Emmett Till, a young black boy of Mississippi, was murdered by Roy Bryant and John W. Milam in August of 1955. The notorious case drew in a crowd of more than a thousand people, all attentive to the decision on whether or not to indict the accused men. However, by the ruling of an all-white-man jury, Bryant and Milam were acquitted on all charges. This decision sparked a national outcry from the African American population, and ultimately fueled the flames to Black Civil Rights in the South. Despite racial barriers established in America, Bryant, Milam, and the town of Sumner, Mississippi recognized the extinguished life of a human being, not just a negro boy, evidenced through the website famous murder trials by Douglas O. Linder.
It’s speculated
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Bryant and Milam navigated around this law on the premise that Till was from the South, therefore the two men should have reported to the land owner of the black family of which Till was staying with (“Famous Trials” Website, Law Enforcement Sensitive, p. 14). Both Bryant and Milam known they had taken their revenge too far by the lengths they went to cover their tracks. "’When we got to that gin, it was daylight, and I was worried for the first time. Somebody might see us and accuse us of stealing the fan” said Milam. Not only did Bryant and Milam ditch Till’s body in the river, they also burned his clothes to eliminate further proof of what they did (Emmett Till Murder [Bryant and Milam] Trial, Killer’s Confession in Look, William Bradford Huie, p. 1).
In their great lengths to hide their actions, Bryant and Milam also had Sheriff Strider throw both Leroy “Too Tight” Collins and Henry Loggins, two primary witnesses, in a Charleston, Mississippi jail (Emmett Till Murder [Bryant and Milam] Trial, Douglas O. Linder, p. 1). They were both hired black hands to Bryant and Milam that would have testified against them, had they not been falsely thrown into