Emmett+Till+Incident

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CHE - In August of 1955, a fourteen year old from Chicago named Emmett Till was killed after allegedly flirting with a white woman while visiting his cousin in Money, Mississippi. A few days after Till had interacted with grocery store owner Carolyn Bryant, Roy Bryant (Carolyn’s husband) and relative J.W. Milam took Till from his relative’s house and beat, shot, and disfigured the boy before sinking him in the Tallahatchie River where he was found three days later. The trial attracted the media and led to portrayal of Mississippi as the quintessence of bigotry. Before the trial, media called for justice. Yet, when the trail began in one of the most racist states, people began to side with the killers. Even though both Bryant and Milam had admitted to taking Till, the jury did not declare them guilty of kidnapping. This demonstrates the belief that the population of Americans that were still racist against African-Americans held was that killing a black man was not so bad as to sentence the killer[s] to a harsh punishment;. Present at the funeral was the mutilated body of Emmett Till, so that people could see the brutality of racism. The body, swollen and damaged with an almost destroyed head with a dislodged eye, showed that not even children were safe from the violence of racism. The incident, though extremely tragic, initiated an uproar that would beneficially change the United States. White Mississippians began to be harshly criticized for blatant racism, and a lot of media focused on the persistent racism in the nation. The Emmett Till Incident was an extremely significant event in United States history as it served as a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement. Soon after the trial, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was performed. The Civil Rights Movement continued to progress; two years later, “The Little Rock Nine” took the steps to school integration.