DEATH OF EMMETT TILL
While visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till was brutally beaten and murdered for flirting with a white woman days earlier. Money, Mississippi was a segregated southern community in which whites owned the businesses and lived in the town while African Americans lived on the outskirts of the town. Also, the African Americans worked the land an d lived in unfurnished shacks. Alternatively, Emmett Till grew up in a middle - class African American community on the south side of Chicago which thrived with businesses owned by African Americans. In August of 1955, Emmett Till went to Money, Mississippi to visit relatives.
Three days after arriving, Emmett and his cousins entered Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market. After having claimed to have a white girlfriend back in Chicago, Emmett’s cousins dared him to ask the white woman behind the counter of the store for a date. The events inside the store will never be known for sure as the accounts of the incident vary wildly. Carolyn Bryant, the woman behind the counter and wife of the owner, claimed that Emmett grabbed her and made lewd comments before whistling at her while he left. Emmett’s cousins, on the other hand, claimed he simply said “bye, baby” as he left and then whistled at her.
Regardless, the actions inside the store would lead to the fateful events just four days later. At about 2:30 am on August 28, 1955, Roy Bryant (husband of Carolyn Bryant) and his brother J.W. Milam, still enraged from the incident, kidnapped Emmett from his relative’s home. T he two men brutally beat him, dragged him to the bank of the Tallahatchie River, shot him in the head, tied barbed wire to a large metal fan from a cotton gin and shoved his lifeless body into the water. His body was found three days later and so horribly mutilated that he was nearly unrecognizable to relatives.
Emmett’s body was shipped back to his mother in Chicago where she chose to have an open - casket funeral with his body on display for five days. Her hope, of displaying the mutilated remains of her son, was that all the world could see what had happened to her son. Ultimately, thousands of mourners viewed Emmett’s body and photographs of his remains were published across the United States.
Roy Bryant and his brother J.W. Milam went on trial in a segregated courthouse before an all - white all - male jury. Despite being identified by Emmett’s relatives as the men who kidnapped him and the overwhelming evidence of guilt, the jury ultimately acquitted both men of all charges.
Only a few months later, Roy Bryant and his brother J.W. Milam admitted to committing the crime by telling the story of ho w they kidnapped and killed Emmett Till to a magazine for $4000. They could not be retried for the crime under double jeopardy laws.
Only a few months later, Roy Bryant and his brother J.W. Milam admitted to committing the crime by telling the story of ho w they kidnapped and killed Emmett Till to a magazine for $4000. They could not be retried for the crime under double jeopardy laws.