mother and stepfather rejoined him later that year.

Mamie Till-Bradley and Emmett lived together in a busy neighborhood in Chicago's South Side near distant relatives.

Emmett Till began working as a civilian clerk for the US Air Force for a better salary.

Emmett Till recalled that Till was industrious enough to help with chores at home, although he sometimes got distracted.

Emmett Till's mother remembered that he did not know his own limitations at times.

Emmett Till was a smart dresser, and was often the center of attention among his peers.

Emmett Till lived in Money, Mississippi, a small town in the Delta that consisted of three stores, a school, a post office, a cotton gin, and a few hundred residents, 8 miles north of Greenwood.

Emmett Till arrived at the home of Mose and Elizabeth Wright in Money, Mississippi, on August 21,1955.

Emmett Till's companions were children of sharecroppers and had been picking cotton all day.

Journalist William Bradford Huie reported that Emmett Till showed the youths outside the store a photograph of a white girl in his wallet, and bragged that she was his girlfriend.

Emmett Till said that, to help with his articulation, Mamie taught Till how to whistle softly to himself before pronouncing his words.

Author Devery Anderson writes that in an interview with the defense's attorneys, Bryant told a version of the initial encounter that included Emmett Till grabbing her hand and asking her for a date, but not Emmett Till approaching her and grabbing her waist, mentioning past relationships with white women, or having to be dragged unwillingly out of the store by another boy.

Anderson further notes that many remarks prior to Emmett Till's kidnapping made by those involved indicate that it was his remarks to Bryant that angered his killers, rather than any alleged physical harassment.

However, one witness, Roosevelt Crawford, maintained that Emmett Till's whistle was directed not at Bryant, but at the checkers game that was taking place outside the store.

Emmett Till was sharing a bed with another cousin and there were a total of eight people in the cabin.

Mose Wright informed the men that Emmett Till was from up north and did not know any better.

Some have claimed that Emmett Till was shot and tossed over the Black Bayou Bridge in Glendora, Mississippi, near the Tallahatchie River.

Emmett Till's head was very badly mutilated: he had been shot above the right ear, an eye was dislodged from the socket, there was evidence that he had been beaten on the back and the hips, and his body weighted by a fan blade fastened around his neck with barbed wire.

Emmett Till's face was unrecognizable due to trauma and having been submerged in water.

The silver ring that Emmett Till was wearing was removed, returned to Wright, and passed on to the district attorney as evidence.

Emmett Till's murder aroused feelings about segregation, law enforcement, relations between the North and South, the social status quo in Mississippi, the activities of the NAACP and the White Citizens' Councils, and the Cold War, all of which were played out in a drama staged in newspapers all over the US and abroad.

Emmett Till's body was clothed, packed in lime, placed into a pine coffin, and prepared for burial.

Mamie Emmett Till-Bradley demanded that the body be sent to Chicago; she later said that she worked to halt an immediate burial in Mississippi and called several local and state authorities in Illinois and Mississippi to make sure that her son was returned to Chicago.

Emmett Till speculated that the boy was probably still alive.

The trial was held in the county courthouse in Sumner, the western seat of Tallahatchie County, because Emmett Till's body was found in this area.

Mamie Emmett Till-Bradley arrived to testify, and the trial attracted black congressman Charles Diggs from Michigan.

Milam and Bryant had identified themselves to Wright the evening they took Emmett Till; Wright said he had only seen Milam clearly.

Mamie Emmett Till-Bradley testified that she had instructed her son to watch his manners in Mississippi and that should a situation ever come to his being asked to get on his knees to ask forgiveness of a white person, he should do it without a thought.

The defense stated that the prosecution's theory of the events the night Emmett Till was murdered was improbable, and said the jury's "forefathers would turn over in their graves" if they convicted Bryant and Milam.

Mamie Emmett Till-Bradley was criticized for not crying enough on the stand.

Emmett Till avoided publicity and even kept his history secret from his wife until she was told by a relative.

Reed began to speak publicly about the case in the PBS documentary The Murder of Emmett Till, which was broadcast in 2003.

Emmett Till's story continued to make the news for weeks following the trial, sparking debate in newspapers, among the NAACP and various high-profile segregationists about justice for blacks and the propriety of Jim Crow society.

Emmett Till was found guilty and executed by hanging by the Army near Pisa in July 1945.

Stephen Whitfield writes that the lack of attention paid to identifying or finding Emmett Till is "strange" compared to the amount of published discourse about his father.

Emmett Till's murder contributed to congressional passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957: it authorized the US Department of Justice to intervene in local law enforcement issues when individual civil rights were being compromised.

Emmett Till's murder increased fears in the local black community that they would be subjected to violence and the law would not protect them.

Emmett Till died of spinal cancer on December 31,1980, at the age of 61.

Emmett Till was convicted in 1984 and 1988 of food stamp fraud.

Emmett Till died of cancer on September 1,1994, at the age of 63.

Mamie Emmett Till married Gene Mobley, became a teacher, and changed her surname to Emmett Till-Mobley.

Emmett Till continued to educate people about her son's murder.

In 1992, Emmett Till-Mobley had the opportunity to listen while Bryant was interviewed about his involvement in Emmett Till's murder.

Mose Wright heard someone with "a lighter voice" affirm that Emmett Till was the one in his front yard immediately before Bryant and Milam drove away with the boy.

Emmett Till's body was exhumed, and the Cook County coroner conducted an autopsy in 2005.

We are just going to be resilient in continuing to put them back up and be truthful in making make sure that Emmett Till didn't die in vain.

The marker at the "River Spot" where Emmett Till's body was found was torn down in 2008, presumably thrown in the river.

Emmett Till's case became emblematic of the injustices suffered by blacks in the South.

Mamie Emmett Till toured the country in one of the NAACP's most successful fundraising campaigns ever.

NAACP operative Amzie Moore considers Emmett Till the start of the Civil Rights Movement, at the very least in Mississippi.

In Montgomery a few months after the murder, Rosa Parks attended a rally for Emmett Till, led by Martin Luther King Jr.

The summer Emmett Till was killed, the number of registered voters in those three counties dropped to 90.

We the citizens of Tallahatchie County recognize that the Emmett Till case was a terrible miscarriage of justice.

The story of Emmett Till is one of the most important of the last half of the 20th century.

Emmett Till's murder was the focus of a 1957 television episode for the US Steel Hour titled "Noon on Doomsday" written by Rod Serling.

Emmett Till was fascinated by how quickly Mississippi whites supported Bryant and Milam.

Emmett Till later divulged that Till's murder had been bothering him for several years.