Emmett Till

In class this week we saw the video documentary of Emmett Till. Before this video, I had never been exposed to the story and reality of Emmett Till and the gruesome truth of what were done to him. The video begins with his mother reflecting on her son’s life. She stated how she always felt that Emmett was one of her brothers more than a son to her because her mother (Emmett’s grandmother) raised them all. Emmett was really good at anything that involved art or science. The turning point in Emmett’s life was when we headed to Money, Mississippi. At this time Mississippi was probably the worst state in the United States when it came to segregation and racism. Emmett’s mother remembered how her son was ready to leave and she called him back to her because he had forgotten to give her a kiss goodbye. Emmett simply replied back to his mother you know nothing will happen to me and I’ll be back. When they were in Mississippi they all went to Bryant’s store. The person who ran the store was Mr. Bryant’s wife Carol. Emmett Till whistled at her while they were inside the store. All of his cousin’s and people that were there with her in their commentaries in the video just keep mentioning the surprise they were in when Emmett did that. One of his brothers even said how no one there actually expected him to do that to the white lady. Later on that night Mr. Bryant and J.W. Milam came into the house with a pistol and took him away. Everyone left behind was completely frightened that this was actually happening to them. Those grown men took Emmett to the Sheridan Plantation and they murdered him. They found Emmett’s body in the river. He was tied to a cotton gin fan with barbed wire and his tongue and private area were both cut out. He was only 15 years old. This painted an ugly reality for blacks; they knew that if this situation happened to a 15 year old boy, it could happen to anyone. His mother insisted that they had an open casket funeral because she wanted everyone to see what these white men had done to 15 year old boy. Over 50,000 people attended his funeral and Jet Magazine in 1955 posted a three page spread on Emmett Till’s body. This event is what sparked the Civil Rights movement, before Rosa Parks, before Dr. Martin Luther King. It was an ugly scary reality that America was about to deal with.