August 28, 1955 Emmett Louis “Bobo” Till was murdered in Money, Mississippi for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Till was born July 25, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois. He arrived in Money on August 21, 1955 to stay at the home of his uncle for a short period of time. On August 24, he joined several other young African American teenagers at Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market for candy and sodas. Till allegedly whistled at Carolyn Bryant (in 2017 Byrant admitted fabricated the story) who was white and working at the store. When Bryant’s husband, Ray, returned from a road trip a few days later and was told of the alleged incident, he and his half-brother, J. W. Milam, kidnapped Till from his uncle’s house. Till’s body was found swollen and disfigured in the Tallahatchie River three days later. On September 23, 1955, Bryant and Milam were acquitted of murder by an all-white jury after 67 minutes of deliberation. In January, 1956, Look magazine published an interview in which Bryant and Milam admitted that they had murdered Till. In 1991, a seven mile stretch of 71st street in Chicago was renamed “Emmett Till Memorial Highway” and in 2005 the school that Till attended was renamed Emmett Louis Till Math and Science Academy. Several books have been published about the murder of Till, including “A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till” (1988) and “Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime that Changed America” (2003).
