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  • Essay / The Murder of Emmett Till: His Murder - 1154

    The murder of Emmett Till highlighted the horrors of segregation and racism in the United States. Emmett Till, a young teenager from Chicago, was visiting family in Mississippi in August 1955, but he was entering a state far more different from his hometown. Dominated by segregation, Mississippi imposed strict control on its African-American population. After apparently flirting with a white woman, which was highly frowned upon at that time in history, young Till was brutally murdered. The murder of Emmett Till became an icon for the civil rights movement and helped launch the demand for equal rights for all nationalities and races in the United States. In the summer of 1955, Mamie Till, Emmett Till's mother, kissed her only son goodbye. he boarded a train for Mississippi and left to visit family. She constantly reminded young people of the unavoidable racism in the state and the vast differences between Chicago and Mississippi. Mamie Till feared for her son's safety because he did not know how to behave towards the ruthless white population, and if a black person went against the orders of a white person, it could lead to beatings, even in in some cases, to death. , of the black man. In the South, authorities often turned their heads when an African American was beaten or murdered. (Contemporary Black Biography)Soon after arriving in Mississippi, the youth was put to work picking cotton with the rest of his cousins. On a particularly hot day and after picking cotton, Emmett and a few other black boys went to a local store in Money, Mississippi. The store, which was owned and operated by a young white couple named Carolyn and Roy Bryant, catered primarily to black workers from small to...... middle of paper ......Biography in Context. Internet. January 30, 2014. Spencer, Robyn. “Emmett Till.” Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History. Gale, 2006. Gale biography in context. Internet. January 30, 2014. “The Emmit Till affair, 1955.” Discovering the history of the United States. Detroit: Gale, 1997. Student Resources in Context. Internet. January 30, 2014. “Emmett Till.” American Decades. Ed. Judith S. Baughman et al. Flight. 6: 1950-1959. Detroit: Gale, 2001. Gale biography in context. Internet. February 23, 2014. Younge, Gary. "America dreams: the horrors of segregation united the American civil rights movement. Fifty years after Martin Luther King's great speech, inequalities persist, but in more subtle ways." New Statesman [1996] August 23, 2013: 20+. Student resources in context. Internet. January 28, 2014. “The Emmit Till affair, 1955.” Discovering the history of the United States. Detroit: Gale, 1997. Student Resources in Context. Internet. January 30. 2014.