Emmett Till: The Face That Shocked America
Photo of Emmett Till sourced from Interactive.
Shannon O’Dwyer
Disclaimer: Elements of this story and some of the photographs/images are graphic and may be disturbing to some readers. Please read at your own discretion.
The murder of Emmett Till has gone relatively unnoticed in modern school lectures as one of the proprietary events leading up to the Civil Rights Movement. This is the story of his life, his untimely and horrific death, and the events after that brought the Civil Rights Movement into the public eye.
Emmett’s Life
Emmett Till was born and raised by his mother in Chicago, Illinois; however, he went to live with his relatives in Mississippi during summer vacation, 1955. Emmett, who had grown accustomed to living in the north, had not been exposed to the blatant and dangerous racism that the southern states practiced in the Jim Crow Era. Therefore, when he begged his mother to let him visit his cousins, she was hesitant. However, after a bit of persuasion, Emmett was allowed to go and spend his summer in Mississippi.
August 28, 1955: Emmett and his cousins were roaming around the town of Money and decided to stop in a local grocery store for some candy, run by white 21-year-old Caroyln Bryant and her husband. Emmett was described as lively and joyful by his family, but was often mischievous and loved to play pranks/jokes on strangers. He even joked that he had a white girlfriend back home. It is believed that Emmett’s friends convinced him to flirt with Mrs. Bryant as a joke.
Although there are no formal records of what was actually said or done inside the store, it is alleged that Emmett attempted to flirt with Caroyln Bryant. What occurred inside the store will remain unsolved; however, there are claims that he whistled at Mrs. Bryant when she walked out of the store. Mrs. Bryant, being white, upon hearing the whistle then made outrageous claims that he had ‘grabbed her and made lewd comments,’ despite a lack of witnesses. What occurred as a result in the following hours would shake history forever.
The Gruesome Night
At approximately 2:30 a.m. the following morning, Caryoln Bryant’s husband, Roy, and his half-brother J.W. Milam arrived at the Till household, pistol in hand. They claimed they were looking for a young black boy on alleged claims of assault against Mrs. Bryant. After scouring the beds of Emmett’s cousins, they finally found Emmett and recklessly pulled him from his bed and dragged him out the door. Being the nature of the era, Emmett’s family was left helpless in fear of being killed themselves if they put up any sort of a fight.
Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam drove Emmett to the Sheridan’s Plantation. Emmett was seen three days later floating in the Tallahatchie River, tied to a 75-pound cotton gin fan, half naked and completely disformed.
According to History, Emmett’s assailants:
[Forced him to] carry a 75-pound cotton gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered him to take off his clothes. The two men then beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head and then threw his body, tied to the cotton gin fan with barbed wire, into the river.
Not only was his eye gouged out, but his tongue was torn out of his body, and his genitalia was brutalized. Emmett was so disformed that the only identifying factor of him was an engraved ring worn on his finger, later identified by his uncle.
Controversial Funeral
Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, rallied Chicago officials demanding the return of her son’s body after authorities attempted to bury it against her wishes. It was as if the police officials wanted to completely file Emmett’s murder under “Don’t see, don’t tell.”
However, after vehemently protesting, Mamie saw the return of her son's body; only, her son was no longer the same boy she once knew.
Upon receiving the box containing Emmett’s remains, Mamie requested that it be opened in order to see exactly what had happened to her son. In a documentary, Mamie described the sight of her son, “His tongue was out lying on his chin. One eye was pulled out, lying on his cheek, and his other eye was completely gone. The bridge of his nose was cut to pieces. He was missing all but two teeth. His ears were missing due to the bullet hole. They had taken an ax and gone straight down his head.”
To state that Mamie was beyond devastated, would be an understatement. However, her next action would be one to shock the entire country. She requested that her son have an open casket funeral, with zero altercations to his corpse. Her pleas for an open casket funeral were to allow the country to stare its ugly racial dilemma directly in the face.
The Body of Emmett Till: 100 Photos
Justice Left Unserved
No longer than a month after the murder, the case went to trial. As stated by FBI,
“Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam were accused of the murder, and an all white, all male jury acquitted both of them. No one else was ever indicted or prosecuted for involvement in the kidnapping or murder. Bryant and Milam, though, later confessed and told a magazine journalist all the grisly details of their crime. They are both, now, long deceased.”
Due to double-jeopardy, Milam and Bryant were unable to be brought to justice for this heinous crime. It was clear that justice was not served in Till’s case, and history will forever know that Emmett died in vain with little to nothing vindicating his death in terms of legalities.
Recently in early December, 2021, the justice system ended their investigation into the case. No new files will be charged against Caroyln Bryant either, who was accused of lying on the stand claiming that Emmett Till assaulted her. Politico stated, “The Justice Department reopened the investigation after a 2017 book quoted [Bryant] as saying she lied when she claimed that 14-year-old Till grabbed her, whistled and made sexual advances while she was working in a store in the small community of Money.” Therefore, Caroyln Bryant will die without any repercussions for her perjury.
The Beginning of a Revolution
Although many accredit the Civil Rights Movement’s origin to the likes of Rosa Parks and Brown vs. The Board of Education, society tends to neglect this case as a pivotal event in the movement. The Emmett Till case did not spark the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement; however, Mamie Till-Mobley’s decision to display the open casket of her brutalized son’s remains did bring about nationwide awareness, particularly to white Americans. According to History,
Jet, an African American weekly magazine, published a photo of Emmett’s corpse, and soon the mainstream media picked up on the story. Less than two weeks after Emmett’s body was buried, Milam and Bryant went on trial in a segregated courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi. There were few witnesses besides Mose Wright, who positively identified the defendants as Emmett’s killers.
Society will forever see Emmett’s case as a horrific act of violence in the deeply rooted racism that runs rampant through America's history. It became unavoidable to hear Emmett’s name and not link it to the face that was so publicly displayed. No longer would the plight of Black people go unnoticed in America, no longer could one deny the unavoidable truth that racism presented: innocent lives were being lost. Emmett Till would not die in vain if his story could change the future of the Civil Rights Movement by bringing it to the public’s attention.
“I believe that the whole world is mourning with me and if the death of my son can mean something to the other unfortunate people all over the world, then for him to have died a hero, would mean more for me than for him just to have died.”
Interested in learning more? Check out this documentary below:
The Untold Story of EMMETT LUIS TILL (Documentary 2005) by Keith Beauchamp.
