This Day in <br />History: Emmett <br />Till Is Murdered.<br />August 28, 1955.<br />The 14-year-old Chicagoan <br />was murdered while visiting <br />family in Money, MS.<br />Unprepared for the level of <br />racism in Mississippi, Till had openly<br />flirted with a white woman — Carolyn <br />Brandt — on a dare from his friends.<br />Four days later, the woman's <br />husband Roy and her brother <br />J.W. Milam drove to where Emmett was <br />staying and kidnapped him from his family.<br />Emmett was beaten, his eyes <br />gouged out, shot in the head, <br />chained to a cotton gin fan and <br />then thrown into the Tallahatchie River.<br />Though he had been violated beyond <br />recognition, when his body was found, <br />Till's mother demanded he be displayed <br />in an open casket for his funeral.<br />Despite outrage sparked by <br />a photo of Emmett in his coffin, <br />it took an all white jury less than an <br />hour to acquit the two men of murder.
