Emmett Till Analysis

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The lynching of Emmett Till in the summer of 1955 is one of the most well-known examples of racial violence in the twentieth century. Due to this, the story of Emmett Till has been told numerous times and from numerous perspectives. Although the tragic story of Emmett Till took place in Mississippi, the story would not only receive state attention but national and world-wide attention as well. The kidnapping and killing of a young fifteen-year-old African-American boy by allegedly two white males would not only be the talk of the town but it would be the talk of the nation as well. Stephen J. Whitfield in his book, A Death in the Delta The Story of Emmett Till, digs into and analyzes the deeper ideological roots of the story and case of Emmett …show more content…

Rather than just telling the story of Emmett Till, Whitfield dives into what can be defined as the psychological background or the reasoning behind the lynching. As previously stated, “southern culture” at the time saw interracial marriages and sexual intimacy as the downfall of civilization and those who committed these acts as criminals. The white men would often take it upon themselves to enact vengeance against the person responsible, black men. The case of Emmett Till, who was visiting Mississippi from Chicago, Illinois, was that the fifteen-year-old black boy supposedly cat whistled at a white female woman, Carolyn Bryant. When Roy Bryant found out about this interaction between Emmett and his wife, Roy and his half-brother Milam went and kidnapped Emmett Till in the middle of the night and then proceeded to beat the boy before taking him to the river, where they would shoot him in the head and tie a fan around his neck in barbed wire fencing to make him sink to the bottom of the …show more content…

In regards to the chapter of race and sex, Whitfield suggest there is a conflict between feminism and black liberation. While “southern culture” saw the cat whistle that Emmett Till may have muttered as the moral equivalent to rape, it in fact was nowhere close to rape. While rape can be found offensive and punishable by law, whistling can in no way be punishable by law, even if found offensive to

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