Remembering Emmett Till on His 84th Birthday
July 25 is Emmett Till’s birthday, the Chicago-born teen whose brutal lynching in 1955 became a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement.
Then just 14 years old, Till was visiting family in Mississippi when he was falsely accused by Carolyn Bryant Donham of whistling at her and making sexual advances at her family’s store, a claim she later recanted in 2007.
The accusation led her husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam to abduct, torture and murder Till. Though both men later confessed, an all-white jury acquitted them in just 67 minutes, underscoring the era’s entrenched racial injustice system.
Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted on an open casket funeral in Chicago, exposing the grotesque cruelty done to her son. The images published in Jet Magazine sparked shock and galvanized the fight for civil rights.
In 2007, Carolyn confessed to historian Timothy Tyson that Emmett never threatened her in any way. She expressed regret, noting, “nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him.”
A Mississippi grand jury declined to indict Carolyn in 2022, citing insufficient evidence, despite significant public pressure. She died at the age of 88 in April 2023 without ever facing criminal charges.
We remember Emmett Till not just as a victim, but as a young life cut short by racial terror, whose story transformed American consciousness and fueled a movement toward justice. On his birthday, we honor him by continuing the struggle against hate and injustice.
