Background

Life as an African-American growing up in the State of Mississippi during the 1950's was a life of segregation, fear and unequal rights. Most, if not all black people were appointed to a life of picking in the fields . On August 20, 1955 Emmett Till leaves his hometown of Chicago to stay with his family in Money, Mississippi. Money was a small town with about 5-6 stores in the local area. There was one particular store called Bryant Groceries (owned by Roy and Carolyn Bryant).

On the day of August 24, 1955 Till and 7 other teenagers go into the grocery store to get refreshments and candy. While Till finishes giving his money to the Carolyn Bryant after buying a piece of gum, witnesses say that he whistled at her. She stormed out and the children got in the car and went back home. At around 2:30 AM that night, Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam came looking for the boy that whistled at his wife. They figured out that it was Emmett. Emmett Till was then brutally beaten, shot in the head and thrown in the river with a 75-pound fan wrapped in barb wire around his neck and left in the Tallahatchie River. 

Bryant and Milam were both arrested in charges of kidnapping. About 3 days later, Till's body is discovered. The body was so brutally mutilated, that the only way they could determine that it was actually Emmett was by the ring on his finger that read L.T. (initials for his father's name). The brutal and senseless crime made waves in the media when Mamie Till, the mother of Emmett had an open-casket funeral to show the world what these two white people did to her son. Thousands of people lined up in Robert Temples Temple Church of God to see the body and are utterly shocked at what they saw.