Emmett Till's Murder Thesis

Emmett Tills murder greatly impacted race relations in America and sparked a fire in many people to rise up against discrimination. The brutal murder of a young African American boy in Mississippi due to a suspected wolf whistle at a white woman is the tragic story of Emmett. Born and raised in Chicago Emmett had no familiarity with the antiquated ways of the South, his mother Mamie Till would warn him about such ways. Tills murder was impactful yet ambiguous in the eyes of some, specifically those in the South. And although what specifically happened during Emmett Till’s murder has been debated, the significance of Tills naiveness to Southern racial etiquette and the aftermath shows the connection between his murder and the emergent Civil

Historians do their best to figure out what to add and what to keep in them. History is immense and is hard to summarize in just one book. This leads to a lot of important things being left out, but it's not just the historians that have a say. The parents of the children have a say as well and they can be very critical of what gets added and what doesn't. Most parents wouldn't want something such as Tills murder to be explained in such detail to their children. This leads to a lot of textbooks either not mentioning Till at all or just mentioning him in a sentence. For example, in the textbook Becoming America: A History for the 21st Century the only time it mentions Till is in a paragraph in the Civil Rights section. It reads, “President Eisenhower, in whose hands the responsibility rested, remained aloof, even when african american teenager Emmett Till was brutally murdered Mississippi in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman” (Becoming America: A History for the 21st Century, 2015, pg. 777). This small segment of a more than thousand-page textbook does mention Till but fails to explain the impact his death had on the civil rights movement in America. And if it wasn't for Mamie Till advocating for justice and for people to see what they did to her boy then it probably wouldn't have been mentioned in any textbooks at

His murder may have been debated but it still had an impact and still does to this day. Tills naiveness should not have been something that caused such a brutal murder and people realized this. Emmett should not have suffered from just being himself and having fun. The racism at that time still continues today. For example, the memorials for Emmett in Money are still being defaced and disrespected by white supremacists. This hate is something that cannot continue if humanity wants peace and prosperity. People and their children need to be informed of such atrocities so they can fix the mistakes of their ancestors. They can do this by putting more information about cases like Emmett's murder in more textbooks and forms of media so that children can know and understand why these events happened. If they understand then maybe the future can be one of fellowship and comradery, not hate and