Emmett Louis Till was born July 25, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois. He was the only child of Louise and Mamie Till. Emmett never had the joy of knowing his father. His mother and father separated in 1942. Emmett Till grew up in a middle-class household in Chicago’s South Side, which was owned by blacks. In August of 1955, Emmett Till was visiting his uncle and cousin in Money, Mississippi for the summer. On August 24, Till was accused of flirting with a white female clerk at a grocery store. Four days later, in the early morning hours of August 28, Till was kidnapped and murdered. In the months following Tills murder, the murderers were put on trial. They were found not guilty and set free. Due to the extreme hatred against blacks in Mississippi and the acquittal of the murderers of Emmett Till, the Civil Rights Movement was sparked.
Emmett Till was excited to go down south and visit Moses Wright, who was his great uncle. Till was most anxious to go to Mississippi to be around relatives. Before leaving to Mississippi, Emmett’s mother had given him a ring engraved with his late father’s initials on it. This exchange of the ring followed by a kiss would be the last time that Emmett Till would be seen alive by his mother. August 24, …show more content…
The death of Emmett Till came one year after the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling that desegregated public schools. About 100 days after the murder of Till, Rosa Parks made her infamous refusal to move to the back of the bus for a white passenger in Alabama. Mamie Till states that in the time following Emmett’s death, “Emmett Till became that story for an entire generation coming of age in the fifties and the sixties.”(Death of Innocence; pg. 268) Emmett Till’s mother became a civil rights activist and in 1973 she founded the Emmett Till Foundation, which vowed to teach boys and girls to become successful citizens in
Emmett Till was excited to go down south and visit Moses Wright, who was his great uncle. Till was most anxious to go to Mississippi to be around relatives. Before leaving to Mississippi, Emmett’s mother had given him a ring engraved with his late father’s initials on it. This exchange of the ring followed by a kiss would be the last time that Emmett Till would be seen alive by his mother. August 24, …show more content…
The death of Emmett Till came one year after the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling that desegregated public schools. About 100 days after the murder of Till, Rosa Parks made her infamous refusal to move to the back of the bus for a white passenger in Alabama. Mamie Till states that in the time following Emmett’s death, “Emmett Till became that story for an entire generation coming of age in the fifties and the sixties.”(Death of Innocence; pg. 268) Emmett Till’s mother became a civil rights activist and in 1973 she founded the Emmett Till Foundation, which vowed to teach boys and girls to become successful citizens in