CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT 1 | Page 5

In August 1955, fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was kidnapped, beat and shot to death by two white men when one of the man's 21-year-old wife accused the boy of whistling at her while buying gum at her store. The two men even boasted about the murder in a local magazine, although admitting the murder, the two were acquitted by an all-white jury. Years later, the wife would reveal that the boy did not whistle at her. His unjustified death and how his case was handled soon with biased decisions became the the cause célèbre of the what soon will be the Civil Rights Movement.

DEATH OF EMMETT TILL