Thursday, March 28, 2024

Learn More about WPBS Passport! Click Here

HomeVideoThe Murder of Emmett Till | Full Episode | American Experience |...

The Murder of Emmett Till | Full Episode | American Experience | PBS

In August 1955, a 14-year-old Black boy allegedly flirted with a white woman in a grocery store in Money, Mississippi. Emmett Till, a teen from Chicago, didn’t understand that he had broken the unwritten laws of the Jim Crow South until three days later, when two white men dragged him from his bed in the dead of night, beat him brutally and then shot him in the head. Although his killers were arrested and charged with murder, they were both acquitted quickly by an all-white, all-male jury. Shortly afterwards, the defendants sold their story, including their tale of how they murdered Till, to a journalist. The murder and the trial horrified the nation and the world. Till’s death was a spark that helped mobilize the civil rights movement. Three months after his body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River, the Montgomery bus boycott began.

This program is made possible by viewers like you. Please support your local PBS stations: https://pbs.org/donate

Subscribe to the @American Experience | PBS channel for more clips: https://www.youtube.com/c/AmericanExperiencePBS

Enjoy full episodes of American Experience anytime, anywhere with the free PBS Video App: https://to.pbs.org/2QbtzhR

FOLLOW US:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmericanExperiencePBS
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmExperiencePBS/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/americanexperiencepbs/
Shop: https://shop.pbs.org/

#EmmettTill #CivilRightsMovement #History