Category: Emmett till

In 1955, when 14-year-old Emmett Till traveled from his home in Chicago to stay with a great-uncle in Tallahatchie County, Miss., his mother was nervous. Though the world was changing — the Brown v. Board of Education decision had come the year before — the Deep South was still a dangerous place to be black.…

The alleged teasing of white store clerk Carolyn Bryant by the 14 year-old African American Emmett Till led to his brutal murder at the hands of Bryant’s husband Roy and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, forcing the American public to grapple with the menace of violence in the Jim Crow South. According to court documents, Till,…