Emmett Till — SPARQNOW

At-a-Glance

An African-American boy who, at 14 years old, was abducted and lynched in Mississippi in 1955.
His murder and the acquittal of his killers drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States.
Posthumously became an icon of the civil rights movement.
His mother's insistence on a public funeral service with an open casket exposed American racism and the barbarism of lynching.
His murder was seen as a catalyst for the next phase of the civil rights movement, including the Montgomery bus boycott.

Biography

Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American boy born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. In August 1955, while visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, he had an interaction with Carolyn Bryant, a white, married proprietor of a local grocery store.