28 agos 1955 anni - The Abduction and Murder of Emmett Till

Descrizione:

When visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, a black boy from Chicago, is murdered for supposedly offending a white woman four days earlier on August 28, 1955. Emmett grew up in a working-class home with his mother in Chicago, Illinois. In comparison to the northern states the level of segregation in the south drastically differed. His killers being the white woman’s husband and her brother, these men made Emmett carry a 74-pound cotton-gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered him to take off his clothes. The two men beat him nearly to death, then proceeded to gouge out his eyes, shoot him in the head, and then throw his body, tied to the cotton-gin fan with barbed wire, into the river. The mutilated body of 14-year-old Emmett Till had been discarded like trash. However, two young boys found Emmett Till’s mutilated body on August 31. Mamie Till Bradley, the mother of Emmett, chose to have an open-casket funeral. Thousands gazed upon the deformed remnants of her son. Mamie Till chose to show the world what those men did to her son, by giving photographs of the open-casket to newspaper publications across the country. “The whole nation had to bear witness to this”.

The tragic case of Emmett Till sparked a new generation to commit their lives to see change. When asked about the case the activists said “We're not gonna die like this. Instead, we're gonna live and transform the South so people won't have to die like this”. Emmett Till’s murder gave the average black person a sense of courage. Also, it gave them a sense of anger. Anger for change, change socially when regarding white supremacy, but also criminal justice reform. The court exonerated the men that essentially lynched this young boy. Everyday black people had that level of anger for change in America. That anger transformed into a movement, a movement that went on to fight for change in the country. The boy in that casket caused the change the country needed. However, he did not ask for it. That is why the activists for change during this time fought so courageously, not only did they fight for a better future, they fought for the ones who lost their lives. So that their lives did not end in vain.

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