Poem Analysis: The Death Of Emmet Till

In 1955, a fourteen year old black boy from Chicago named Emmet Till was murdered. The young child was on trip to see his family to help and learn to be a hard working man. He was just fourteen when he allegedly flirted with a white woman, Carolyn Bryant in a convenient store in Money, Mississippi. Days later her husband, Roy Bryant returned home from a business trip and word spread around town like rapid fire. When Mr. Bryant heard about the incident he rounded up his brother-in-law, went to the house where Emmet Till was staying and dragged him out against his will. They took him to the bank of the Tallahatchie River where Carolyn’s brother and Roy Bryant made Emmet Till carry a cotton gin fan, made him strip and beat him unconscious. Then,

they gouged his eye out, tied him to the cotton gin fan with barbed wire and threw him into the river. The poem, “A Wreath for Emmett Till” by Marilyn Nelson is a reflection of how people reacted all over the world. Marilyn Nelson used her emotional response of anger over the murder of Emmet Till and sympathy for the mother who lost her child to write a powerful poem that shows Emmet Till as a just a child. She uses this poem to draw attention to the tragic events that happened over that time period especially to an innocent black boy of only fourteen years old. Nelson wants the readers to recognize that the death of this child was a racist and inhumane act that affected society in such a magnitude that it’s still being talked about over fifty years later.
Marilyn Nelson’s poem gives us her point of view on this little black boys death.

She uses this poem to reach out to the readers to make us believe that the death of Emmet Till was cruel and unusual, which as present day Americans we should agree. Nelson speaks on the behalf of Emmet Till because back then not only was he only fourteen, he was black and couldn’t defend himself. Emmet Till’s death sparked the civil rights movement. In todays society, the reason for Emmet Till’s death would not excuse Mr. Bryant and his half-brother of their decisions. In fact, today it would be consider a hate crime and would cause riots and lots of publicity, jail time, even the death sentence. Unfortunately, racism still exist today but not like it did back then. Today people try to justify what was wrong and what was right. People have different opinions but at the end of it all, there is always justice. For example: the Ferguson incident. The Ferguson incident happened on August 9, 2014 when a white officer, Daniel Wilson was found shooting an unarmed black teenage boy, Michael Brown. This incident was like a present day Emmet Till murder except the jury and the way things are handled today is definitely different. A big factor in both cases are definitely two boys age, the victims were black, and the convicted were white. Nelson emphasizes his age when she

says:
…In his suitcase
she’d packed dungarees, T-shirts, underwear,
and comic books.

She’d given him a note
for the conductor, waved to his chubby face,
wondered if he’d remember to brush his hair, (lines 9-13)

The importance of these lines is the fact that Emmet Till was so young and Nelson captures his innocences and young age by describing the what his mother was packing and how she worried if he was going to be able to take care of himself. When I was fourteen, I was definitely packing my own clothes but I was very dependent on my parents. Think about it this way, at age fourteen you’re either in seventh or eighth grade. You are still discovering who you are and where you fit in the world. A child’s decision should not be punishable by death or threatening, especially at this age. The brutality against Emmet Till was unnecessary. In the song, ”Young and Crazy” by Frank Ballard he says, “In order to be old and wise, you must be young and crazy.” This quote perfectly describes the point I am trying to make. When we’re young we should be able to make decisions and except the consequences that come along with them, whether it’s good or bad. Young people should be able to realize and learn from the mistakes made, but definitely not the way Emmet Till had to learn his. Mr. Bryant and his half-brother were trying to make an example out of Emmet Till. It may have been “ok” back in 1955, but reading and thinking about it today makes me question how these people lived with

themselves.
What really shocks me is the way Carolyn Bryant walked around after basically causing Emmet Till’s death. I would have figured since she has her own little children, she would have some sympathy towards this little boy. She easily could have kept quiet and been more wise and thought about how he was just a young and dumb kid. Kids are not wise and she should have realized that before she started telling people around town about the incident. Although, she may not have thought her husband would have taken it this far, she is still at fault. Which is why I feel like the guilt was eating away at her. In the Gwendolyn Brooks poem, “A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. / Meanwhile, A Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon,” she captures the way Carolyn changes the way she feels about the situation as the guilt takes a toll on her life. Gwendolyn Brooks starts off her poem by giving us an image of a fairytale, the perfect life. A woman who is a house wife and falls in love with her prince and he works all day to come home to family and a cooked meal. But that all changes when Brooks states that Mr. Bryant strikes his son. When Mr. Bryant hit their son she saw a glimpse of Emmet’s face take over her sons. Carolyn’s guilt started to overrule everything she was feeling. Gwendolyn Brooks states, “She heard no hoof beat of the horse and saw no flash of the shining steal.”(line 119) This is the change in the story. It states that Carolyn Bryant does not see Mr. Bryant as the “Fine Prince” anymore. She sees him as a murderer and when she witnesses her son bleeding from when Mr.Bryant swung at him she feels,
“…a sickness heaved within her. The courtroom Coca-Cola/The courtroom beer and hate and sweat and drone/Pushed like a wall against her.”(126-128) She pictures her son as this little fourteen year old black boy. She sees his face on her son. When Mr. Bryant tries to comfort her she feels nothing but disgust. She does not seem him as this fairytale figure anymore. She feels sympathy for the little black boy even though she was hesitant bout it and her change of heart captures the eye of the people of the south. She sets an example. Maybe she is not the only white person in the south that can change.
Brookes and Nelson capture the inhumane and racist acts that Emmet and his family had lived through, as well as any other black person in that era. Both authors bring our attention to the incident and not only tell us how they feel about it but also make us feel what they did. Still sixty years later we are still trying to put and end to racism, but unfortunately there are still some people who hang on to the past and can not see that whether we are white or black, short or tall, fat or skinny, gay or straight we are all still humans living in the same unjust world. Instead of making it worse on each other, why can’t we just accept people for the way that they are?