What did Roy Bryant do to Emmett Till?
After being accused of insulting a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family’s grocery shop, Emmett Louis Till, a 14-year-old African American boy, was kidnapped, tortured, and killed in Mississippi in 1955. Till’s death date was August 28, 1955. A long history of violent discrimination against African Americans in the United States was brought to…
After being accused of insulting a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family’s grocery shop, Emmett Louis Till, a 14-year-old African American boy, was kidnapped, tortured, and killed in Mississippi in 1955. Till’s death date was August 28, 1955. A long history of violent discrimination against African Americans in the United States was brought to light by the severity of his murder and the fact that his assassins were found not guilty. Posthumously turned into a symbol of the civil rights movement.
Till was raised in Chicago, Illinois, where he was born. He was visiting family in the Mississippi Delta, close to Money, Mississippi, in August 1955 while on summer vacation. He spoke with Carolyn Bryant, a married white owner of a small grocery store nearby, who was 21 years old. Till was charged with flirting with, touching, or whistling at Bryant despite the fact that what transpired at the store is still up for debate. Perhaps unknowingly, Till’s relationship with Bryant broke the unspoken rules of conduct for a black man dealing with a white woman in the Jim Crow South.
What did Roy Bryant do to Emmett Till?
A few nights after the incident at the store, Till’s great-home uncle’s was visited by Roy Bryant’s husband and his armed half-brother J.W. Milam, who kidnapped Emmett. He was taken away, beaten, and dismembered before being shot in the head and having his remains lowered into the Tallahatchie River.
