RALEIGH, N.C. — In 1955, a white woman alleged that a Black teenager whistled at, grabbed and said obscene things to her in her grocery store in Mississippi. The result? A brutal kidnapping, beating and murder in the Jim Crow South.
The 14-year-old victim was Emmett Till, and his horrendous death was pivotal in the American civil rights movement.
Last month, a team of researchers and Till’s relatives found, in the basement of a Mississippi courthouse, a legitimate arrest warrant for the woman whose accusations led to his murder. The news has reignited interest in this gruesome event.
