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Early life

Emmett Till was the son of Mamie Carthan (1921–2003) and Louis Till (1922–1945). Carthan was born in the small Delta town of Webb, Mississippi. The Delta region encompasses the area of northwestern Mississippi in the watershed of the Yazoo and Mississippi Rivers. When she was two years old, Carthan's family moved to Argo, Illinois, as part of the general migration of black families to the North to escape lack of opportunity and unequal treatment under the law.[1] Argo received so many Southern migrants it was named "Little Mississippi"; Carthan's mother's home was often used as a way-station for people who had just moved from the South as they were trying to find jobs and homes. Mississippi was the poorest state in the U.S. in the 1950s, and the Delta counties were some of the poorest in Mississippi.[2] In Tallahatchie County, where Mamie Carthan was born, the average income per household in 1949 was $690 (equivalent to $8,800 in 2023); for black families it was $462 (equivalent to $5,900 in 2023).[3] Economic opportunities for blacks were almost nonexistent. Most were sharecroppers who lived on land owned by whites. Black people were not allowed to vote and they had very few legal rights as they had been disenfranchised by Black Codes passed by the Mississippi Legislature after the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865), and Jim Crow Laws enacted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries which enforced racial segregation. {{citation}}: Empty citation (help)

[1] [4]

Till was born in Chicago and nicknamed "Bobo" as an infant by a family friend. Emmett's mother largely raised him with her mother; she and Louis Till separated in 1942 after she found out he had been unfaithful, and later choked her to unconsciousness, to which she responded by throwing scalding water at him.[5] For violating court orders to stay away from Mamie, Emmett's father was forced by a judge to choose between jail or enlisting in the U.S. Army which he did in 1943, and died in 1945.[6][7] At the age of six Emmett contracted polio, leaving him with a persistent stutter.[8] Mamie and Emmett moved to Detroit where she met and married "Pink" Bradley in 1951. Emmett preferred living in Chicago, so he relocated to live with his grandmother; his mother rejoined him with his stepfather later that year. The marriage dissolved in 1952, however, and Pink Bradley returned to Detroit.[9]

[10]

Mamie Till Bradley and Emmett lived alone together in a busy neighborhood in Chicago's South Side with extended relatives close by. She began working as a civilian clerk for the U.S. Air Force for a better salary, and recalled that Emmett was industrious enough to help with chores at home although he sometimes got distracted. His mother remembered that he did not know his own limitations at times. Following their separation, Pink Bradley paid her a visit and began threatening her. At eleven years old, Emmett, with a butcher knife in hand, told Pink he would kill him if he did not leave.[11] Usually, however, Emmett was happy. He and his cousins and friends pulled pranks on each other (Emmett once took advantage of an extended car ride when his friend fell asleep and placed the friend's underwear on his head) and spent their free time in pickup baseball games. He was a smart dresser and often the center of attention around his peers.[12]

In 1955, Mamie Till Bradley's uncle, 64-year-old Mose Wright, visited them in Chicago during the summer and told Emmett stories about living in the Mississippi Delta. Wright was a sharecropper and part-time minister who was often called "Preacher". He lived in Money, Mississippi, another small town in the Delta that consisted of three stores, a school, a post office, a cotton gin, and a couple hundred residents, 8 miles (13 km) north of Greenwood.[13] Emmett wanted to see for himself. His mother was ready for a vacation and planned to take Emmett with her, but after he begged her to visit Wright, she relented. Wright planned to accompany Till and a cousin to Greenwood where another cousin would join them. Before his departure, Till's mother cautioned him that Chicago and Mississippi were two different worlds and he should know how to behave in front of whites in the South. He assured her he understood.[14][15]

The severely divided racial caste system prevalent throughout the South was designed to prevent interracial romantic and sexual relationships. Although this occurred, particularly among white men and black women, the protection of white women from black men was the hinge upon which the caste system functioned, and although it rarely happened, even the suggestion of sexual contact between black men and white women carried the most severe penalties for black men. Since 1882, when statistics on lynchings began to be collected, more than 500 black Americans had been killed by extrajudicial violence in Mississippi alone and more than 3,000 across the South.[16] The majority of the incidents took place between 1876 and 1930; though far less common by the mid-1950s, these racially motivated murders still occurred. Enforcement of segregation continued following World War II and racial tensions were furthermore on the rise after the United States Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education to allow integration in public schools. Many segregationists viewed the ruling as an avenue to allow interracial marriage. The reaction among whites in the South was to constrain blacks forcefully from any semblance of social equality.[17][18] A week before Till arrived, a black man named Lamar Smith was shot in front of the county courthouse in Brookhaven, Mississippi for political organizing. Three men were arrested but acquitted.[19]


[20]

Younge, Gary (5 June 2005). "Justice at last?". The Guardian.

Encounter with Carolyn Bryant

Murder

Funeral and reaction

Trial

Media discourse

Later events

Till's significance in the civil rights movement

Media representation

See also

Notes

Citations

Sources

Further reading

  1. ^ a b Whitfield 1991, p. 15.
  2. ^ Beito and Beito, p. 116.
  3. ^ Whitaker (1963), p. 19.
  4. ^ Beito & Beito 2009, p. 126.
  5. ^ Till-Mobley and Benson, pp. 14–16.
  6. ^ Till-Mobley & Benson 2003, p. 17.
  7. ^ Houck and Grindy, pp. 134–135.
  8. ^ Till-Mobley & Benson 2003, pp. 36–38.
  9. ^ Till-Mobley & Benson 2003, pp. 56–58.
  10. ^ Till-Mobley & Benson 2003, pp. 41–42.
  11. ^ Till-Mobley & Benson 2003, pp. 59–60.
  12. ^ Till-Mobley & Benson 2003, pp. 70–87.
  13. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation 2006, p. 6.
  14. ^ Hampton 1990, p. 2.
  15. ^ Till-Mobley & Benson 2003, pp. 98–101.
  16. ^ Whitfield 1991, p. 5.
  17. ^ Whitaker (1963), pp. 2–10.
  18. ^ Whitaker (1963), pp. 61–82.
  19. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation 2006, p. 18.
  20. ^ Whitaker, High Steven. "A Case Study in Southern Justice: The Emmett Till Case". Florida State University. Retrieved July 3, 2022. PDF p.26, 39, 56
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