DOCUMENTARY--Emmett Till
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Senior (55+)Accents
North American (General) US African AmericanTranscript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
On August 20th, 1955 Mamie hugged Emmett goodbye at a Chicago train station. Emmett and his cousin and best friend Wheeler were off on a summer adventure to visit cousins in the Mississippi Delta. It was the last time Mamie saw her son alive. 11 days later, officials pulled in his lifeless body from the Tallahatchie River. He'd been badly beaten and shot his face nearly unrecognizable. Not long into his visit while at a country store with his cousins, Emmett Whistled at a white woman named Carolyn Bryant. Emmett was only joking but the other boys knew this was serious. Late one night, Carolyn's husband, Roy Bryant and Jw Milam kidnapped Emmett at gunpoint from his family home. They took him to a barn where a group of men brutally tortured the 14 year old for hours. The screams were heard far out in the dark Mississippi night, shamefully lynchings like this were not uncommon in America, especially in the South. Letting murders of black people often went unreported despite the attempts of authorities in Mississippi to bury the horrible truth about Emmett's murder. Mamie demanded to have her son returned to her in Chicago after seeing what they'd done to her only child. Mamie insisted on an open casket funeral allowing tens of thousands to plainly see the impact of racial hatred with support from our community. Mamie's brave actions began a ripple for justice in the midst of this tragedy.