Emmett Till; a son, a child, murdered. Emmett Till was a child of only 14 when he was brutally murdered and mutilated because he was seen flirting with a white woman, which was not socially acceptable during the 1950's. But, if he did not die, the Civil Rights Movement could have ended a lot differently than it did. Through his story he helped give people the courage to stand up for their basic rights in life. His story also impacted today’s society and how we look at our world today.
Emmett Till was born on July 25, 1941 in Chicago to a single mom known as Mamie. When Emmett was 14, he was convinced that he needed to go visit Mississippi with his uncle, instead of going to Nebraska with his mother. His mother was reluctant to let him leave, but when she took her son to the train station, she gave him his father's ring with his father's initials on it. Little did she know that this would be the last time that she would see her son alive, or that the ring she gave him would be the only way to identify his mutilated corpse.
On August 24, 1955, Emmett Till made a choice that would ultimately end his life. He went into a convenience store to buy some bubble gum after a hard day of field work. When witnesses were asked to recall this event, they said Till was “flirting” with the cashier Carolyn Bryant, a white woman whose husband would end up being Till's killer.
On August 28, 1955, Bryant's husband went with his half-brother to kidnap Till from his own home at 2:30 a.m. They brutally beat him, before shooting him in the head. To dispose of the body, they tied a fan with barbed wire around his neck, and tossed him in the river. Days later, his mutilated body was found, unidentifiable except for the ring he still wore. His killers were never convicted.
People were so appalled by what had happened to Emmett. Jesse Jackson, a famous baseball player said about Till's murder, “ [His mother] let the body be exposed. More than 100,000 people saw his body lying in that casket here in Chicago. That must have been at that time the largest single civil rights demonstration in American history. (Emmett Till Biography)" That helped fuel the flame of the Civil Rights Movement. When people were protesting, or marching, many thought of Till and what had happened to him and it gave them courage. When Rosa Parks was told to give up her seat on the bus, she did not because of Till and his sacrifice. She said, “I thought about Emmett Till, and I couldn't go back [to the back of the bus] (Emmett Till Biography)."
Emmett Till's murder showed many Americans that we cannot let a problem escalate to violence. We have to take a stand before someone, especially a child is hurt. Just because we ignore a problem, does not mean that it will go away on its own. Racial discrimination was big during the Civil Rights Movement just as it is today. There are still so many problems within our own country.
Emmett Till; a son, a child, murdered. Emmett Till was a child of only 14 when he was brutally killed. But, by dying, he gave light to the problem at hand and gave courage to those civil rights activists, such as Rosa Parks, who were too afraid before. It showed the world that you cannot just ignore the problem and hope it will go away, you have to face the problem head on, otherwise it will escalate quickly into a messy situation.
