Emmett Till Travels to the Mississippi Delta
Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was excited about his trip from his home in Chicago's south side to the Mississippi Delta to visit relatives. Prior to his departure, his mother, Mamie Till Bradley, a teacher, had done her best to advise him about how to behave when interacting with Southern white people. Till's mother understood that in Mississippi race relations were a lot different than in Chicago. In Mississippi, over 500 blacks had been lynched since 1882 and racially motivated murders were not unfamiliar, especially in the Delta where Till was going. Racial tensions were also on the rise; the United States Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which ordered the end of segregation in schools, created dismay throughout many Southern white communities. Furthermore, the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacy groups began working to maintain life as they knew it.With his mother's warning and wearing the ring that had belonged to his deceased father, on August 20, 1955, Emmett Till setoff with his cousin Curtis Jones on the train to Mississippi. When Till and Jones arrived on August 21, they stayed at the home of Till's great-uncle Mose Wright, just on the outskirts of Money, Mississippi.
Emmett Till is Kidnapped and Murdered
On August 24, the boys drove Wright's car into the small town of Money and stopped at Bryant's Grocery store to buy some candy. Prior to entering the store, Till pulled out some pictures of his white friends in Chicago and showed them to some local boys outside of the store. The boys dared Till to talk to Carolyn Bryant, the store clerk. Till went into the store, purchased some candy, and what happened as he was leaving is unclear. Till either said, "Bye, baby" or he whistled at Carolyn Bryant.Neither Till nor Jones understood the magnitude of Till's act, so they did not tell Mose Wright what had happened. They continued to think nothing of the event as three days passed without incident. However, on the fourth day early Sunday morning, Roy Bryant, Carolyn's husband, and J.W. Milam, Roy's half-brother, knocked on the door of Wright's home. With a pistol and flashlight in hand, they asked Mose Wright whether three boys from Chicago were staying with him. Wright led them to the room where Till was sleeping, and the men told Till to get dressed. Wright unsuccessfully pleaded with them to just whip Till. As they were leaving, they threatened to kill Wright if he told anyone.
Several hours later, Mamie Till was notified of her son's kidnapping. A search of the area was conducted, and Mamie Till notified Chicago newspapers of her son's disappearance. Wright told Money's sheriff who had taken Till, and he arrested Bryant and Milam for kidnapping.
The Mutilation of Emmett Till’s Face
Three days later, Till's body was discovered in 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 face was so mutilated that when Wright identified the body, he could only do so based on the ring that Till was been wearing.Although Mamie Till experienced difficulty in getting her son's body sent to Chicago, when it finally arrived she made the decision to have an open casket funeral. Mamie wanted the world to know what had happened to her son. His right eye was missing, his nose was broken, and there was a hole in the side of his head. Fifty-thousand people attended the funeral. Jet magazine ran photos of Till's body; soon Till's murder became an international story.
