Emmitt Till Woke the Country Seventy Years Before George Floyd
Both deaths transformed how we deal with the issue of racism
In the summer of 1955, Emmitt Till was a fourteen-year-old black boy living in Chicago. His mother was born in Mississippi, and as a baby, their family had been part of the Great Migration.
In Chicago, Mami Till (Emmitt’s Mother) lived with her son as a single mother. Emmitt begged his mom to go down to Mississippi to visit family before the summer was over. Reluctantly she agreed. When he left on the train, that was the last time she saw him alive.
Arriving in the south, he had a great time with his cousins. They picked cotton during the day as well as swam in the local river. They made enough money for some pocket change and headed over to Bryant’s Grocery.
It was here that Emmitt Till did something that would cost him his life. He “wolf-whistled” at the white store clerk whose name was Carolyn Bryant.
Here is where I have to explain the culture at the time in the south. The situations were tense. The Supreme Court had just declared that the segregation of schools…
