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Emmett Till biography

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Quick Facts

  • NAME: Emmett Till
  • BIRTH DATE: July 25, 1941
  • DEATH DATE: August 28, 1955
  • PLACE OF BIRTH: Chicago, Illinois
  • PLACE OF DEATH: Money, Mississippi
  • Full Name: Emmett Louis Till

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The murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till on August 28, 1955 galvanized the emerging civil rights movement.

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At the time, it was almost unheard of for blacks to openly accuse whites in court, and by doing so Wright put his own life in grave danger.

Despite the overwhelming evidence of the defendants' guilt and widespread pleas for justice from outside Mississippi, on September 23 the panel of white male jurors acquitted Bryant and Milam of all charges. Their deliberations lasted a mere 67 minutes. Only a few months later, in January 1956,

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Bryant and Milam admitted to committing the crime. Protected by double jeopardy laws, they told the whole story of how they kidnapped and killed Emmett Till to Look magazine for $4,000.

Coming only one year after the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education mandated the end of racial segregation in public schools, Till's death provided an important catalyst for the American Civil Rights Movement. One hundred days after Emmett Till's murder, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on an Alabama city bus, sparking the yearlong Montgomery bus boycott. Nine years later, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing many forms of racial discrimination and segregation, one year later it passed the Voting Rights Act outlawing discriminatory voting practices.

Although she never stopped feeling the pain from her son's death, Mamie Till (who died of heart failure in 2003) also recognized that what happened to Emmett Till helped open Americans' eyes to the racial hatred plaguing their country, and in doing so helped spark a massive protest movement for racial equality and justice. Before Till's murder, she said, "people really didn't know that things this horrible could take place. And the fact that it happened to a child, that make all the difference in the world."

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