Death Of Emmett Till Essay

After learning about the death of Emmett Till and being posed with the question of if it sparked the black lives matter movement, I would have to agree. With the social injustice Emmett Till endured it would not be right to claim the attention brought to this subject did not spark the modern day justice movement “Black Lives Matter.” First of all, the Till murder was about a fourteen year old, African American male who went down to Money, Mississippi to visit his family. While down there, Till entered a store and upon leaving he whistled at a white lady, not knowing this was considered a heinous crime. The white lady eventually told her husband about the incident, obviously, this was not appreciated so the husband decided to punish Till. Roy Bryant, and his brother-in-law,

After retrieving Till the two men forced him to carry a seventy-five pound cotton gin fan down to the Tallahatchie River where he was forced to strip of his clothing so the two could nearly beat him to death before throwing him into the river to die (“The Death of Emmett Till”). After the body of Emmett Till was found and identified only by the ring engraved with his father’s initials, he was shipped back to his mother in Chicago so she could prepare his burial. When receiving the body the mother, Mamie Till, asked to see the body, but was denied. After finally convincing the men to open the casket she was the gruesome remains of her own son. Seeing her son must have lit a flame in her because Mamie Till decided she wanted an open casket funeral for her son, Emmett Till. When asked why she would want someone to see the remains of her son she simply responded she wanted to “let the world see what has happened, because there is no way I could describe this. And I needed somebody to help me tell what it was like” (Biography.com editors). After weeks of the murder the case was taken to trial where Willie Reed and Mose Wright testified for