The Defender of Truth During 20th Cenutry Racial Injustices: The Lynching of Emmett Till

During the 1950s racial injustices swept the United States of America. Racial injustices such as lynchings and murders were common in the south, but local newspapers were banned from covering these injustices. One paper in particular was known as the voice of African Americans in the south for its printings of stories pertaining to racial injustices in the south like lynchings and murders, the Chicago Defender.
One example of the Chicago Defender's writings on racial injustices in the south was in the 1950s when the Defender covered the murder of Emmett Till. When this brutal murder of the young African American boy occurred in Mississippi, local papers failed to report in depth on the matter, but the Defender did not.
In August of nineteen fifty-five, fourteen year old Emmett Till was visiting his uncle in Mississippi. Being from Chicago, Illinois, young Till was warned of the ways of the south, and its racial injustices, by his mother, Mamie Bradley. But the young Till's childish manner, along with the extreme racial injustices in the south, ultimately were the causes of his murder.
On August first, nineteen fifty-five, Emmett Till, his cousin Curtis Jones, and local boys went to the Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market, the local grocery store of Money, Mississippi. At the market Emmett allegedly whistled at Roy Bryant's wife, Carolyn, an action considered by white southerners to be unforgivable at the time.
Just hours before the sun rose on Sunday, August 28, 1955, Roy Bryant, along with other men, went to the home of Emmett's uncle, Mose Wright, and demanded for young Till. That night Till was brutally beaten, shot in the head, tied to a cotton gin fan, and thrown into the Tallahatchie River. Three days later his body was discover down river by a fisherman, maimed and disfigured, almost beyond the recognition of his own mother.
At Emmett Till's funeral Mamie Bradley demanded that Emmett's casket be open so that all can see what these white southern men had done to a young African American boy, and in effect shed national light on the racial injustices taking place in Southern America at the time. The funeral home was flooded with citizens, just as the court room, and national attention was being drawn to the brutal murder.
While southern newspapers were lacking in the coverage of the Till case, national papers like the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and especially the Chicago Defender, were consumed with coverage of the murder. Coverage of the Till case by the Defender was one the highest with 29 articles pertaining to the murder from September 27, 1955 - June 3, 1963. This in depth coverage of the Murder of Emmett Till is just one example of how the Chicago Defender was the defender of truth on the racial injustices taking place in 20th century America.






Bob Dylan - Ballad of Emmett Till
Want to learn more on the Murder of Emmett Till? Scroll down the page,OR Click on the link here :
Documentary:
a) Part One
b) Part Two

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Photo 1: Emmett Till - 14 years old
Photo 2: Emmett & Mother
Photo 3: Bryant's Grocery & Meat Store
Photo 4: Emmett Till After Murder
Photo 5: Mamie Bradley at Son's Funeral
Photo 6: Emmett's Murder in the Chicago Defender

Music Video:Ballad to Emmett Till, by Bob Dylan.

Documentary Parts 1/2:
Kent, Martin, dir. Civil Rights Movement History Document. youtube. Emmett TIll