ipl-logo

Emmett Till Murder Case Study

813 Words4 Pages

The murder of a young boy from the Southside of Chicago shocked the nation almost sixty years ago. Racist Jim Crow laws had led to him being lynched for a simple whistle. More recently, Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in 2012 by George Zimmerman for reasons that are hard to comprehend. Trayvon Martin is the not new Emmett Till due to the differences of the two cases and their outcomes. During August of 1955, Emmett Till traveled down to the Delta region of Mississippi. He was headed there to help his uncle pick cotton for the summer. One day after a long day of picking cotton in his uncle’s fields, he and his cousins went to the local grocery store in search for some midday snacks. After apparently purchasing some candy, he touched …show more content…

George Zimmerman was a Community Watch volunteer and was on patrol that night. On his way back home, “[Trayvon] passed through a townhouse complex where he was an unfamiliar figure to George Zimmerman” (Mills). Zimmerman reportedly radioed police and was told to not follow Martin. After which he exited his vehicle to confront Trayvon. This somehow led to a fist fight between the two and Zimmerman eventually pulled a gun and fired two shots, killing …show more content…

The media covered Emmett’s story extensively. Emmett’s murder showed a racism that ran very deep in the South and outlined what a terribly unjust state our society was in. Two men had brutally murdered a boy for literally just being a boy. White people in the South at this time felt that they were way better than blacks and took the law into their own hands at times. Emmett’s mother told his story on national television and exposed to the world what problems laid in the South which garnered sympathy from many who recognized the terrible reality. Trayvon’s murder was also covered by international media. Within hours there were pictures of an innocent looking, teenage boy running across TV screens. The media did not show the other side of Martin, the one that took pictures of himself showing vulgar hand gestures and abused marijuana. By not telling the entire story, millions immediately believed what they were told and hated

Show More
Related

  • Emmett Till: Guilty Or Murder?

    285 Words  | 2 Pages

    Emmett Till, a 14 year old African American boy who was brutally murdered by racists. He was a boy from Chicago who went to Money, Mississippi to visit family (source 1). Emmett had grown up in the North and his mother was Mamie Till Mobley. He was born July 25, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois. When Emmett was 5, he had polio.

    Read More

  • Why Is Emmett Till Wrong

    335 Words  | 2 Pages

    Emmett Till was a fourteen year old African American boy who was brutally murdered by white men. Emmett Till was a funny, responsible boy who wanted to visit family in Mississippi (source 3). At the age of five, Emmett got polio and recovered with only a stutter. He liked playing pranks on people but he was also helpful around the house. One day when Emmett was in Mississippi, he walked into a grocery store with some friends and supposedly whistled and the white store clerk.

    Read More

  • Trayvon Martin's Case And Racial Identity By Walter Mosley

    1082 Words  | 5 Pages

    Stories of the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin were seen and heard on nearly every news outlet and radio station beginning in February of 2012. On the night of February 26th, 2012 Trayvon Martin, an African-American teenager was walking home from a 7/11 convenience store carrying a small bag containing an Arizona iced tea beverage and a bag of skittles. On his way home, Martin was gunned downed in the streets of a gated community in the state of Florida by 28-year-old white resident George Zimmerman. While Martin was unarmed and had no criminal intent in mind, Zimmerman claimed to fear for his safety. This led to Zimmerman shooting Martin several times, which Martin shortly after died from.

    Read More

  • Exemplification Essay: The Murder Of Emmett Till

    468 Words  | 2 Pages

    Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, Illinois 14 years of age was brutally murdered for flirting with a white woman while visiting family in Money, Mississippi. His killers, the white woman’s husband and her brother, made Emmett carry a 75 pound cotton gin fan to the banks of the Tallahatchie River and made him to take off his clothes. The two then beat Emmett nearly to death, took out his eye, shot him in the head, and then threw his body, tied to the cotton gin fan with barbed wire, into the river. August 24, while standing with his cousins and some friends outside a country store in Money, Mississippi Emmett bragged that his girlfriend back home was white. They all disbelieving him and dared Emmett to ask the white woman sitting behind the store counter on a date.

    Read More

  • Murder Of Emmett Till Thesis

    253 Words  | 2 Pages

    His lynching is one of the most infamous crimes in America’s history. In the summer of 1955, 14-year-old African American, Emmett Till was accused of whistling at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman who was a cashier at a grocery store. Four days later, he was abducted, brutally beaten, and shot. His body was found in the Tallahatchie River. Because of the murder of Emmett Till, it sparked and emerged the Civil Rights Movement.

    Read More

  • Why Is Emmett Till Is Wrong

    608 Words  | 3 Pages

    Emmett Louis Till was a fourteen-year-old African American boy from Chicago. In August 1955 white women falsely claimed that Emmett till cat whistled at her in Money, Mississippi. Emmett Till did not know that he had broken the unwritten Jim Crow laws. Three days later, Emmett Till was pulled out of his bed in the middle of the night and was beaten and shot by two white men. Due to the gruesomeness of Emmett Till's murder and the way he was killed his mother demanded an open burial and an open casket.

    Read More

  • Emmett Till Essay Papers

    1734 Words  | 7 Pages

    Emmett Till was a young African American male, who was fatally beaten to death for a , now proven, false accusation. On August 21, 1955, Emmett Till went to stay with and visit his family members in Mississippi. Mississippi in the 1950’s was a very segregated state and followed the Jim Crow Laws. After an incident that occurred in the store with a White American woman, Emmett Till was kidnapped and murdered by the woman’s husband and half brother, August 24, 1955. On August 31, 1955, Emmett Till’s body was found beaten to where identification was hard from his mother was hard and a bullet hole in his head.

    Read More

  • Why Is The Trial Of Emmett Till Successful

    1202 Words  | 5 Pages

    “Black people are 7 times more likely than white people to be wrongly convicted of murder” (Vox). The trial of Emmett Till was unsuccessful. The Emmett Till murder was important because it changed the world and sparked The Civil Rights movement. In the summer of 1955, a 14-year-old boy from Chicago named Emmett Till was brutally kidnapped and murdered. Till was visiting his relatives in Money, Mississippi when he was wrongfully accused of whistling at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman.

    Read More

  • Emmett Till Thesis

    912 Words  | 4 Pages

    Do you ever wonder if what happened to people “back in the day” changes our world now? A lot of people don’t realize that if some of the things that did happen didn’t, how much different our world would be today. Emmett Till wasn’t well known, but he should’ve been for what he went through for winking at a white woman. Emmett till had a big part in the Civil Rights Movement (Latson). The story of Emmett Till is actually quite interesting, and intense.

    Read More

  • The Murder Of Emmett Till

    1307 Words  | 6 Pages

    He did not deserve what came to him, especially at such a young age. It was the evening of August 24, 1955, when Emmett had just arrived in Mississippi. He and a few cousins decided to go to a store nearby to purchase some snacks. This store is now known as the Bryant Grocery and Meat Market. It was run by a white couple, the Bryants.

    Read More

  • Emmett Till Thesis

    760 Words  | 4 Pages

    The murder of Emmett outraged many blacks and sympathetic whites. The outcome of the trial also angered the same people because of the amount of evidence against Roy and Milam. But the most important event was the picture of Emmett taken by David Jackson. Mamie wanted to have an open casket at his funeral. She wanted this to “Let people see what they’ve done to my boy.”

    Read More

  • Personal Narrative Essay: The Murder Of Emmett Till

    356 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Emmett Till and I were about the same age. A week after he was murdered . . . I stood on the corner with a gang of boys, looking at pictures of him in the black newspapers and magazines. In one, he was laughing and happy. In the other, his head was swollen and bashed in, his eyes bulging out of their sockets and his mouth twisted and broken.

    Read More

  • The Murder Of Emmett Till Analysis

    750 Words  | 3 Pages

    As a class requirement, we were obligated to watch a documentary about Emmett Till. The documentary, titled “The Murder of Emmett Till” was a tell-all about a tragic story of a fourteen-year-old boy from Chicago. Emmett Till was sent to Money, Mississippi to spend the summer with some relatives. In the 1950s, life in Chicago was different than life in Mississippi. Racism was stronger in the south than in the north and Emmett Till was walking into an environment he had never encountered before.

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay: The Issue Of Racial Profiling By Police

    1256 Words  | 6 Pages

    Trayvon was on vacation to his father’s for the summer. One night, Martin was walking home when he was approached by a police officer doing neighborhood watch. Officer Zimmerman called into dispatch seeing Martin, the officer claimed to dispatch that Trayvon was a suspicious subject. Dispatch told the officer not to exit his squad car, Zimmerman refused and approached Martin anyway. As the officer approached Martin they got into an altercation as the officer reports, where Martin ended up dead at the scene.”

    Read More

  • Emmett Till Thesis Statement

    277 Words  | 2 Pages

    Emmett Till was a loving, fun fourteen year old boy who grew up on the Southside of Chicago. During 1955, classrooms were segregated yet Till found a way to cope with the changes that was happening in the world. Looking forward to a visit with his cousins, Emmett was ecstatic and was not prepared for the level of segregation that would occur in Money, Mississippi when he arrived. Emmett was a big prankster, but his mother reminded him of his race and the differences that it caused. When Till arrived in Money, he joined in with his family and visited a local neighborhood store for a quick beverage.

    Read More

More about Emmett Till Murder Case Study

Open Document