Emmett Till: A Dominant Catalyst in the Civil Rights Movement Within the United States
African American History 363
Blake Slonecker
April 16, 2014
Katie Kwapick
1
One by one, thousands of men and women from the surrounding area of Chicago file past
the dead, mutilated body of Emmett Till. Some weep as they hurry past, and others stop to
examine his bloated face, and unrecognizable features. Thousands of people viewed the body
over a two day period on Chicago’s South side. And when his funeral begins everyone at the
Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ knows what happened to fourteen year old Till, and
soon the whole world would too.
The South has never been an equal opportunity location for African American’s; for they
have spent much of their time doing the dirty work for white America, under the authority of
white America. In retrospect, it was only a matter of time before this oppressed minority gained
the numbers and confidence to fight back. The murder of Emmett Till sparked, not only the
African American population, but white American’s as well, to fight for justice and equality
under the law. Although there were several other incidents that can be included in the discussion
of civil rights, it was the gruesome murder of Emmett Till that sparked the Civil Rights
Movement in America.
In the years following the murder of Emmett Till, prominent African American figures,
such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and Rosa Parks became
household names in the fight towards civil liberties. Historians, such as Taylor Branch, who
wrote King, Parting the Waters1, have contributed King and other valid participants’ efforts with
the birth of the Civil Rights Movement. Others, such as William Chafe, identify a connection
between public sit-ins and the Civil Rights Movements. More specifically, he attributes the
movement with the Greensboro sit-ins in his book Civilities and Civil Rights2.
1
Taylor Branch, King, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 (New York: Simon &
Schuster Inc., 1988)
2
Emmett Till was a young boy from Chicago who was sent to spend part of the summer
with his aunt and uncle in Money, Mississippi. He was warned by his mother when he departed
that the racism in Mississippi was still very much alive and well. “If you have to get on your
hands and knees and bow when a white person goes past, do it willingly,”3 she told him. Emmett
Till was a confident young African American boy who ignored the Jim Crow south while he
resided in Mississippi. On his way out from Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market on a hot
Wednesday afternoon on August 24, 1955, Till reportedly whistled at the white store clerk, Mrs.
Carolyn Bryant and said, “Bye, Baby.” Four days later, on the night of Sunday, August 28, 1955,
Bryant’s husband, Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam took Till from his uncle’s house
and threatened that “If you [Moses Wright] cause any trouble, you’ll never live to be sixtyfive.”4 The men asked for Emmett Till and rode off with him in the back of their truck.
Three days after Emmett Till’s disappearance, a young boy spotted a body caught on a
tree root in the Tallahatchie River. On August 30, 1955, Till’s body was carried out of the water
by local officials. With a seventy-five pound cotton gin fan tied around his neck connected by
barbed wire and one eye gouged out, it was evident that Till was tortured and mutilated before
his death. In seeing her son, Mamie Till responded by saying, “I saw a hole, which I presumed
was a bullet hole. And I could look through that hole and see daylight on the other side. And I
thought, ‘Was it necessary to shoot him?’”5
2
William H. Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle
for Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980).
3
Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Alan Steinberg, Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African American
Achievement (New York: Harper Collins, 2000) 223.
Juan Williams, Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 (New York: Penguin
Inc., 1987) 42.
4
5
Mamie Till Bradley, “The Murder of Emmett Till,” American Experience Documentary, 29:33.
3
Less than three weeks after Till’s body was found in the Tallahatchie River, Roy Bryant
and his half-brother, J.W. Milam’s trial began on September 19,1955 in Sumner, Mississippi. A
location deemed, “A good place to raise a boy!”6 Twelve all white men from Milam and
Bryant’s home town filed in and took their jury seats in the 118° courtroom. Bryant’s defense
attorney let the jury converse after this final statement, “Your ancestors would turn over in their
graves [if Bryant and Milam are found guilty] and I’m sure every last Anglo-Saxon one of you
has the courage to free these men.”7 With that being said, it took five days, and a little over an
hour for the jury to deliberate. Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were found not guilty of murder or
kidnapping, due to the state of Mississippi’s failure to identify the body that was pulled from the
River three weeks earlier. In reference to the verdict, Sheriff Clarence Strider had this to say: “I
hope the Chicago niggers and the NAACP are satisfied.” Four months after their acquittal, J.W.
Milam and Roy Bryant sold their story and full testimony to Look Magazine for a fee of fourthousand dollars.
After the trial and the article in Look Magazine, Mamie Till along with hundreds of other
concerned onlookers, begged President Dwight D. Eisenhower and J. Edgar Hoover to re-open
the case as that of a federal issue. She sent a telegram which read, “THE PRESIDENT, THE
WHITE HOUSE, I THE MOTHER OF EMMETT LOUIS STILL [sic] AM PLEADING THAT
YOU PERSONALLY SEE THAT JUSTICE IS METED OUT TO ALL PERSONS INVOLVED
IN THE BEASTLY LYNCHING OF MY SON IN MONEY MISS. AWAITING A DIRECT
6
“The Murder of Emmett Till,” 37:28.
“Persecution and Prejudices of African American’s,” Cultural Experiences of African Americans,
Accessed April 19, 2014, http://africanamericanculture.weebly.com/index.html.
7
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REPLY FROM YOU, MAMIE E BRADLEY.”8 Eisenhower declined to reply to her telegram as
well as her request to re-open the case, however her contributions neither began nor ended here.
Mamie Till Bradley buried her son a few weeks prior. As the body had been shipped to
Chicago from Mississippi, the mortician was instructed to keep the cedar coffin closed. Emmett
Till’s mother demanded that the box be opened, so she could see her son. An argument arose,
and Ms. Till explained that if Mr. Rainer didn’t open her son’s casket, then she would. The box,
which was nailed shut, was opened, and the smell of a decomposing body seeped out as Mamie
Till focused her eyes on her son. Inspecting his gouged out eyeball, his nose which was broken
in several places, and the bullet hole which Ms. Till assumed killed him. “Mr. Rainer asked me,
‘Do you want me to touch the body up.’ I said, ‘No, Mr. Rainer, let the people seen what I’ve
seen.’ I was just willing to bear it all. I think everybody ought to know what happened to Emmett
Till.”9 Mamie Till Bradley displayed her son’s dead body for a two day wake with an open
casket, followed by a funeral. This act has gone down in history as one of the most meaningful
protests in the Civil Rights Movement.
An American Experience Documentary titled “The Murder of Emmett Till” described the
transition between the lynching of a fourteen year old African American boy and the Civil Rights
Movement like this, “No one ever did time for the killing of the fourteen year old black boy from
Chicago, but his murder and the trial and acquittal of his killers sent a powerful message. If
change was going to come, people would have to put themselves on the line. Contributions to
civil rights groups soared and one hundred days after the death of Emmett Till, Rosa Parks
Mamie Till Bradley, “Telegram to President Dwight D. Eisenhower,” Freedom on My Mind: A
History of African Americans with Documents (BostonL Bedford/St. Martins, 2013) 638.
8
9
Mamie Till Bradley, “The Murder of Emmett Till,” 29:49.
5
refused to give up her seat to a white person and the Montgomery Bus Boycott began.”10 There is
debate on whether or not this was the last straw for African American’s or if it was a violent act
which sparked a radical movement. Regardless, it goes down in history as a major catalyst in
Civil Rights.
In reference to the afore mentioned American Experience film, it was said that Ms. Parks
with backing by the NAACP, single-handedly began the Bus Boycotts in Montgomery. Rosa
Parks is quoted in reflecting on her contribution during the Boycotts as saying, "I thought about
Emmett Till, and I could not go back. My legs and feet were not hurting, that is a stereotype. I
paid the same fare as others, and I felt violated."11 In this reflection, Parks admits that the follow
through of her actions were directly correlated to Emmett Till’s lynching. She admits that her
walking onto that bus and refusing to give up her seat was because of the violence that was
prevalent in the south and the negligence that was carried out in Mississippi.
There was cultural backlash that was recognizable to the general public, both black and
white. A black journalist reported, “I think black people’s reaction was so visceral, and I think it
was probably more than anything else in terms of the mass civil rights movement, the spark that
launched it. Everybody knew we were under attack and that attack was symbolized by the attack
on a fourteen year old boy.”12 Here, Rose Jourdain explains that the black population reacted, not
only in an aggressive manner, but in a manner that would change the way of life. She claims that
African American’s had a right to be angry and white American’s knew it. Jourdain explains that
this event marked a very obvious catalyst in the Civil Rights Movement.
10
“The Murder of Emmett Till,” 51:02.
11
Nikki Giovanni, A Literary Biography (Santa Barbra: ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2013) 154.
12
Rose Jourdain, “The Murder of Emmett Till,” 31:39.
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As the former Governor of Mississippi, William Winter agrees with Jourdain. In his
interview in the American Experience Documentary, “The Murder of Emmett Till,” he explains,
“The Till case held the whole system up for inspection by the rest of the country and by the rest
of the world. It was the beginning of the focusing on the problems between the races in the deep
south that culminated in the ultimate civil rights battles of the rest of the 50’s and into the
60’s.”13 Winter believes that this was only a matter of time before something like this happened.
He argues that it was beneficial for the south and the rest of the world to experience a dramatic
event like the murder of Emmett Till to open their eyes and focus on change. This, in turn, would
lead to a Civil Rights Movement in America.
African American’s have been persecuted throughout American history for being the
wrong color, affiliated with the wrong religion, the wrong background and the negative
connotation attached those aspects. This blatant racism, which was predominantly centered in the
south throughout the 20th Century, very obviously led to an increase in many African American’s
fighting for equality and fair treatment under the law. Historians have argued when the Civil
Rights Movement was born and what specific event got the ball moving. Due to the positive
correlation between prominent leaders such as King and Malcolm X in conjunction with the
Civil Rights Movement in America, many historians point to them as the tools responsible for
beginning of the fight. Yet John Dittmer, the author of Local People: The Struggle for CivilRights in Mississippi,14 and Charles Payne, who wrote, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom15, both
13
William Winter, “The Murder of Emmett Till” 2:25.
14
John Dittmer, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (Chicago: University of
Illinois Press, 1995)
15
Charles M. Paine, I’ve Got the Light (Berkley: University of California Press, 2007)
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argue that it was ordinary African American’s, who felt the wrath of white dominance and fought
hard to overcome their oppressors. Other historians, such as Alex Haley who wrote the very
dominant autobiography, the Autobiography of Malcolm X16 and Michael Eric Dyson who wrote
Making Malcolm17 argue that African American radicals were responsible for the movement of
the Civil Rights Movement.
None of these arguments are wrong, none of them are incorrect, or ill-informed. They
simply did not have the same outcome or effect that the murder of Emmett Till had. Emmett Till
was a major catalyst in the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, because no matter what
color you were in 1955, you still saw the picture of a fourteen year old boy, lying in a casket, far
too young, bloated, and unrecognizable. The Till murder struck a chord with the American
people, because it portrayed blatant hate, racism and discrimination by two men who never
second guessed what they were doing and were never held responsible for their actions. The
murder of Emmett Till sparked backlash from all over the United States and in turn fueled both
African American and white American’s to fight for equality following this gruesome event.
Prior to 1955 and the murder of Emmett Till, well organized, driven protests and civil
rights attempts were few and far between. The lynching of African American’s by white
American’s, however, were not. The murder of Emmett Till was not the first, and he would not
be the last black boy to be killed in the south. However, the reaction which led to the Civil
Rights Movement in American can be linked to Emmett Till’s age, the gruesome, brutal murder,
the extensive media coverage, and the lack of follow through by the American justice system.
Emmett Till’s life being forcefully taken at the hands of two extremely racist individuals after
16Alex
Haley, Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: The Ballantine Publishing Company, 1973)
17Michael
Eric Dyson, Making Malcolm (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.)
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fourteen short years of life, was an eye-opener for, not only the American public, but the world
as they caught wind of it at well. The murder of Emmett Till was the perfect storm for an African
American revolution.
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Bibliography
Branch, Taylor. King, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63. New York, Simon &
Schuster Inc. 1988.
Chafe, William H. Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for
Freedom. New York, Oxford University Press, 1980.
Dittmer, John. Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi. Chicago, University of Illinois
Press, 1995.
Dyson, Michael Eric. Making Malcolm. New York, Oxford University Press, 1995.
Giovanni, Nikki. A Literary Biography. Santa Barbra: ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2013)
Haley, Alex. Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York, The Ballantine Publishing Company,
1973.
Jabbar, Kareem Abdul and Steinberg, Alan. Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African American
Achievement. New York, Harper Collins, 2000.
Paine, Charles H. I’ve Got the Light. Berkley, University of California Press, 2007.
“Persecution and Prejudices of African American’s.” Cultural Experiences of African
Americans. Accessed April 19, 2014,
http://africanamericanculture.weebly.com/index.html.
“The Murder of Emmett Till.” American Experience Documentary, PBS.
White, Deborah Gray, Bay, Mia and Martin, Waldo E Jr. Freedom on My Mind: A History of
African Americans with Documents. Boston, Bedford/St. Martins, 2013.
Williams, Juan. Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965. New York, Penguin Inc., 1987.
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