the death of innocence mamie till mobley

Milam, respectively, abducted Emmett from his great-uncle’s house, beat him, killed him and threw his body into the Tallahatchie River. Her husband and brother-in-law, Roy Bryant and J.W.

Soon after Emmett’s arrival in Mississippi, a white woman named Carolyn Bryant accused him of whistling at her in a grocery store. “After all,” she wrote, “how do you give a crash course in hatred to a boy who has only ever known love?” Still, Mamie found herself struggling to convey these dangers to her son.

During that same time period, more than 600 Black victims were lynched there-the highest number of any state nationwide. But even compared to other Southern states, Mississippi was something of a hate crime capital. Elsewhere, lynchings happened in smaller numbers Illinois, where Emmett lived, recorded 56. Between 18, as documented by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), the vast majority of the 4,000-plus lynchings took place in the American South. “Oh, mama,” she recalled him saying, “it can’t be that bad.” Still, he imagined she must be exaggerating.Įmmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, at home in ChicagoĬhicago Tribune file photo / Tribune News Service via Getty Images Her son listened to her precautions and agreed to follow them. “Everything Emmett had come to believe all his life had to be unlearned as he prepared for the trip,” Mamie later wrote in her autobiography, Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America. If a white woman was walking toward him, he should lower his head and never look her in the eye. For instance: He shouldn’t speak to white people unless spoken to. He would need to follow them at all times. Mississippi had certain unspoken rules, she told him, rules that didn’t exist in Chicago, where he’d grown up. He wanted to go, too.Įventually, Mamie relented, but her permission came with caveats. His cousins would soon be heading south to spend a week with their uncle. It was the summer of 1955, and Emmett-she called him Bobo-had just turned 14. Mamie Till-Mobley never wanted her son to go to Money, Mississippi.

The death of innocence mamie till mobley