While many Americans are unaware of the story of Emmett Till, his story may have had the single greatest impact upon the Civil Rights movement. Emmett was a 14-year-old black teenager from Chicago, who was visiting relatives in Mississippi in August of 1955.

By all accounts, Emmett was by nature "slightly mischievous." On a bet, Emmett spoke to a white woman in a local store. Witnesses say that Emmett said "Bye, baby" to the wife of the storeowner. Two nights later, at midnight, two white men named Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam came to the home where Emmett was staying. They took him away and beat him beyond recognition. They shot him, tied him with barbed wire, and tossed his body in the Tallahatchie River.

The two men were arrested before the body was even found. Their guilt was not a serious question in anyone's mind. At the trial, the all white, all male jury deliberated for just over an hour, then returned a not guilty verdict on September 23rd, the 166th anniversary of the signing of the Bill of Rights. Only weeks after these men were acquitted and knew they could not be tried for the crime again, they freely admitted their guilt.

After the trial, Emmett's mother, Mamie Bradley, said, "Two months ago I had a nice apartment in Chicago. I had a good job. I had a son. When something happened to the negroes in the South, I said, 'That's their business, not mine.' Now I know how wrong I was. The murder of my son has shown me that what happens to any of us, anywhere in the world, had better be the business of us all."