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Emmett Louis Till was a handsome 14-year-old with a wide grin who liked wearing a hat and enjoyed putting a smile on other people’s faces.

The jovial teenager from the South Side of Chicago delighted in cooking. He helped his mother around the house. He loved sports and often cracked jokes, according to family members. But it was his death 65 years ago today that most people know – a savage murder that forced a nation to see the excruciating consequences of racism.

In many ways, Till’s death ushered in a reckoning, shaping the course of the civil rights movement, in much the same way recent killings of unarmed Black people, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Sean Reed, Yassin Mohamed, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks and too many others, have renewed a deep sense of urgency for racial justice across the country.

It was the summer of 1955, amidst the oppression of Jim Crow, when Till traveled to the Deep South to visit family members. The Black teen went into a store in Money, Mississippi, and bought some candy. After he left the store and rejoined his cousins outside, the woman who was behind the counter also came out, and Till reportedly whistled at her.

Carolyn Bryant, the woman behind the counter, later claimed that the boy grabbed her, made lewd advances and wolf-whistled at her as he sauntered out of the store. His cousins, who were present, denied this account, and Bryant herself reportedly recanted it decades later.

But based on Bryant’s word, her husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, went to the house of Till’s uncle, where the teen and his cousins were sleeping in the wee hours of the morning and demanded to see Till. Milam was holding a .45-caliber gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

They beat him, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, tied him with barbed wire to a 75-pound cotton-gin fan and threw his body into the Tallahatchie River on Aug. 28, 1955. The men were arrested for the murder, but an all-white, all-male jury swiftly acquitted them.

Later, in a magazine interview, the two men admitted to killing Till. But they were never convicted of the crime. Both died of cancer years later. Still, others may also have been involved in the murder but were never prosecuted. 

Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, refused to allow the body to be buried in Mississippi. She had the remains flown back to Chicago and insisted on open-casket funeral services to ensure people would see what white supremacists had done to her son. Jet magazine’s photo of Till’s mutilated corpse – shared with media across the country – shocked the nation and served as a catalyst for the modern civil rights movement.

The struggle continues

In recognition of the impact of Till’s murder, his name is among the first of 40 martyrs inscribed on the Civil Rights Memorial, a circular black granite table across the street from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama. The Memorial, commissioned by the SPLC, records the names of the martyrs and chronicles the history of the movement in lines that radiate like the hands of a clock.

“Emmett Till’s death woke the nation up to the horrific reality of racism in the Deep South and was the inspiration for a number of resistant acts that led to the birth of the modern civil rights movement,” said Tafeni English, director of the Civil Rights Memorial Center, which sits behind the Memorial and is also operated by the SPLC. “The 65^th anniversary of Till’s murder also reminds us that today’s Black Lives Matter movement is rooted in a struggle that has been going on for generations, and that continues to this day.”

Even some efforts to memorialize Till have been met with violence. The historical marker where Till’s body was found in Mississippi has been shot several times, and it was replaced last year with a 500-pound, bulletproof sign.

Till’s mother, who passed away in 2003, came to the Memorial in Montgomery for its dedication in 1989.

“It’s almost as if I were touching him, touching Emmett himself,” she said as she placed her fingers over his inscription at the time. “It’s almost as if I’m reliving the funeral, and yet my heart is full of joy that not only my son but all these other people who gave their lives for the cause are getting the recognition they are due.”

Till’s cousin, Deborah Watts, was also at the Memorial’s dedication alongside Till’s mother. The co-founder and executive director of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, Watts is seeking justice for Till. To her, that means bringing Carolyn Bryant Donham – now in her 80s – to justice. (Carolyn Bryant later remarried and is now known as Carolyn Bryant Donham.)

“The time for justice is now, the clock is ticking fast. It is important that the jurisdictional authorities in Mississippi, the attorney general and district attorney hold the one surviving known accomplice accountable before it’s too late,” Watts said in a statement from the Foundation. “For 65 years, members of our family have been pressing for answers and to hold those involved in the murder of Emmett Till accountable. But now we need the help of Congress and all Americans who care about the application of true justice in this country.”

Watts and the Foundation are urging the authorities to charge Donham with murder because her false accusation led to Till’s killing. 

“Sixty-five years is, I think, a long enough time to determine the role of someone’s part in his lynching and his murder,” Watts told the SPLC. “And they need to be held accountable for it, and whatever price that needs to be paid, they need to pay the price. Carolyn Bryant [Donham] should not be held out as someone who is above the law.”

Read more here.

In solidarity,
The Southern Poverty Law Center