I have to ask. Of Older DU'rs. When Emmett Till was murdered...

[alphafemale]

Did the entire world notice....like this?

We all know his name now. And that may have been something that kicked some activism into being.

But outside of Jet.


Was that story known?

Then? At the time it occurred?

[hlthe2b]

1. he was killed in 1955, well before I was born...

But here is what Wiki says about it:

Till was returned to Chicago and his mother, who had raised him mostly by herself, insisted on a public funeral service with an open casket to show the world the brutality of the killing. Tens of thousands attended his funeral or viewed his casket and images of his mutilated body were published in black magazines and newspapers, rallying popular black support and white sympathy across the U.S. Intense scrutiny was brought to bear on the condition of black civil rights in Mississippi, with newspapers around the country critical of the state. Although initially local newspapers and law enforcement officials decried the violence against Till and called for justice, they soon began responding to national criticism by defending Mississippians, which eventually transformed into support for the killers. The trial attracted a vast amount of press attention. Bryant and Milam were acquitted of Till's kidnapping and murder, but months later, protected against double jeopardy, they admitted to killing him in a magazine interview. Till's murder is noted as a pivotal event motivating the African-American Civil Rights Movement.


Sounds like it got major attention from the start, or nearly from the start... So, while Martin's death was delayed in being "covered", there are similarities.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. I was but a wee crumb-snatcher when that happened

Wikipedia has a decent article about it, though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till#Catalyst_for_civil_rights

[teach1st]

3. PBS Timeline

I was only two at the time. Here's a timeline from PBS's American Experience that mentions media involvement.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/timeline/timeline2.html

For example:

September 2: In Chicago, Mamie Till arrives at the Illinois Central Terminal to receive Emmett's casket. She is surrounded by family and photographers who snap her photo collapsing in grief at the sight of the casket. The body is taken to the A. A. Rayner & Sons Funeral Home.
The Jackson [Mississippi] Daily News decries the "brutal, senseless crime" but complains that the NAACP is working "to arouse hatred and fear" by calling Till's murder a lynching.
In Belgium, the newspaper Le Drapeau Rouge (the Red Flag), publishes a brief article entitled: "Racism in the USA: A young black is lynched in Mississippi."

And:

September 20: Judge Curtis Swango recesses the court to allow more witnesses to be found. It is the first time in Mississippi history that local law enforcement, local NAACP leaders and black and white reporters team up to locate sharecroppers who saw Milam's truck and overheard Emmett being beaten.
The French daily newspaper Le Monde runs an article reporting that the American public is following the Till case "with passionate attention."

[MineralMan]

4. I was 10 years old at the time. I remember being aware of it,

but that's about it. It was in the newspapers, and I read the newspapers. It never got discussed in our family, but I do remember it.

[demtenjeep]

5. the world was still segretated the media wasn't like we have now

so no, it wasn't the same

[Justpat]

6. yes

The story and pictures of Emmett's mutilated body were flashed around the world.

good article here: http://www.black-collegian.com/african/till2005-2nd.shtml

In this article is states that J. Edgar Hoover refused to send troops to Mississippi saying: "What happens in Mississippi, stays in Mississippi."

The pictures of his body where shown to the world because his mother refused to have a closed casket service. She had the casket open so the world could see what was done to her son. 50,000 people filed past the casket at the service in Chicago where Emmett grew up.

It is a horrific story. It is painful to read about the cowardice of our leaders and our
own character at that time in history.

How much have we changed?

[ladjf]

7. I was living in Mississippi and I clearly remember that it caused a massive change in attitudes in

Mississippi. I don't recall the National or International response. Also, the slaying of the three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Ms. caused an equal amount of anger and indignation.

[alphafemale]

12. Yeah that Missisippi murder of those three young men yanked people at the short hairs.

There was a white young woman and black man slaughtered about that time as well. You hardly ever hear about them though.

[jehop61]

8. I was about 12 and lived in Chicago

I remember some local news about it, but nothing like what we've seen now. Remember, there were only 3 networks, no internet, and media controlled by conservative giants. The City was totally segregated, and I would never dare to venture on the other side of the railroad tracks in the middle of my street because "they" lived there. Integration was not even heard of on the south side where I lived. So, a n _ _ _ _ _'s problems were unknown to us. One thing I do remember about the episode was a local newspaper had a full sized picture of Emmett in his casket on it's front page. I was fascinated because I'd never seen a dead person in a coffin before. So glad things are somewhat different now.

[Mac1949]

9. We knew about it in Upstate New York.

I remember discussing it with my father and brother, but the media coverage wasn't as extensive. Then again, we only had three channels, no internet, little in the way of serious talk shows, etc.

[tularetom]

10. I was 14 and we lived beyond the reach of TV signals

So my guess is I was blissfully ignorant of this horrible appalling story. The only way I know anything about it to this day is from reading about it.

And you have to remember there was no internet, Facebook or other way to disseminate information and convey outrage like there is today.

Also, people's attitudes were considerably more tolerant of racially motivated crimes than they would be today.

[HarveyDarkey]

11. I was only 6

As far as I recall, we didn't have a TeeVee. Didn't know about it until Bob Dylan's song:

The Death of Emmett Till

Twas down in Mississippi not so long ago,
When a young boy from Chicago walked through a
Southern door.
This boy's fateful tragedy you should all remember well,
The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till.

Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up.
They said they had a reason, but I disremember what.
They tortured him and did some things too evil to
repeat.
There was screaming sounds inside the barn, there was
laughing sounds out on the street.

Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a blood-red rain
And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his
screaming pain.
The reason that they killed him there, and I'm sure it
was no lie,
Was just for the fun of killin' him and to watch him slowly die. ('cause he was born a black skinned boy, he was born to die)
And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial,
Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor
Emmett Till.
But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers
commit this awful crime,
And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind.

I saw the morning papers but I could not bear to see
The smiling brothers walkin' down the courthouse stairs.
For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free,
While Emmett's body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea.

If you can't speak out against this kind of thing, a crime
that's so unjust,
Your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt, your mind is
filled with dust.
Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and
your blood it must refuse to flow,
For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low!

This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man
That this kind of thing still lives today in that
ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan.
But if all us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we
could give,
We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live.

[jwirr]

13. I was about 13 then and I don't think it was as well known but only because of the media access.

Of course we did not have the Web and many of us did not even have TV yet. So local news programs would have been the only way we would have known. My family did not have a TV and we did not know. Got the first TV in 1958 as my parents did not want that "damned box" on all the time. We did visit a cousin who had one but they only watched a few programs as they had the same attitude as my father.

[socialist_n_TN]

14. If it was in '55 I was only 4 years old........

Although I was living in Mississippi at that time, we didn't have a TV (hell, we didn't even have indoor plumbing , so I honestly didn't know anything about it until I grew older.

I would suspect that there wasn't as much news about it though, in comparison with the Martin lynching. As others have noted, there wasn't the proliferation of social web sites and alternative news sources like there are today.

[goclark]

15. I was about 10 years old

and living in Baltimore.

I'm African American and I remember my family taling about it.
I remember being sad to hear them talking about it.

There was no Main Stream Media so we had to get the information from friends and neighbors, our little television set or from the African American Newspaper.

[alphafemale]

17. He was such a strikingly beautiful child.

He probably was used to play flirting with grown women up north.

Poor baby. I hate to imagine his last hours.

[rug]

16. Clifford Glover was another of many.

He was 10.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Glover\\

[Mr Dixon]

18. JUST SAYING

I read about it later in life, because my 1st wife was white and alot of older Black People used to tell me to know my history, so i read up on it and many other deaths of Black people in the south. Opened my eyes to say the least. but there were many more killings that never made a headline thanks to wik everyone can research this twisted history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Racially_motivated_violence_against_African_Americans