Emmitt Louis Till was an African American boy who was murdered. Till was said to be fifteen years old in one newspaper but fourteen in another paper. The New York Times said Till was from Chicago, spending a two-week vacation in Laflore County, Missouri with his uncle Mose Wright, a tenant farmer. The body was picked up the Sunday before September 1st, 1955.

According to the Times, Till allegedly whistled at Mrs. Roy Bryant, wife of a storekeeper around Money, Missouri. Till was actually whistling to Simon Wright and Simon’s cousin. A few hours later, Till was kidnapped, shot and dumped into the Tallahatchie River.

Roy Bryant and his half brother, J.W. Milam from Glendora, Mississippi are the lead suspects. They came to Wright’s house at noon on August 27th to abduct him, claiming to Wright they would cause him no harm. They came with flashlights and pistols, saying they wanted to see Till. Mose Wright said he heard a women’s voice in Roy’s car claim Till as the whistler. On August 31st, Till was found in the river with a 100-pound cotton gin pulley tied to him with barbed wire. Wright identified the body, which had a bullet hole in its head. Over 100,000 people saw the body when it was taken to Chicago for burial. A picture of Joe’s deformed face appeared on the cover of Jet Magasine; this helped further the goals of the civil rights movement.

Because of this, the governor of Mississippi called for a complete investigation into the murder. The National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) classified this as “lynching.” The Tallahatchie county Sheriff, however, believed the bod was not Till’s and the whole thing was NAACP propaganda.

The Lefllore Grand Jury did not Mr. Bryant and Milam guilty of kidnap and murder. The men were never put in prison by the federal government. Even after the two men admitting to the killing, the federal government did not punish them. The case was not reopened until 2004. The defense was that the body was not Till’s, but a planted corpse by the NAACP, which they got from the hospital. In 2005, the body was proven to be Till’s. According to Allen A. Breed of AP National Writers, the new jury, which was composed of mixed race, reduced the charge from kidnapping and murder to manslaughter.