Peak Of Racial Discrimination

Emmett Louis Till and his mom Mamie Till Bradley

There was a day in the history America, when the peak of racial discrimination took place. That was the period, when African Americans were under attack, that no African-American male in the South was safe. A fourteen year old boy Emmett Louis Till lived in Chicago with his mother Mamie Till Bradley, a teacher. Emmett and his cousin planned a trip to Mississippi to visit their relatives. Before leaving Chicago, his mother clearly advised him about how to interact with white people. Till's mother understood that race relations in Mississippi were very different from those in Chicago. Emmett arrived in Mississippi on Sunday, August 21st.

Roy Bryant (left), with wife Carolyn and J.W. Milam (right) light up cigars after being acquitted of murder

On Wednesday, Emmett and his five cousins went into town, Money, Mississippi, for picking cotton for his uncle. They visited Bryant’s Grocery store to buy some candy. The store was owned by a white husband and wife, Roy Bryant and Carolyn Bryant. Emmett friends challenged to flirt with Carolyn. It seems Emmett says “Bye baby” to Carolyn when he left the store. This news spread quickly around the store. Roy heard this story when he returned from work. He was very angry with Emmett.

Brutally killed Emmett

On August 28, Roy Bryant and his half brother, J.W. Milam, began looking for Emmett Till. They found him at his uncle's cabin. Entering the cabin with flashlights and Colt 45 pistols, they kidnapped Emmett. To teach him lesson, they drove him to a weathered shed on a plantation in neighboring Sunflower County, where they beat and then shot him. Three days later, Emmett’s corpse was pulled from the depths of the Tallahatchie River. It was weighted down by a seventy-five pound cotton gin fan, which was tied around Till’s neck with barbed wire, his right eye hanging midway to his cheek, his nose flattened, and a bullet hole through his head.

Mamie after seeing the body of Emmett's

How a mother would feel the pain of her son’s death. It’s unexplainable pain. She made the decision to have an open casket funeral. She wanted the world to know what had happened to her son. Fifty-thousand people attended the funeral of Emmett Till. Milam and Bryant were never charged for Emmett’s death.