Orlando A. Harper
CRJ101.90: Intro. to CRJ[MOD6 ONLINE (6/22/-8/15/2015)]
Famous Crime Paper (Emmett Till Murder)

A Murder that Changed America
American history is filled with instances of extreme racism. Many times discrimination happens for no reason other than the color of a person’s skin. One example of this blatant hate is the Emmett Till murder in Mississippi. Emmett was just a normal kid. He wasn’t a leader of the Civil Rights Movement or involved in racial issues in any way. When the trouble started, he was just acting like a normal teenager going on a dare from his friends. The way he was murdered outraged blacks and whites across America. Emmett Till was a young boy whose legacy changed the way people think about racial issues.
Emmett started his life as a normal, happy kid. He was born on July 25, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois (“Till” 1). His parents were Louis and Mamie Till. Sadly, his father, Louis, died while serving in the United States military when Emmett was only three. According to Mamie Till, Emmett was an ugly and sick child. He had polio when he was young and also a speech defect that caused him to stutter (Crowe 37-39). A very hard working and kind boy, Emmett spent much of his time helping the neighbors with projects. He also had a very close bond with his mother. He worked hard to make sure she wouldn’t be too tired or stressed (Crowe 40-41). When he was twelve, he took this helpfulness to the next level. ‘”Mama if you can go to work and make the money, I can take care of the home.From that day on, he took over most of the household chores, including the laundry” (Crowe 41). This really showed how Emmett had great character and wanted to help as much as he could.
Emmett had a fairly comfortable life in Chicago. There the racism was less severe, but he still lived in a segregated neighborhood of all blacks. He also attended McCosh Elementary School, which was an all black school (Crowe 29). Still, he had no idea of the extent of racial hate and violence that went on in the south. In Chicago, he was even allowed to be friends with white boys and girls (Crowe 51). Because of this, Emmett wasn’t involved at all with the Civil Rights Movement. He was just a normal kid of Illinois who had many friends and was loved by everybody within his community (Crowe 27-28).
The moment Emmett stepped into Mississippi; he was in an entirely different world. It was a world where he had no idea how to behave, despite his mother’s warnings about the different social status of blacks in that area. “Emmett Till knew nothing of the dangerous and tense climate in Mississippi that he and his cousin would enter on August 21, 1955” (Crowe 35). To make matters even more dangerous, the south was still in an uproar over the Brown verses the Board of Education at Topeka court ruling. This was the case that made it illegal to have segregated schools in the United States (“Till” 1 and Crowe 19-20). One slip up in these parts of the United States could ruin a black person’s life. This way of life was completely unfamiliar to Emmett.
The summer of 1955, Emmett and his cousins begged to be allowed to take a fun trip to Money, Mississippi, a small town with a population of 55. Emmett wanted to spend his summer with kids his own age and spend some time out of the city. Originally, he was supposed to spend his summer vacation in Omaha with his mother, but he convinced her to let him take this trip on his own (Crowe 44). He was overcome with excitement, and even had to be reminded to say good-bye to his mother. It was a good thing Mamie persisted; because it would be the last time she would ever see her son alive (Crowe 47). Emmett stayed with his great-uncle Mose“Preacher” Wright and his great-aunt Elizabeth Wright. He and his cousins spent their days in the fields and hanging out around town stores, having a blast (Crowe 16-17).
The bold Chicagoans awed the local boys of Money, Mississippi. Emmett and his cousins had no fear of whites and even bragged of having white girlfriends back home. Emmett probably loved the interest that was directed at him. He was known for being a jokester and loved to be the center of attention (“Till” 1 and Crowe 48). He became an instant local celebrity. One day when Emmett and the other boys were hanging around town, Emmett was dared to go and talk to the white clerk of a nearby store. Emmett didn’t think anything of it, considering he talked to white people everyday back in Chicago. On August 24, Emmett walked into Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market and bought some bubblegum. As he walked out, rumor has it he said something inappropriate to Carolyn Bryant. Some evidence suggests the Emmett did say “Bye, baby!” (Crowe 54-55). While other sources suggest he asked her on a date, or even tried to hold her hand. There is also evidence that he whistled at the white clerk. According to Mamie Till, Emmett’s mother, she had taught Emmett to whistle when he had trouble with a word because of his speech defect. “’I had taught [Emmett] that when you get hooked on a word, just whistle and go ahead and say it” (Curry 4). No one knows for sure what Emmett Till said to Mrs. Bryant in the store. No matter what it was, nothing could justify what happened just a few days later.
On Sunday August 25, 1955, Roy Bryant, Carolyn’s husband, and J.W. Milam drove their pickup to Mose Wright’s home. It was about 2:30 in the morning. They marched up to the house, and demanded to see Emmett. Mose Wright, unlike Emmett, knew all about the violence that happened between whites and black in the south. He let Emmett be taken by the two men without much of a fuss in the hopes that they would just beat him and return him home by morning (Crowe 14-16, 58, 60). Bryant and Milam drove to a nearby plantation and took Emmett into a shed. No one knows for sure the kind of torture the two men put Emmett through that night, but one witness did hear sounds coming from the shed. The witness, Willie Reed, stated that he saw Emmett be taken into the shed and “heard sounds of beating and cries of ‘Mama, Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy!’ coming from… the shed” (Crowe 60). Willie Reed also said he saw black workers washing blood out of Milam’s pickup truck later on Sunday.
Emmett never came back to Mose Wright’s farmhouse. Emmett’s extremely disfigured body was found on August 31, 1955 in the Tallahatchie River near Greenwood, Mississippi. His face and body were completely unrecognizable. The only way they knew it was him was by a monogrammed ring that had once belonged to Emmett’s father. The trial for Bryant and Milam was held September 19, 1955. After an unusually short trial for a murder case, the two men were acquitted of all charges and walked free. They practically confessed to the murder of Emmett, but the all white, all male jury somehow came up with a reason to let them go. The jury’s reasoning was that there wasn’t enough evidence to convict them (“Till” 2 and Crowe 23, 103-104).
The Emmett Till incident hit a nerve with people all over the country. How could someone kill a child just for speaking to a woman? Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said, “It would appear that the state of Mississippi has decided to maintain white supremacy by murdering children” (Crowe 18). The incident spurred the people of the United States to work towards civil rights. For example, the Rosa Parks incident and bus boycotts happened less than four months later. Emmett’s mother also chose to let the world see what she saw: her son’s disfigured body. “Till’s mother kept her son’s casket open, choosing to reveal to the tens of thousands who attended the funeral the brutality that had been visited on her son” (“Till” 1 and Curry 2). The view of Emmett’s body stunned the people that attended his funeral. Articles in Jet Magazine and the Chicago Defender also brought the news and the pictures to thousands more people (“Till” 1-2 and Crowe 18). This coverage moved many people to fight the racism that was happening in the south. Even today, incidents such as Trayvon Martin’s death have been compared to the murder of Emmett Till (Moynihan 1). The legacy of this modest, kind, helpful teenager has impacted the world in ways that he couldn’t have imagined.
A legacy of a young boy changed a how people think of racial issues, and maybe even changed the course of the Civil Rights Movement. “[An] African American teenager whose murder catalyzed the emerging Civil Rights Movement” (“Till” 1). Emmett Till’s legacy still lives on to remind us to be tolerant and stop racism and other discrimination. An incident as small as talking to a store clerk doesn’t justify cruelty or murder. Across America, we will remember Emmett Till and how he was just happily living his life. Everyone has the right to have this happiness and shouldn’t be oppressed with discrimination. It is a good thing the United States is less racist and continues to work towards equality and cooperation with each other. This will make the world a much better place.

Works Cited
Crowe, Chris. Getting Away With Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case. New
York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 2003. Print.
Curry, George E. "The Death of Emmett Till: Killed for Whistling at a White Woman."
Emerge. July/Aug. 1995: 24+. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 26 Apr 2012.
Moynihan, Michael C. "Racial Profiling." Tablet Magazine 23 Mar. 2012. General
OneFile. Web. 1 May 2012.