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important of black history month
racial discrimination in the united states
racial discrimination in the united states
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Could you imagine a world where people could get away with murder just because the person was black? This was common during the Civil Rights movement in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Emmett Till, a 14 year old boy from Chicago, Illinois, was just one example of the cruelty and mistreatment of African Americans in the United States. His death and the acquittal of his killers was the spark that set off a movement that changed America forever. Emmett Till’s brutal murder jump started the Civil Rights Movement and was one example of how Jim Crow Laws affected the treatment of African Americans in the South.
For Emmett, growing up in Chicago was a safe haven that hid him from the cruel treatment of African Americans in the South. Emmett Louis Till was born on July 25, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois. He was the only child of Louis and Mamie Till. Emmett never met his father, who was killed while serving for the army in Italy. His family was later told that he was killed for raping two white women and killing another. Emmett was very close with his mother, and he took care of her the best he could. He was called “Bobo” or “Bo” by most of his friends and family. He contracted polio at the age of 5 but recovered with only a slight stutter. “Those who knew Till best described him as a responsible, funny, and infectiously high-spirited child.” (“Emmett Till Biography”) Emmett was always planning practical jokes and was very confident. He was also hard working and took on many domestic responsibilities at home. "Emmett had all the house responsibility," His mother later recalled. "I mean everything was really on his shoulders, and Emmett took it upon himself. He told me if I would work, and make the money, he would take care of everything ...
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...ived jail time, they ultimately paid for their sins in the end.
Emmett Till’s unfair trial and failure to follow the Jim Crow Laws of the South cost him his life and lit the fire that was the Civil Rights Movement. His mother, Mamie Till, describes her son as the “sacrificial lamb” that helped the African American community reach equality with other Americans. While Emmett will be missed, his life and death had a meaning that even he could not understand.
Works Cited
"American Experience: The Murder of Emmett Till." American Experience: The Murder of Emmett Till. PBS, 2009. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
Anderson, Devery. "Emmett Till." Emmett Till. N.p., 4 Mar. 2014. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
"Emmett Louis Till." 2014. The Biography.com website. Apr 22 2014
Huie, William B. "The Shocking Story of APPROVED KILLING IN MISSISSIPPI."
Look 24 Jan. 1956: 46-50.Print.
The forties and fifties in the United States was a period dominated by racial segregation and racism. The declaration of independence clearly stated, “All men are created equal,” which should be the fundamental belief of every citizen. America is the land of equal opportunity for every citizen to succeed and prosper through determination, hard-work and initiative. However, black citizens soon found lack of truth in these statements. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the murder of Emmett Till in 1955 rapidly captured national headlines of civil rights movement. In the book, Coming of Age in Mississippi, the author, Anne Moody describes her experiences, her thoughts, and the movements that formed her life. The events she went through prepared her to fight for the civil right.
...at his story had to be told to the world so that her son would not die in vain. In conclusion, Mamie Till eloquently summed up the importance of her son’s moment in history by saying, “Emmett was the catalyst that started the Civil Rights movement. Because when people saw what had happened to this little 14 year old boy, they knew that not only were black men in danger but black children as well. And it took something to stir the people up and let them know that either we are going to stand together or we are going to fall together. I do know that without the shedding of blood there is no redemption” (The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till). The media gave unprecedented coverage to the Emmett Till murder, funeral and trial. They reported it with a passion. The media’s drive share this story ultimately made a permanent change in our country’s attitude toward racism.
. Emmett Till's death had a powerful effect on Mississippi civil rights activists. Medgar Evers, then an NAACP field officer in Jackson, Mississippi, urged the NAACP nation...
They complained that the NAACP was trying to bring fear and hatred to the people by making this situation a race issue. Clearly they hadn’t seen the lynching of young Emmett till as a hate crime against blacks. On September 6th, The same day as tills funeral service, a grand jury in Mississippi met to indict Milam and Bryant for the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till. They both plead innocent, and were held in jail until the start of the trial. The actual trial lasted only an hour an seven minutes. A white juror boasted that it wouldn’t have taken so long had they not stopped to drink coca cola. Whites were careless and insensitive to the seriousness of the case. The life of a teenage boy was dealt with like it mattered less than a worthless animal. Both, Milam and Bryant were not guilty and set free. This story went viral across the world, newspaper articles posted things like “the life of a negro isn’t worth a whistle” and other touchy headlines. Whitfield, S.
An African American women name Mamie till had her only child murder for just whistling at a white woman. Her only child name Emmett Louis till was born in 1941 in July twenty five in Chicago cook county hospital. Mamie till was married to a men name Louis till. They were only eighteen years old when they got marry. When Emmett till was about one year old when his parents separated. Emmett till never knew his father. His father was a private soldier in the United States army during World War two. Three days later Mamie received a letter saying that Louis till had been executed for “willful misconduct”. Mamie till was given Louis ring with his initial L.T. As a single mother Mamie work for hours for the air force as a clerk. Since Mamie worked more than twelve hours Emmett till will have done the cooking, cleaning, and even the laundry. Emmett till was a funny, responsible, and a high spirited child. Emmett till attend at an all-black school called McCosh. His mother will always tell Emmett till to take care of himself because of his race. One day Emmett till great uncle Moses Wright had come from all the way from Mississippi to visit his family from Chicago. When his great uncle had to go he was planning on taking Emmett tills cousins with him. Later on Emmett till found out that his great uncle...
Emmett Till was a 14 year old boy visiting Money,Mississippi from Chicago, Illinois in 1955. He whistled, flirted, and touched a white woman who was working at a store where Emmett Till was purchasing bubble gum. A day later Till was abducted at gunpoint from his great uncle’s house. 3 days after that Till’s body was found, unrecognizable other than a ring he had on. He was unprepared for the intense segregation of Mississippi.The death of this young boy then sparked a movement to end the inequality of African Americans in the United States.
Emmett Till made the ultimate sacrifice and has shown what could lie in the future if a change is not made (Latson). Rosa Parks’s resistance to the racial segregation of the buses has inspired action in the NAACP and has shown the potential of what they could accomplish if blacks continue to defy racism. The prejudice among the white jury members clouded their judgment in the Scottsboro Trials, leaving them unable to fairly deduce a reasonable punishment or verdict. These trials making national news has made African Americans eager to combat and uncover the malpractices in the court. Till’s, Parks’s, and the Scottsboro Boys’s sacrifices were not in vain. They exposed the circumstances that African Americans had to endure and rallied them to protest the inequalities between races. Their actions were the impetus of the Civil Rights
Emmett Louis "Bobo" Till was born on July 25, 1941 and was a 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago who was brutally murdered in Money, Miss., a small town in the state's delta region. His murder has been cited as one of the key events that energized the nascent Civil Rights Movement. The primary suspects in the case of his death were acquitted, but they later admitted to committing the crime. Till's mother, Mamie, insisted on a public funeral service with an open casket to let everyone see the manner in which he had been brutally killed. He had been shot, beaten and had his eye gouged out before he was then thrown into the Tallahatchie River with a 75-pound cotton gin fan tied to his neck with barbed wire to weigh him down. His body stayed in the river for three days until it was discovered and retrieved by two fishers. Till's body rests in Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill. The murder case was officially reopened in May of 2004, and as a part of the investigation, the body was exhumed so an autopsy could be performed. The body was reburied by the family in the same location later in that week. Till was the son of Mamie and Louis Till. Emmett's mother was born to John and Alma Carthan in the small town of Webb, Miss. When she was 2 years old, her family moved to Illinois. Mamie raised Till on her own mostly, as she and Louis separated when Till was only a year old. Louis was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943. While serving in Italy, he was convicted of raping two women and killing a third. The Army executed him by hanging in July of 1945. Prior to Till's death; the family knew none of the details of Louis' hanging. They only knew that Louis had been killed due to "willful misco...
On April 4th, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, an event that would change history forever occurred. That was the day James Earl Ray assassinated the driving force of the Civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr. It shook the nation, as the man who was planning on bringing peace and racial harmony in the United States was killed in an instant. He was probably the most influential scapegoat in American history, setting out to create equality for all races in America. There were many extremist white-based groups which detested the idea of equality, believing that whites were superior over all, groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Martin Luther King did not back down when groups like the KKK harassed him; he used their hate against them and allowed it to thrust him forward for the sake of bettering his cause and pushing towards racial equality. In the end, Martin Luther King was assassinated for his passion and beliefs; his hard work paid off because after his death, there was at least legal racial equality in the U.S. His bravery and strength
The Emmett Till murder shined a light on the horrors of segregation and racism on the United States. Emmett Till, a young Chicago teenager, was visiting family in Mississippi during the month of August in 1955, but he was entering a state that was far more different than his hometown. Dominated by segregation, Mississippi enforced a strict leash on its African American population. After apparently flirting with a white woman, which was deeply frowned upon at this time in history, young Till was brutally murdered. Emmett Till’s murder became an icon for the Civil Rights Movement, and it helped start the demand of equal rights for all nationalities and races in the United States.
Emmett Till was fourteen years old when he died, as a result of racism. He was innocent, and faced the consequences of discrimination at a young age. His death was a tragedy, but will he will live on as somebody who helped African-Americans earn their rights. Emmett Till’s death took place in a ruthless era in which his life was taken from him as a result of racism during the Civil Rights Movement.
In America, the fortie s and fifties was a time of racism and racial segregation. The Declaration of Independence states “all men are created equal” and America is viewed as the land of equal opportunity. However, blacks soon found the lack of truth in these statements; and with the Montgomery bus boycott marking the beginning of retaliation, the civil rights movement will grow during the mid – sixties. In the autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, Anne Moody describes the environment, the thoughts, and the actions that formed her life while growing up in the segregated southern state of Mississippi. As a young child, Moody accepted society as the way it was and did not see a difference in the skin color of a white person as opposed to that of a black. It was not until a movie incident did she begin to realize that the color of her skin made her inferior. “Their whiteness provided them with a pass to downstairs in that nice section and my blackness sent me to the balcony. Now that I was thinking about it, their schools, homes, and streets were better than mine.” Soon after Moody entered high school, Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old boy from Chicago, was killed for whistling at a white woman. “Emmett Till’s murder had proved it was a crime, punishable by death, for a Negro man to even whistle at a white woman in Mississippi.” Although her mother refused to give an explanation of the organization, Moody learned about the NAACP from one of her teachers soon after the incident. It was at age fifteen that Moody really began to hate people. Not only did she hate the whites that committed the murders, but she also hated the blacks for allowing the horrid actions to occur. When there were rumors about black men having sexual relationships with white women, Negro men became afraid even to walk the streets. One of Moody’s high school classmates, Jerry, was beaten after being accused of making telephone calls to a white operator with threats of molesting her. Even more tragic was the Taplin fire. A whole family was burned in the Taplin family home and although the police tried to blame it on a kerosene lamp, the blacks knew it was purposely started with gasoline. To get away from all the horrifying things going on in her town, Moody leaves to stay with family members in Baton Rouge.
Till was an African American schoolboy in Chicago, and he went to visit his uncle in Mississippi. He reportedly “wolf whistled” at a white grocery store attendant, Mrs. Bryant, and was kidnapped by her husband and her husband’s half brother that following night. The boy’s body, terribly battered, with a bullet hole in the head and a cotton-gin fan affixed to the n...
Finally, the background history displayed the progression of racial discrimination before civil rights to today’s times. George Stinny, and Emmett Till were guaranteed to encounter with a racial justice system because of the Jim Crow laws and Civil rights. After civil rights, the justice system created revised rules and regulations to everyone including African Americans and other races. Clearly, most of the other articles were before the year of 2010 followed by the Supreme Court rulings making it equal for all races to have fair trials.
Up until 1955, many of the Northern, white Americans were unaware of the extent of the racism in the ‘Southern States’, one instance in 1955 changed that greatly. The death of Emmet Till became a vital incident in the civil rights movement dude to the horrific pictures of the young boy that circulated throughout America. It is thought that up to 50,000 people viewed the body of Emmet Till, as it appeared in a number of newspapers and magazines, this greatly increased awareness of racism i...