--- title: 5 Things to Know About Emmett Till's Reopened Case description: Emmett Till was murdered in 1955. His killers were never convicted—but his case, a key moment for the civil rights era, is being reopened. canonical: https://time.com/5336879/original-emmett-till-case-reopened/ author: Gabby Raymond article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-07-12T21:06:07.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-12T09:34:10.378Z article:section: History og:title: 5 Things to Know About Emmett Till's Reopened Case og:description: Emmett Till was murdered in 1955. His killers were never convicted but his case became a key moment for the civil rights era og:url: https://time.com/5336879/original-emmett-till-case-reopened/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc283b50f8d7de653/69893543929fad56c8bf110f/emmett-till-case.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2401 og:image:height: 1351 og:image:alt: Emmett Till og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 5 Things to Know About Emmett Till's Reopened Case twitter:description: Emmett Till was murdered in 1955. His killers were never convicted but his case became a key moment for the civil rights era twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc283b50f8d7de653/69893543929fad56c8bf110f/emmett-till-case.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Justice Department Has Reopened Its Investigation of Emmett Till's Murder. Here Are 5 Things to Know About the Case > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=c579b341-29a5-488a-8ca7-6cf3a8578be4&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) * TIME Subscriptions: [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=c579b341-29a5-488a-8ca7-6cf3a8578be4&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) ## Video: 100 Photographs: Emmett Till [Watch (HLS stream): 100 Photographs: Emmett Till](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/UMjPhgBD.m3u8) (8:27)  _Published 2016-07-09. Emmett Till was brutally killed in the summer of 1955. At his funeral, his mother forced the world to reckon with the brutality of American racism._ by [Gabby Raymond](https://time.com/author/gabby-raymond/) ## Gabby Raymond Jul 12, 2018 9:06 PM UTC by [Gabby Raymond](https://time.com/author/gabby-raymond/) ## Gabby Raymond Jul 12, 2018 9:06 PM UTC More than 60 years have passed since 14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered in Money, Miss., after reportedly whistling at a white woman. His murderers were never convicted, despite testimony against them and a later confession. But on Thursday, in the latest development in a case that remains a touchstone of the civil rights movement, the Associated Press [reported](http://time.com/5336765/emmett-till-investigation-murder/) news found within a Justice Department [report](https://www.justice.gov/crt/page/file/1059451/download) issued earlier this year: the government is reopening Till’s case, _In re Emmett Till_, “after receiving new information.” A reinvestigation of this case could be a rare chance to bring some closure to one of the most most vivid examples of racial violence in the South, from a moment when the U.S. was on the brink of the Civil Rights Era. Here are five things to know about the original Emmett Till case: ## Who Was Emmett Till? In 1955, Emmett Till, a Chicago native, was sent south to Mississippi to visit his uncle Mose Wright on a summer visit to the hometown of his mother, Mamie Till Mobley. At the time, the town of Money was controlled by a white minority and much of the black population, including Wright, were sharecroppers. Before leaving Chicago, his mother reportedly warned Till, “to be very careful… to humble himself to the extent of getting on his knees,” [as TIME originally reported in the immediate wake of the case.](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,807680-2,00.html) During the trial she would tell the jurors that, as the son of a working-class family from Chicago, he wasn’t really prepared for the full brunt of the segregated south and the violence it could hold for him. ## What Happened to Emmett Till? On Aug. 24, 1955, Till and a few other boys went to the grocery store in Money, Miss., to buy gum. What exactly happened there remains somewhat uncertain. According to some reports, Till [told](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1995/08/27/the-final-days-of-emmett-till/8b6d49d5-3508-4883-9a6b-e87c063251f0/?utm%5Fterm=.b30f3da4efc9) the other boys during that trip that his girlfriend at home was white, which led them to [dare him](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/magazine/the-ghosts-of-emmett-till.html) to ask out the white cashier, Carolyn Bryant, [thinking](https://www.jstor.org/stable/26235389?read-now=1&loggedin=true&seq=1#page%5Fscan%5Ftab%5Fcontents) he would never be so bold. At that time in the South, even though Till was still an adolescent, such an action would have been dangerous. Till’s friends watched him buy candy. According to some, he said something to Carolyn Bryant; others say he whistled. Carolyn Bryant’s husband, Roy Bryant, said that she told him Till had made lewd gestures, grabbed her and whistled. He and his brother-in-law J.W. Milam decided to take the law into their own hands and drove to Wright’s house, demanding to see Till. As Wright pleaded with the men not to take him, the men forced Till into their car at gunpoint and drove him away. Three days later Till’s corpse was found in the Tallahatchie River, unrecognizable from his wounds and decomposition. He had been beaten — his head was smashed in and shot — and a 75 lb. cotton-gin fan was attached to his neck with barbed wire. Wright was only able to identify the body as his nephew from the initialed ring still on his hand. ## What Happened During the Original Trial? The trial began late September in Sumner, the seat of the Tallahatchie County courthouse. [According to coverage by PBS](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/emmett-trial-jw-milam-and-roy-bryant/), the white townspeople raised $10,000 to support the defense case of Bryant and Milam, though they probably did not need the donations to persuade the all-white, all-male jury not to convict. Members of the community resented press from northern states coming down to cover the issue — especially black journalists, who were relegated to a card table in the courtroom and berated by the local sheriff. Despite testimony from Wright, who told the jury Bryant and Milam were the ones who abducted Till from his home, and the testimony of Willie Reed, who saw Till with the men and heard his screams coming from Milam’s shed, the jury acquitted the pair after only 67 minutes of deliberation. The defense attorney for Bryant and Milam told the jury before his closing remarks that it they didn’t not free the men, “your ancestors will turn over in their grave, and I’m sure every last Anglo-Saxon one of you has the courage to free these men,” according to PBS. The deliberations reportedly took an hour only because the jury had “stopped to drink pop.” Then, on Jan. 24, 1956, _Look Magazine_ ran an [exclusive account](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/till-killers-confession/) of the murder in which Bryant and Milam detailed how they killed Till. In the article, Milam said they hadn’t planned to kill Till, but he didn’t know his place and so they decided “it was time a few people got put on notice.” Because of rules against double jeopardy, the pair — who have since died — were never tried again, despite their confession of guilt. ## How Did Emmett Till Affect the Civil Rights Movement? Back in Chicago, Mamie Till had done something surprising: Despite urgings from local authorities in Money to bury the body as quickly as possible, she requested that her son be sent back home, where she decided to hold an open-casket funeral. She wanted to “let the people see what I’ve seen,” she [said](http://time.com/4399793/emmett-till-civil-rights-photography/). Among the thousands of people in the black community who attended the funeral were representatives of _Jet Magazine,_ which then ran an [exclusive photograph](http://time.com/4399793/emmett-till-civil-rights-photography/) of Mamie Till staring down at her son’s battered body. The photograph helped force Americans around the country to see the damage done by racism, in the form of a murdered 14-year-old. When the _Look_ confession ran only a few months later, it [sparked even more national uproar](http://time.com/4008545/emmett-till-history/) as the country began to experience the first waves of the modern Civil Rights Movement. [The L.A. _Times_ later reported](http://articles.latimes.com/1985-10-07/news/mn-16511%5F1%5Femmett-till-s-name) that “If Rosa Parks showed the potential of defiance, \[some historians\] say, Emmett Till’s death warned of a bleak future without it.” Till’s name [eventually](http://time.com/4504577/emmett-till-impact/) became a rallying cry for civil rights, and recent social justice movements have also[ looked to his](http://time.com/4228372/trayvon-martin-emmett-till-video/) story as historical precedent. ## Why Is the Emmett Till Case Being Re-Opened Now? As the Justice Department report explains, this is not the first time Till’s case has been reconsidered. The Department was asked to investigate again [in 2004](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,994243,00.html) and determined at the time there was no federal jurisdiction; in 2007, a state grand jury in Mississippi, to which to case had been referred, decided not to issue charges. But that same year saw the passage of the [Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007.](http://time.com/4068183/emmett-till-act-history/) That [law](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hr923) set up a system with the Justice Department responsible for investigating civil-rights-related cases from prior to 1970 that resulted in death but remained unsolved, with a mandatory annual status report. (That’s the report from which this week’s news was derived). Though the “new evidence” that has prompted the Department of Justice to re-open the case this time is unspecified, observers have [speculated](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/us/emmett-till-death-investigation.html) that it must be related to information released in Timothy Tyson’s 2017 book, _The Blood of Emmett Till._ In an interview with Tyson for the book, Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman Till was accused of making advances toward, told Timothy Tyson in an interview for his 2017 book, _The Blood of Emmett Till_, that, contrary to her testimony at the first trial, [he did not actually grab her or threaten her](http://time.com/4652126/emmett-till-carolyn-bryant-donham/). “Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him,” she admitted. The news [prompted](http://time.com/4664397/emmett-till-accuser-investigation/) Till’s family to push for a new investigation. Mamie Till Mobley, who died in 2003, will never be able to see her son’s killers incarcerated — but perhaps this new investigation will bring a sense of closure to a case so unjust that it sparked a revolution through the U.S. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] I believe that the whole United States is mourning with me. And that the death of my son could mean something to the other unfortunate people all over the world then for him to have died a hero would mean more to me than for him just to have died. [ MUSIC ] Emmett Till, 14, was kidnapped and killed, allegedly for wolf whistling at the wife of accused Roy Bryant. [ MUSIC ] It's not just that they discover his body and that he's been killed. [ MUSIC ] He has been brutally, brutally beaten. [ MUSIC ] As a criminal defense attorney, when we look at crimes, we often try to put together picture about what happened. And it takes a lot of hatred and a lot of rage. [ MUSIC ] To do the kind of violence that was done to Emmett Hill. Being a black boy in the American South could be quite perilous. The allegation that Emmett Hill was being social with a white woman was considered an affront, a threat to the. Racial war. And I think the shock of his death was compounded by the brutality of his death. [ MUSIC ] Emmett's mother couldn't actually conform to the conventions of the time. She did something really quite remarkable [ MUSIC ] She made the really unorthodox choice of having a funeral with an open casket that was going to be very widely publicized, it was going to be attended by the national press. She wanted civil rights leaders and political leaders to see what they did to her child. [ MUSIC ] She invited David Jackson in Jet magazine to take pictures of this childs battered body. [ MUSIC ] And this images world widely circulate. Jet magazine was a publication that was primarily produced and distributed to the African- American community that had been trying to educate the rest of the country about the horrors of segregation and racial violence and lynching in the American South. And the images were really, really challenging. It was the kind of visual that you didn't typically see. You certainly didn't see it outside of a war zone. And you certainly didn't see it with children. [ MUSIC ] His face was grotesque. [ UNKNOWN ] You could see eyes but you couldn't really distinguish all of his facial features. That's how much violence he had been subjected to. Ant its mother's presence in the photo is really important because she's really giving witness to victimization and violence. The other images that Emmett's mother provided just created this notion of a very respectable young boy who was trying to make the very best impression on everyone he met. The juxtaposition of a little boy in a suit and a tie with his battered face This was a stark image, that made it impossible for anyone who saw it, to be silent about it. Mainstream publications like Look and Life began talking bout this issue, it became an issue that elected officials will be questioned about. These images made it impossible for white families in other part of the country to stay indifferent to stay neutral. [ MUSIC ]. Never as this quite little cuddling growing community of Mississippi seen so much publicity and so much excitement in the past few days. Nearly two hundred of the town's five or six hundred residents were packed into the courthouse to hear the day's proceedings. Do you have any evidence bearing on this case? I do know that this was my son. How long do you expect to be here? He turned the chairs over. Bryant and his half brother, JW Milam were acquitted by this jury. [ MUSIC ] And subsequently, even though they admitted taking the boy from the house, they were freed of kidnap charges. The Inability to hold anyone accountable for his murder and the comfort with which the men who killed him were able to talk about the violence was just adding to the injury. They weren't just killing a boy, they're expressing something rooted in Just decades of animosity and fear and anger. [ MUSIC ] A boy, a 14- year- old boy was killed rudely. And one of our objectives here is to see to it that that boy whose picture you see there. [ MUSIC ] These images became powerful forces in organizing the new level of committment and resistance. The brutal murder of Emmett Till really. Pushed Rosa Parks to a deeper level of activism. That was one of the motivating forces behind her choice to not give up her seat on that bus. And in many ways, it was an organizing and galvanizing moment for the civil rights movement in this country. [ MUSIC ]. This shootings of unarmed black boys and men has been going on for decades. It is a manifestation of the same presumption of dangerousness that killed Damon Hill. That killed 1, 000s of people of colour during the lynching error [ MUSIC ] Imagery and photography is a really important tool. [ MUSIC ] Without the imagery, there would be no one who's prepared to believe some of the violence that we've witnessed. [ MUSIC ] [ APPLAUSE ] It's such a gratifying feeling to see you all sitting by and standing by because I realize shortly after this happened that it wasn't a fight that I could do. That it was gonna be a fight that we had to do. That the people would do for me, more or less. [ APPLAUSE ] We've never made progress in this country around important social justice issues until we've given marginal victims a face. That image still has resonance. It still has power. I think it still expresses the pain and anguish of a huge part of our population that is still hoping for basic recognition of their humanity. And I want you all to stand by me because it's going to be a fight. And if you will stand by me I will stand by you because I am not afraid. [ APPLAUSE ] [ MUSIC ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5336879/original-emmett-till-case-reopened/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5336879/original-emmett-till-case-reopened/"},"headline":"The Justice Department Has Reopened Its Investigation of Emmett Till's Murder. Here Are 5 Things to Know About the Case","datePublished":"2018-07-12T21:06:07.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-12T09:34:10.378Z","description":"Emmett Till was murdered in 1955. 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