The facts surrounding the Emmett Till lynching case are still vague even after 61 years.
(Mirror Daily, United States) – Although 61 years have passed since Emmett Till, a 14-year-old adolescent from Chicago, Illinois was brutally murdered in a little Mississippian town, the details of his case are still vague.
While some of the witnesses who testified in court said that the adolescent assaulted the store clerk, there are many other who said that it was Till’s skin color that brought upon him the retribution of the clerk’s family members.
The reopening of Till’s lynching case coincides with the publishing of a book written by Timothy Tyson, a distinguished research scholar at the Duke University. The book, entitled The Blood of Emmett Till, tells the uncensored and unbiased story of how a 14-year-old adolescent from Chicago was brutally murdered and his reputation tarnished.
Tyson’s biographical book reveals a unique timeline, beginning with the teen’s departure from his home city, and ending with his open-casket funeral in August 1955. Despite the fact that more than 60 years have passed since Emmett Till’s premature death, the parties involved are still keeping true to their vows of silence.
As history reveals, the events leading to the teen’s death were set in motion the moment he stepped into Bryant’s grocery store, a little market from the Mississippian town of Money. According to several testimonies, when Emmett Till crossed the threshold of Bryant’s grocery store, he starting to casually flirt with Carolyn Bryant, who worked as a cashier at that time.
After Emmett Till had discovered that the woman was not interested in his remarks, he grabbed Carolyn’s hand in order to get her attention. Minutes later, the woman left the store and went to her vehicle so she could grab a handgun. By that time, Emmett Till left the store.
When Carolyn arrived home, she told her husband and her step-brother about the events that transpired under the store’s roof. Enraged by Till’s gesture, the two men sought out Emmett Till, kidnapped him off the streets, and took him to their house.
There, they’ve savagely beaten him and shot him in the head with a shotgun. To dispose of the body, the two men tied a 74-pound gin fan around the adolescent’s neck and threw him in the nearby Tallahatchie River.
Emmett’s body was discovered several days later by the authorities. The discovery of Emmet’s corpse market the beginning of a long and damaging trial, culminating with Emmett Till’s open-casket funeral in August 1955. Even though 60 years have passed since the boy was brutally murdered, Carolyn Bryant, who is now 83-year-old, still refuses to offer any details regarding what happened that day at the store.
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