Essay On Emmett Louis Till

Erin Drummond
April 6, 2014
Research Paper

Emmett Louis Till, a young, black boy, only fourteen-years-old, lived in Chicago and traveled to the South in the mid-twentieth century. Although he lived very few years, his life and death have impacted the lives of everyone in America’s present and past. This boy was accused, hunted, brutally beaten and eventually murdered because he was black. His murderers were acquitted even with plenty of evidence against them because they were white. Emmett was said to have sparked the Civil Rights Movement, which inspired people like Rosa Parks and many more.
July 25, 1941, the day of Emmett’s birth, God was with him. He survived through many hardships including a breach birth. Although the doctors said he would be disabled for life and institutionalized, he was not, he became a very active young boy. Emmett loved to go outside and play with his many friends. His best friend was his cousin, Wheeler Parker, who lived across the street.
When Emmett was just two-years old, Louis Till, his father, was drafted into the Army. In 1945, Mamie, Emmett’s mother, and Emmett (age four) received word that Louis had been executed for willful misconduct. There was no explanation of the crime at the time. At age five, Emmett was stricken with polio. He recovered with only a stutter in his speech, which was later self-corrected by whistling. Emmett was named after Mamie’s favorite uncle, Emmett, and her husband, Louis. His nickname was BoBo or Bo. He was surrounded with successful blacks, who, like Emmett, had a strong faith in God. Although Emmett had jobs to make money, he also had jobs around the house. He cooked, cleaned, washed laundry and did all other household chores. “He took on all the ...

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...r story was published in Look magazine in an article called, “The Shocking Story of the Approved Killing in Mississippi”, for which they were paid four thousand dollars.
Less than one hundred days after Emmett’s death, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white person. She later recalled, “I thought of Emmett and I just couldn’t go back.” (Source #4). Emmett sparked the civil rights movement and opened America’s eyes to an issue that needed immediate correction. Nine years after his murder, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “People really don’t know that these things take place,” Mamie said, “and the fact that it happened to a child, that makes all the difference” (Source #1). Mamie chose to tell her story by writing a book that was published in 2003, called Death of Innocence. Mamie died that same year, but her story will live on.