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Civil rights role

Emmett Till had a major roll in the Civil Rights Movement. Most people give Rosa Parks all the credit when half know that it was really Emmett Till. He is the best.

Rosa Parks engaged in a very courageous act of civil disobedience. Emmett Till didn't do anything but whistle at a white woman. The Emmett Till case is important in the history of the Civil Rights Movement, but he himself should not be considered a hero of it, as Rosa Parks is. --Angr 13:15, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
He allegedly whistled at a white woman. Who knows what really happened? Jdotpitts 13:34, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
The only people who really knew were the eyewitnesses, and they are all dead. At this point all we can say is that was the allegation. -Will Beback 20:43, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree that he didn't exactly exhibit heroics, but Mr. Till still instigated one of the most important movements of our time. He deserves a good deal of respect for having lost his life, hero or not.
Please sign your edits to talk pages. Keep in mind that Wikipedia articles must conform to the Neutral point of view policy. Labeling Till a "hero" would violate that; the article does touch on his death's role in spurring civil rights activism. --Dhartung | Talk 09:01, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Don't know if this is discussed further down, but he is the reason that Rosa Parks did not give up her seat. The popular story seems to be that she was tired and didn't want to stand, but there were actually other seats available on the bus. I don't know why the "tired" story gets more play as this is actually a more powerful reason. --Art8641 (talk) 16:45, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Emmett Till

The murder of Emmett Till in 1955 did not immediately set off alarm bells nation-wide that the struggle against racist injustice needed to be set in motion. Hundreds of African Americans in the south had been murdered in this or a very similar manner. This was a 14-year old boy kidnapped, beaten and brutally murdered by two grown men.

What probably galvanized the concerned element of America to take action was the reported manner in which this young man was murdered and the condition of his body as it lay in state for all to see. In this respect, the mother of Emmett Till, who insisted on an open-casket funeral, is responsible, in a sense, for "striking the match" that Rosa Parks used to "light the fuse" that helped set off the Civil Rights Movement in America.

Please sign edits to Talk pages. Um, OK, but that's more or less opinion (and phrased with internal contradictions). What was your main point? --Dhartung | Talk 29 June 2005 08:39 (UTC)

Emmett was a murder victim. He did not "instigate" anything. Whatever he may, or may not have, have done, and that will never be known, there was no heroics involved. It was a matter of at least two, if not more, torturing, and beating a scared, and defenseless child based on allegations. Getting murdered is not heroic!

I agree with the other poster that Till's mother was the one who really got the ball rolling in terms of public perception of hate crimes in the south. Emmett no more "got the ball rolling" than J.W. Millam and his psychotic, bullying racism did. This wasn't a lynching, this was the murder of a defenseless child, and even hard core racists in the south at the time were upset over this. Bryant, and especially Milam, were the vilest of the vile, and they both died horrible deaths and were shunned deservedly.

-Yako Fujimato

pic

i noticed that the picture of him after his death isnt here. is there a reason? it is pretty graphic. --Jaysscholar 01:33, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

There should be a separate page linking to the post-mortem photo of Till, with the "possibly disturbing image" warning, like it is (or was) on the Abraham Lincoln page. FamousBobby 03:13, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I think it's ridiculous the picture isn't on here. I also don't think it should be censored to a separate page. The mutilated face is the most abiding memory of the Till murder to most people. Furthermore - not to suggest that any whitewashing has gone on - isn't the description of his murder a little brief? It just says that his murderers 'brutally beat him'. That just sounds like they roughed him up pretty bad, not that they cut of his ear, gouged out an eye and shot him point blank with a .45. Granted, any sort of lynching has a level of brutality that does not necessarily need to be described in great detail, but I think it needs more stress here. The picture would obviously convey that. Gunstar hero 17:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

"Any sort of lynching"??? Are you stating Till was lynched? He was not lynched. Not all racially motivated killings are "lynchings". Lynching is a very public killing done with no attempt to dispose of the body, in fact in a lynching, the body is usually left in a very public place for all to see. In the Till case you had a racially motivated kidnapping and killing of a child that was done in near secrecy in a secluded place. Then you had the killers clearly attempting to get rid of the body in a river by weighing it down. I wish people would learn the correct meaning and definition of a word before posting. -Yako Fujimato

"In 1955, Mamie Till tried to get her government to bring the truth to light. She sent a telegram to President Eisenhower urging that “justice be meted out to all persons involved in the beastly lynching” of her son." [CBS]. His mother seemed to consider her son's death a lynching.

--Michael Altfield 168.28.136.13

(Please don't reorder conversations arbitrarily.) The photograph has been uploaded, but it was not properly tagged for fair use or otherwise deemed to violate copyright rules, thus it was deleted. Wikipedia is not censored.--Dhartung | Talk 21:50, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't Mammie Till determined to release the photo with the intention of people seeing the horror that was bestowed upon her child? Surely, she had the rights to at least one photo of post-death Emmett Till. Surely, she would have been willing to release it for wikipedia. Who owns the rights to the photo? Did she GIVE them to anyone? --Michael Altfield —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.28.180.20 (talk • contribs)

Formulation

There was a sentence I simply didn't understand:

At about 2:30 AM on 28 August, Roy Bryant and his half brother, J.W. Milam, kidnapped Till, once physically afflicted by polio, from his uncle's house in the small cotton town of Money, Mississippi.

What is once physically afflicted by polio doing in the middle of that sentence? It doesn't seem to fit. Thue | talk 19:07, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes It's a total non sequiter! They might as well have said "At about 2:30 AM on 28 August, Roy Bryant and his half brother, J.W. Milam, kidnapped Till, who greatly enjoyed playing baseball, from his uncle's house in the small cotton town of Money, Mississippi.

Picture of Emmitt Till

Do we have a picture of him? The one in the template doesn't work and the one that was in an earlier version obviously wasn't him. Capitalistroadster 00:46, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Pictures

I live in Mississippi, and within the last year or so I've taken pictures of (a) the new signs on US 49 naming the road the Emmett Till Highway, west of Greenwood, and (b) The old Milam store, or more accuratly, its ruins, in Money. Would these be any use for this page? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.183.52.185 (talk • contribs) 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I think that the highway signs, at least, would be neat to have. Hbackman 01:02, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

PIC OF EMMET TILL-

http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fei%3DUTF-8%26p%3Dpics%2520of%2520emmett%2520till%26SpellState%3Dn-2028096564_q-Zr572EaPSPS2UhAI34ryRwAAAA%2540%2540%26fr2%3Dtab-web&w=256&h=170&imgurl=www.kersplebedeb.com%2Fhopelife%2Fremember_emmett_till.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kersplebedeb.com%2Fhopelife&size=18kB&name=remember_emmett_till.jpg&p=pics+of+emmett+till&type=JPG&oid=ddcaa3aa68fae1a8&no=9&tt=1,932&sigr=114bs2iup&sigi=11mgl5nfj&sigb=14oubkaor —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.14.18.137 (talk) 21:51, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Wealthiest black?

Negroes who lived in the Southern States in the 1950s were not wealthy. They wore straw hats, overalls, and work shoes called brogans. The article is rife with distortions and the overuse of the word "black." A negro was called a "boy" until he reached the age of 60 and never called "black." An old negro was called "uncle." This article deserves an NPOV designation because it is full of propaganda. I doubt that "wealthy blacks" exist in Mississipi, today. Superslum 14:42, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

That is a generalization. In any group there will be extremes -richest and poorest. "Wealthy" is absolute, but "wealthiest" is relative.
  • When Mamie Bradley came to Mississippi.. she stayed in the home of Dr. T.R.M. Howard in the all-black town of Mound Bayou. ... Howard was a major civil rights leader and fraternal organization official in Mississippi, the head of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), and one the wealthiest blacks in the state.
Howard was a surgeon and entrepreneur who owned an insurance company and other business. -Will Beback 23:18, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
If he was a "surgeon," he did not work in a medical facility because he was banned due to his ethnicity. (If he was a negro "surgeon" who lived in northern States such as Pennsylvania and Ohio in 1955, he could not work in a medical facility. Employers would have snickered at him. Negroes shined shoes for a living in 1955 in the United States). If he owned an "insurance company," he dealt in pennies, not in dollars.
Wealthy people own property. Merely being a "surgeon" does not qualify a person as being wealthy. Maybe he owned three or four straw hats instead of only one or two, so people now call him "wealthy." Lately, national newspapers have started the practice of coupling "wealthy" and "black" together to produce a new phrase: "wealthy black." If you examine the economic structure of the United States in 1955, you will not discover "wealthy blacks," you will discover shoe-shine boys.
In 1955, in Mississippi and other southern States, a negro could not enter a shoe store and try out a pair of shoes prior to purchasing them. The same policy applied to clothing stores. Negroes purchased their garments first, took them home, then put them on. There were no "wealthy blacks." The Emmett Till page is NPOV because it contains myths which are being portrayed as truthful indications of conditions in the United States in 1955. Superslum 14:12, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Have you even read the article on T.R.M. Howard? I assume you have since you edited it. Unless that article is incorrect, Howard was indeed a landowner, a practicing surgeon, and a businessman. The economic conditions you describe undoubtedly existed in large areas, but there were exceptions. -Will Beback 20:25, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I did not edit T.R.M. Howard because I had never heard of him before I read the Emmitt Till page. Whomever he may have been, he was not a wealthy negro living in the United States in 1955. President Bush is an example of a wealthy man because he owns 1,000 acres (about 400 hectares) of land. T.R.M. Howard may have been a "surgeon" who operated exclusively on negroes in 1955 because colored doctors and dentists were commonplace in the United States in 1955, but they have disappeared due to the dumbing down of Negroes process that was installed by the Federal government in the 1960s. Superslum 20:43, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Still, I think you may be missing the point (no offense) -- as Will noted, we aren't talking absolutes ("Howard was a wealthy black man") but rather relatives ("Howard was one of the wealthiest black men in Mississippi at the time"). Saying that he was "one of the wealthiest" doesn't imply that he was actually wealthy. I think that most people will realize that that community as a whole wasn't particularly wealthy, and will realize that saying that Howard was one of the wealthiest people in that community doesn't mean that he was rolling in money. Hbackman 02:44, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
A few weeks ago the New York Times mentioned that New Orleans, Louisiana where Hurricane Katrina destroyed homes contains "wealthy black residents." I don't believe that the references to "wealthy blacks" are accurate. As I stated above, national newspapers mention "wealthy blacks" in their publications. That is new verbiage which appeared in the United States very recently. The New York Times is noted as being a newspaper that prints fabrications. I hope that the Wikipedia doesn't follow in that newspaper's footsteps. (However, I believe that there will be an increase the use of the phrase "wealthy blacks" in the Wikipedia). A peasant is a peasant, not a "wealthy black resident." Numerous peasants live here in the large "super-slum" which exists in the county where I live. Peasants live in New Orleans. Those peasants are not "wealthy black residents." I am similar to Tom Thumb who stuck his finger into a leak in a dike to keep the land from flooding. I believe that the term "wealthy black residents" is here to stay, yet, I am still willing to oppose its usage. Superslum 06:04, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Superslum, this article's Talk space is not for you to engage us in an interminable discussion about your views of the wealth of blacks, or lack thereof. If you have a citation about Dr. Howard, then we can discuss changing the reference in the article. If you only have your own opinion, then please read the Wikipedia policy on WP:OR. At this point I do not see how an article about Hurricane Katrina has any relevance to this article. --Dhartung | Talk 06:54, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Any article that containsfalsifications may be discussed. I know that those negroes of 1955 were not "wealthy" people, therefore, I placed an NPOV into the article. The alleged facts in the article are falsifications. Someone promptly removed my NPOV instead of removing those falsifications. There are many other similar falsifications throughout the Wikipedia. Superslum 12:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Then it is your responsibility to show us authoritative sources for your claims of falsification. You can't just say it. --Dhartung | Talk 18:15, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
BTW, though you didn't edit T.R.M. Howard, you did leave a note on its talk page. [1]. Apparently you think that Howard and the Till family should be called "colored" instead of "black". I don't know how familiar you are with modern America, but the term "colored" is not used anymore. -Will Beback 21:13, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Any fool knows that no one called colored people "black" in 1955. That is my "authoritative source." It is a falsification of facts to describe negroes who existed in 1955 as "blacks." The signs in the segregated bus stations read "colored." ("Colored" section of the waiting room, "colored" drinking fountain, "colored" restroom, "colored" eatery). A truly bizarre development has taken place in the United States over the last 50 years. Historic facts have been discarded and replaced by alterations of history. I see no reason why people should perpetrate the creation of a fraudulent history. This is all that I have to say about this page. I'm getting nowhere, fast. Goodbye. Superslum 05:15, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

The Jim Crow provisions of the Florida Statutes, which were repealed in 1969, used either the term "negro" or "colored" but not "black." John Paul Parks (talk) 15:56, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Mistake

I appolligize for this problem. I was certain Emmett Till was going to his uncle's house until I saw one to three sources verifying the written note. I appolligize for the mistake and have made sure to change it back to great uncle. Firecracker13 00:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your attention to detail and your honesty! --Dhartung | Talk 02:18, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Could you at least apologize for your spelling? --65.110.241.209 04:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

It's ok we forgive you.

The allegations

The allegations, by most involved black and white, were that Emmett Till did much more than just "whistle". Some accounts have Emmett putting his arms around Carolyn's waist and saying words like "I've got something for you baby." Other reports do not have him touching her at all, just uttering crude remarks. Carolyn testified at the trial that Emmett said, "What's the matter baby, can't you take it? You needn't be afraid of me!" But whatever occurred, it was enough for Carolyn to retrieve a pistol from the back of the store. Most sources, which included Till's friends, say that Emmett, just before he exited the store, whistled at Carolyn Bryant. Emmett, who most likely did not want to seem fearful in front of his peers, called out, "Bye baby!" By then his friends had come off the front porch and physically pulled him off the premise.

Whatever he did, not one source stated he only "whistled". That was a media created falsehood. Life magazine even engaged in this sort of whitewashed reimaginings. Life states that his father, Louis Till, died heroically in France during WWII, when in fact he was a serial killer rapist who was executed in Italy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yakofujimato (talk • contribs)

The wording in the article indicates that there are a range of reports. Do you have specific contradicting sources you could let us know about? --Dhartung | Talk 17:49, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, I am utilizing a number of sources, (then) contemporary newpaper reports, witness testimony, and the killer's contentions in the 'Look' article.
What my point is the events, them and now, present an incident with many contradictory accounts.
1) You have the contentions of Carolyn Bryant, and Juanita Milam, which must be taken with a degree of skepticism due to the fact their husbands were on trial for Till's killing, had they would have clear motivations for being less than truthful about the incident.
2) You have the "eyewitness" accounts of the children outside, who could only hear the alleged "wolf whistle" outside, and could not have any knowledge of what Till, said or did not say to Mrs Bryant.
My point is that it has been reported as fact that Till simply whistled at Mrs, Bryant, and was murdered for this, when in fact whatever occured in the store has been the disputed for decades. To simply state Till "only whistled" is to accept one account of the incident, and this started with northern newspapers not reporting the entire story.
To accept one version of what happened for no other reason than it makes the killer's (and the south for that matter) even more vile (and they were vile and evil cowardly men-no doubt) , and to make sure Till as almost totally innocent and some sort of 'hero'(equally absurd) is politically correct historical revisionism at it's worst!
Yako Fujimato —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yakofujimato (talk • contribs)
Please sign your posts on talk pages, using four tildes ~~~~.
Let's be clear here. You state "it has been reported as fact that Till simply whistled at Mrs. Bryant", but I do not find wording in the Wikipedia article which states this. This is the wording in the article: "While in the store, Till allegedly whistled at, or openly flirted with, Carolyn Bryant and this action greatly angered her husband when he returned home several days later from an out-of-town trip." Please make your objections about the article itself, and not what other people are saying about the case. Who, exactly, is this "You" that you're addressing? Certainly you don't seem to be describing our article on Wikipedia. --Dhartung | Talk 00:12, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

To say that he "simply" whistled at her fails to take into account the mores and customs of the time period. That would have been serious misconduct by the social code of the day. Inane comments by a 14-year old stutterer could be ignored, possibly, but a whistle is a deliberate affirmative act. One must understand that the Southern society at the time had an absolutely visceral opposition to mixed race socializing and was ever vigilant to stop it. The intense opposition to desegregation and integration was founded on the belief that it would lead to interracial marriage (which of course it did). Interracial marriage was abhorrent to Southerners of that time. As one person put it, in the North, where there were relatively few blacks, it was merely socially curious, while in the South, it was odious. The reaction to Till's actions and remarks cannot be jusitified or excused, but it must be viewed in light of societal customs then prevailing. John Paul Parks (talk) 16:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

hate crime

i do not see how this murder should been seen as an important event for the civil rights movement. it has absolutely nothing to do with it. this wasn't a hate crime, this seems more like a 'crime passionelle'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.53.138.11 (talk • contribs)

That could just as easily describe nearly every lynching in history, a hate crime because it was applied disproportionately against blacks and other minority classes. The Till murder was widely publicized and directly inspired many people, black and white, to work in the civil rights movement. Wikipedia is just reporting what happened here. --Dhartung | Talk 20:37, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
It was an extremely important instigating event for the Civil Rights Movement - this isn't just someone's opinion, it's historical fact. There were thousands of lynchings but this one had a particularly powerful impact because of the timing (right after Brown v. Board of Education, when people were thinking things were going to improve); because of the photo of Emmett Till's disfigured face on the cover of Jet, which many leading civil rights figures recall as seminal to their own commitment to the cause [2]; and because of the ongoing brave and strenuous efforts of Emmett's mother to publicize the killing and urge people to action over it. [3] Even the Burr Oak Cemetary website (which can hardly be accused of having a bias), on a page dedicated to Till (who is buried there), calls this "The hate crime that changed America." [4] Vcrs (talk) 22:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Thank you both for your reasoned response to the above, uninformed (and note, unsigned) commment. --71.59.226.54 (talk) 01:40, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Elderly woman

I spent many summers visiting my grandmother in Webb, and in a recent conversation, Emmett Till was brought up. My friend (who grew up there, and around the time of the murder) said something about an elderly woman that lived near the Till family and had befriended them, and there had been allegations that Emmett had raped her. EEWWWW! His friends probably would,ve said something! I don't know if this would have been a separate occurance, or what. I'm just wondering if anyone here might have heard anything like this? I'm not quite sure what to think of the story, but I have no reason do doubt his word. Posie 04:42, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

We need a reliable source that would verify such accusations. He was only in town seven days, you know. --Dhartung | Talk 05:17, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

US 49 re-naming

I'm not quite sure during what month in 2005 US 49 was renamed for Till, but I know it isn't August, as the article said, because the time-stamp on the photo of the sign that I have uploaded is July. So I changed this to read simply "in 2005." I want to say it was April, but I'm not sure.

Also, If anyone wants a picture of the Chaney/Goodman/Schwerner sign on MS 19 in that article, I can get one of those, becuase I'm down in Neshoba all the time. --Throatybeard 15:50, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

How many lynchings in Jim Crow Mississippi

A previous user wrote there had been over 500 lynchings in Mississippi since 1882. No source was cited, nor was there an explanation of the choice of 1882.

A major investigation of Southern lynchings, Brundage 1993, disconfirms the claim of "over 500". This book is the result of research to figure out in detail what the causes of lynchings were between 1880 and 1930 -- short term and long term causes, and in their regional and time variation. Brundage focused on the two states at the statistical extremes: Virginia with 57 lynchings, and Georgia with 490 odd. So no state had over 500 since 1882. Another thing: lynching almost -- not quite -- ceased after 1930; times had changed. Of course there was still every other manner of persecution, including false criminal prosecution. But where there had been about 4,000 lynchings throughout the South between 1880-1930, between 1931 and 1960, there were just a handful. W. Fitzhugh Brundage, 1993, Lynching in the new South: Virginia and Georgia, 1880-1930. Hurmata 22:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

1882 is chosen because the most highly regarded source for lynching statistics is Tuskegee University (formerly Tuskegee Institute) which was founded in 1881 and kept statistics from 1882. The total Mississippi lynchings of blacks for 1882-1962 was 539 according to their statistics. [5] Jvbishop 19:57, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
The "490-odd" quoted by Hurmata appears to be from the same source, where Georgia is listed as having had 492 lynchings. Just saying. Vcrs (talk) 23:12, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Diction

I question the use of "ordinary blacks" in this article. I won't remove it just yet, as to give others the opportunity to ponder this phrase.--Ranhalt 04:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Hm. It sounds a bit clunky, but I think the idea is to suggest a broad survey rather than centralized propaganda. I think some of the language from the Moore article might be more helpful, though. --Dhartung | Talk 07:43, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

I noticed several instances of vandalism lurking in the text that weren't noticeable at a quick glance. (Several words and phrases had been deleted and had profanity and offensive language replacing them.) I found the last version that seemed clean copied/pasted it in as the latest version but didn't have time to look thoroughly and make sure it's the most current clean revision. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.33.85.205 (talk) 19:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC).

Thanks. The article attracts a great deal of one-time vandals, possibly because it's assigned to younger school classes due to the age of the subject. Sometimes it's hard to keep them all straight, so any help is appreciated.--Dhartung | Talk 01:02, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Unrefrenced

Can someone say why there's an unreferenced tag on this page? Maybe someone could put in citation needed tags? CJ 15:52, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Because one unreferenced tag at the top is better than 100 "citation needed" tags on every assertion. This article needs to be thoroughly rewritten to sources with attribution (especially for the parts -- like the wolf-whistle bit -- that are disputed and have different accounts). --Dhartung | Talk 19:30, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

New Pictures

I heard once that his mother gave him an open-casket funeral, despite the severity of his mutilation, to remind "folks of what they done". Was there ever a picture taken? --le petite robot 14:02, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, he had an open-casket memorial service, as our article states (there's a whole paragraph on it). There were photographs in Jet; one of them was uploaded at one time, but without a proper fair use rationale, so it was eventually deleted. --Dhartung | Talk 20:56, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

"...despite the severity of his mutilation...". The photo in question does not display severe mutilation, but rather a state of bloating and decomposition.--Historicalhonesty | Talk 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Dude, his eye was gouged out. Vcrs (talk) 23:13, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Murder

I can't see any legitimate reason to avoid calling the subject's death a "murder". It has been called that by the U.S. Justice Dept.[6] I haven't heard of any legitimate source disputing that assertion. ·:·Will Beback ·:· 20:51, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The people described in this section as having kidnapped Emmett were acquitted of murder. The US Justice department doesn't even have jurisdiction over murder cases; there is not a federal crime of murder per se; their opinions are just that. Given that there is no proof this was a murder, rather than an accidental death, manslaughter, or justified killing, how can it be characterized as such? If we have no idea of the circumstances of his death, how can we characterize it as a murder? It's not even an "alleged murder" because there is no allegation by the relevant authorities that a murder took place, and the only apparent killers were irrevocably acquitted of that. This would be like saying OJ Simpson murdered his wife. To quote wikipedia "Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with 'malice aforethought.'" What evidence do you have that this was a premeditated murder? None that I can tell. Fourdee 21:06, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
We have ample evidence that everybody in law enforcement viewed it as a murder. Must we trot out the links? OTOH, do we have even a single source which questions that characterization? Does anyone claim that it was an accident, or even manslaughter? If there are no sources which support the assertion then it is original research: we'd be deciding on our own how to characterize the death. ·:·Will Beback ·:· 22:11, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I didn't suggest it be characterized any other way than a "death", which is supported by the known facts. This article states that Milam and Bryant admit they killed Emmett, yet describes the killing as a murder, despite the fact that they were acquitted of murder in a court of law. Killing does not directly equate to murder, and the final authority on that was a jury. The police may allege that a murder occurred, but it is far from a known fact. That sort of fact is determined in a court, and the court said otherwise.
Further, the section labeled "murder" or "death" does not describe his actual death at all, so the label is doubly inappropriate. It should be changed to kidnapping or abduction.
Since murder is a biased, pejorative term (it says the act was wrong or illegal - much like the "brutal" that was here unquoted initially), unless it has been found in a court of law, the neutral term for it is killing or death. This should be applied to any article on wikipedia. This is actually quite an important distinction and probably applies to very many articles. Fourdee 22:53, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Saying "maybe it was an accident" is hardly a step towards NPOV. The overwhelming consensus of sources is to label Till's "death" a murder. Ford MF 02:44, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
The overwhelming consensus of "sources" giving their opinions is irrelevant. "Murder" is an opinion (or an allegation) not a fact unless that fact has been determined by a court of law. The killers were acquitted in a court of law, therefore, no murder. If we found an overwhelming consensus of "sources" saying Hitler was evil, should the wikipedia article read "Hitler was an evil man"? No. The jury said this was not murder, or there was not enough evidence to prove murder. Either way, to persist in labeling it a murder is factually incorrect and biased (and would be libelous if they were alive). Many sources offering an opinion can only be cited as an opinion. Fourdee 05:27, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Let me say this another way, since the current Wikipedia:NPOV doesn't make this distinction clear enough, but does already state this several different ways. There are two kinds of opinions. One kind is an opinion of fact, like the opinion that the universe was started by a big bang or that humans evolved from lower lifeforms. The other kind is a value judgment like that an action was brutal, or wrong, or evil. Value judgments must never be stated as fact per NPOV policy. This use of "murder" is a value judgment (or simply false) since the legal status of this killing was already determined not to be murder.

I simply cannot accept, nor does the WP:NPOV policy accept, or WP:Verifiability allow, calling someone who was acquitted of murder a murderer as a blank statement of fact via the subject heading. Fourdee 05:50, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we are calling anyone a murderer, nor should we. We should say that a murder occurred. It is universally known as a "murder". Due to the circumstances it's impossible to believe it would be considered an accidental death or other form of manslaughter. It would be just as ludicrous to say that Nicole Brown Simpson "died" rather than state that she was "murdered". ·:·Will Beback ·:· 07:10, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Also, some perpetrators admitted it. If OJ Simpson were to admit murdering his wife, would you still insist it was not a murder because he hadn't been convicted? ·:·Will Beback ·:·
To me, the article appears to call the two men murderers. They are described as having done the killing and it is called a murder. Yes, I think that "murder" outside of a legal conviction is a pejorative label which is not appropriate in a neutrally phrased article. Even if OJ stated explicitly "I murdered Nicole" it would be a non-neutral term. It would be appropriate to say that "according to OJ himself, he murdered Nicole" but that otherwise the term "murder" should only be used on Wikipedia to describe a criminal conviction of murder, or the (clearly identified) allegation or opinion of some person. Where do we stop applying the label "murder"? In the Boston massacre (they were acquitted of murder)? In the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre? In the Reign of terror? In the Bombing of Hiroshima? Someone thinks all of those things were murder (and there are countless more examples). "Murder" outside of a legal conviction is a mere value judgment, a pejorative label, and there is a perfectly suitable neutral replacement for it - "killing". I would like this bias removed from all articles regardless of how I personally feel about the events.
Murder can mean two things: One is the crime of murder, which the final and absolute authority in this case decided it was not (for whatever reasons). The other is a pejorative label for a wrongful killing, which is a value judgment, and therefore not NPOV. Fourdee 08:13, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I think your logic is a little off here on several aspects. Firstly, you are confusing criminal conviction with criminal acts. If the US Justice Dept can describe the death as murder then that is sufficient evidence for us to use the term, because it provides us with a credible reference, the first of many. Secondly, you are pushing a POV on the use of the word that is clearly at odds with the consensus. If you want to change everyone's point of view then you should produce credible references to support your POV - the fact that you hold an opinion is simply not a good enough reason to insist everyone should agree with you. Phaedrus86 09:08, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I appreciate [[Fourdee]]'s concern for accuracy and neutrality. However I think we are taking a good intention to an extreme. For example, take a hypothetical case in which one man kills another, and is conviced of murder, but the convictions is later overturned on a technicality unrelated to the type of killing or intent. By this narrow interpretation the victim would no longer have been murdered, merely "killed". Or, to take another famous case, was JFK really assassinated? It never went to trial. Maybe his death just happened. I think we need to recognize other sources beyond jury trials. If there are diverging opinions, if someone thinks Till was killed in self-defense for example, then we should include those too. ·:·Will Beback ·:· 09:10, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Biography assessment rating comment

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. --KenWalker | Talk 02:51, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Emmitt's dad Louis Till, executed for raping white women??

There are no primary sources leading to the facts of what happened to Louis Till. The fact of the segregation of the United States military directly bears on his life and death. For anyone to press the views of the arch-segregationist Eastland in trying to make the case of the inheritance of any trait such as flirting, as is what Emmett Till was accused of and was killed for, is intemperate and at odds with the facts that are known. Use of the term allegedly in the case of Louis Till is on point because there are no known facts about what led to his death. The case of segregated armed forces personnel at Port Chicago, about which much more is known, bears directly on how black soldiers and sailors were treated in the segregrated armed forces. To argue that segregation is not relevant history is at odds with the facts of history. Skywriter 17:47, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

The sources cited, i.e. PBS and the (African-American) historian who produced the most recent documentary on Emmett Till, are sufficient sources for the assertion. If you've got a reliable source that speaks of a controversy over Louis Till's history, please cite it. I couldn't find one. At any rate, such a debate would be more properly located at the Louis Till article, not here. Louis' crimes are anyway, to my mind, less important than the fact that Eastman cynically and manipulatively tried to use them as a PR lever against Till's mother and the prosecution of Till's murderers.
Also please be aware of how close to 3RR you are approaching. Ford MF 17:59, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
I intend to place a disputed tag on this article because of the widening gap in opinion about the addition of questionable information about Louis Till that prejudices this article. Fact is we do not have sufficient information about the circumstances surrounding the death of Louis Till. The introduction of a secondary source that assumed, based on Eastland's claim, is directly prejudicial.
Failure to point out that the United States Armed Forces were segregated and that black GI's were provably treated badly, and even court-martialed for racist reasons, such as the Port Chicago incident, is also deeply prejudicial. Leaving out historical facts is convenient for those who are pushing the POV of the late Senator Eastland, and yet it is a glaring error that can not be ignored.Skywriter 18:25, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
You have still not addressed the concerns of more than one editor about sourcing any theoretical controversy regarding Louis Till. Do you actually have a source that disputes those claims made by PBS about Louis Till? If such a reliable source exists, I, and I'm sure your fellow Wikipedia editors, would be very interested. Barring that, everything you've said above, and everything you introduced into the article, is plainly original research. You are essentially asserting, without sources, that, for reasons of institutional racism, Louis Till might not have been guilty. Or, you seem to imply, possibly might not have been convicted and hanged at all (although that does leave the troubling question of why he never came home from Italy.)
I think you are missing the forest for the trees here anyway. The most salient point here is not what and how Louis Till was convicted and executed, but that a segregationist senator tried to use such information against the Till family during the trial against Till's attackers.
I am unaware of any consensus-based "gulf" here. As far as I am aware the sole detractor is yourself. Ford MF 22:08, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

The question to you, Fordmadoxfraud, is what beyond "Henny Penny said that Lucky Ducky said that.... the sky is falling down" is here proof that Louis Till was tried and executed for alleged cimes for which thousands of black men have been lynched-- and that is of having sex with white women? Where are the facts? The PBS film maker is saying that the allegation was made that tended to throw dirt on the murder victim's family and eventually no one was punished for murdering the teen-ager. If you are so certain of the facts of what led to the death of Louis Till, please supply something more than repetition of a rumor. It maybe true. It may not be. It smells distinctly like the murders of many thousands of black men in the United States, men who were lynched for allegedly "raping" white women. This is an old story. If you are so sure of the rumor, why haven't you provided the names of the women, especially the dead woman?

May I remind you that in the segregated armed services of the United States, black sailors were tried and convicted of mutiny under conditions that were clearly racially biased. They also called that military "justice." http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/deseg/chronology.html#Anchor-Chronolog-39544 http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/deseg/exhibit%20a.html#Anchor-Exhibi-12240 This is the same military that you are sourcing claims about a black GI, only you are not sourcing military records, you are sourcing a segregationist politician. The facts of the Port Chicago explosion from WWII demonstrate the effect of the segregated military on miltary justice in the United States during World War II. Please demonstrate how the hanging of Louis Till is in anyway different from the thousands of lynchings of black men that have occurred in the United States? Or of the type of segregated justice meted out after the explosion at Port Chicago where the single largest loss of African American life took place in World War II (15 percent of black deaths from that war). http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1979/2/79.02.04.x.html Or provide the facts of the Louis Till trial beyond repetition of a rumor begun by a Mississippi politician who hated black people. Surely you have something more substantial to base your claim? Or is it just your point of view that causes you to believe the Henny Penny rumor mongering? That Louis Till is dead, there is not doubt. What led to his hanging is unresolved. Skywriter 22:47, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

That's your argument? "I don't actually have a source that mentions Louis Till, it just smells bad"? Ford MF 23:17, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I see you are having a difficult time here, Ford, and I'd like to help you.

Assume for a moment, you are accused of raping three women and killing one, would you like to know the victims' names? Are details important, Ford? Who are the women Louis Till raped and or/murdered? Got facts, Ford? Or did you take to heart that cover story in Esquire(Jan. 2003) encouraging you to start wild Internet rumors. Skywriter 23:47, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

The two things relevant to this article are 1) that Emmett's father was hanged by the army for rape and murder 2) that it was raised around the time of the trial. The topics of segregation in the military, cases of negroes wrongly prosecuted, whether Louis Till really did it, who was raped or murdered - all that may be relevant to the Louis Till article (as long as you aren't trying to introduce original research) and perhaps you should take it over there. This article is about Emmett. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 00:04, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

If you want to claim in this article-- without reference to any facts-- that Louis Till is guilty of rape and murder, that is central to why there is a dispute tag on this page. It is not as though there was not a pattern of executing black Americans during World War II for interactions white Americans were not hanged for.

"Under a unique agreement between the American forces and the British government, US troops were tried by the Americans, under US law on British soil. This happened even when the crimes were permitted against British citizens. Rape was not a capital offence in Britain at the time, but it became one for black soldiers accused of raping the local British girls.In many cases the short trials were based on flimsy evidence and then followed by swift executions.[7]

"In their 1995 study - Executing US Soldiers in England, WWII: The Power of Command Influence and Sexual Racism, J. Robert Lilly and J. Michael Thomson concluded that: “The Visiting Forces Act of 1942 permitted the American military to use capital punishment in England as an extension of discipline...... Its purpose was to control a perceived danger: the socializing of African American troops with British females, and the possible explosive violence between Caucasian and African American troops.” ...[8]

"When Private Leroy Henry was accused of raping a woman from Bath he was saved from execution only after over 30,000 local people wrote to Eisenhower to protest the man's innocence. Most African American troops accused of sexual assaults on white locals were not so lucky. Of the 18 soldiers executed in England during the war 11 were African-American and three were Hispanic-American. Nine of those executed were convicted of murder, six of rape, and three of both." [9]

Either prove the claim or take it out. Fact-challenged is fact-challenged. Provide evidence or leave it out. Those are the rules. Skywriter 00:17, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

It's already cited in the article. Numerous sources report this, including the author of a book on this case. Whether he was "really guilty", whether or not it was "right", whether or not a white soldier would've been hanged for it, whether or not those Italian girls had it coming for being white - that is all irrelevant. We are reporting what he was executed for. Cited fact stays. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 00:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
The assertions are in fact already sourced appropriately, Skywriter. As the disputing party, the onus is on you to produce a reliable source that indicates the information about Louis Till is untrue or irrelevant. You have not done so. None of the references you have provided even mention Louis Till, only speak to an institutionalized racism in American military culture circa WWII, which no one is disputing. Ford MF 00:37, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Wrong, fordmadoxfraud. You don't introduce rumor with the expectation that you will be believed. Facts must be substantiated. So far, you introduce rumor and expect readers to accept it on faith alone. That hasn't happened. Provide evidence or delete the rumor.Skywriter 01:12, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know whether to take you seriously or not. There are a lot of trolls on these articles lately and this would be an excellent one.
Like we've been saying, it's already cited. We have sources, they are in there. The author of a book sympathetic to Emmett says that's what happened (and so do many other sources). In the absence of a counter-citation that's more credible, this needs to stay. It's part of the story. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 03:34, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
After checking his/her edit history, I don't at all think Skywriter is a troll, just a well-meaning contributor pushing a POV unsupported by the citations. Ford MF 03:45, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Also I wonder if we couldn't get a few more editors' voices here, since I think the addition of the {{disputed}} tag is unproductive and premature. If the people who watch and regularly edit this article cannot come to a consensus, that's fine, and we should all discuss it here. If not, I think the "dispute" here falls under the purview of undue weight and the tag should go. Ford MF 03:56, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

In the absence of any more voices on this subject, here's an offer for compromise-- The item on Louis Till relies on 2 links to a discussion in which the film maker states that the peripheral subject of Louis Till is off topic to the subject of what happened to Emmitt Till. In that I concur. There are no details proving what is claimed about Louis Till. It distracts from this article and since Emmitt Till, did not know Louis Till, and Louis Till therefore had no effect on his life, I propose that all discussion of Louis Till, except naming him as Emmitt's father, be moved to the Louis Till page. In the absence of agreement, I propose that this issue go to mediation.Skywriter 04:39, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I do not agree. The supposed circumstances of Till's death are very much germane to Emmett's life (or death, at least). Again, (again, again) the story here is not a documentation of the elder Till's crimes, but the fact that a segregationist senator leaked such info to the press in an attempt to discredit the Till family to prejudice the public against them at a time when Till's murder case was going to trial. That is very much an issue that should be covered in article. If you are as similarly unmovable as I am, I'm fine with arbitration (though I have a feeling it'll be declined as premature). Frankly, I'd prefer some other editors on this article chime in with opinions, since the raging debate seems limited to three editors, tops. Ford MF 14:42, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
Significant biographical facts about someone's parents are always relevant enough for a mention, especially since this issue was in the news at the time of the trial. And how is merely linking to the Louis Till article a compromise? -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 16:12, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Please lock this article away from editing by the public

When I looked at this article this morning, some of the words had changed to things I would not even repeat out loud. It appears this article is a chronic target of cheap vandalism, and I recommend protecting it--at least protecting it from users who are not registered, e-mail authenticated, and logged in at the time they change things.

Liam Brown (sorry, I'm not going to put up my e-mail here, seeing the mess I saw on the article this page is about.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.166.115.126 (talk) 18:04, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Emmett's great uncle's name

. . . Was Mose, not Moses. It even refers to him as such later in the article, which should be enough to corroborate my apparent fiat (I can provide further corroboration if necessary). I wasn't trying to vandalize; please don't revert it back again. --AOEU Warrior (talk) 00:42, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I found a reliable source[10] that confirms that his name was Moses and have changed the name back. Jons63 (talk) 01:31, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Hmm. I've personally always seen it as Mose, but PBS seems to vacillate between the two: [11] and [12]. My guess would be that he was generally known as Mose, but was either called Moses on his birth certificate or in more formal situations. In any case, the LOC is pretty legit, so I won't revert it once more. --AOEU Warrior (talk) 01:37, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Relevant obit in this week's news

John Ed Cothram, the former sheriff's deputy who investigated the murder, & testified for the prosecution of his indicted murderers, died 15 March, according to today's edition of my local paper. -- llywrch (talk) 06:08, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Lead Prosecutor at trial

After the second paragraph in this section, just after the words, "… killed his nephew," I have added the sentence, "The lead prosecutor was Gerald Chatham from Hernando, Mississippi" but it keeps getting deleted. This seems like an important fact that an article on Emmett Till and his trial should include. NNF (talk) 17:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

If you'll read the entire paragraph, you'll see that after you added that sentence the first time, I revised the preceding sentence so that the fact that Mr. Chatham was the lead prosecutor could be included without sticking out like a sore thumb. I provided the edit summary "edit for flow, home town not important". The next time the sentence was added, I reverted its addition with edit summary "removed, Chatham is mentioned in the sentence immediately before this edit; his home town is unimportant to an article about Emmett Till". (An article's edit history can be viewed by clicking on the 'history' tab at the top of the page.) As an aside, it seems a bit odd to be listing the prosecutor without mentioning the judge and defense team as well. I see that you have added Chatham's name to List of lawyers; if you are associated somehow with Mr. Chatham, you should review the Wikipedia conflict of interest guidelines and observe them rigorously when editing any related articles. --CliffC (talk) 18:12, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for not noticing you had added Gerald Chatham's name up in the paragraph. Thank you for doing that. As far as the other people involved in the trial, they're as follows: The Presiding judge: Curtis M. Swango. The Prosecution team: Gerald Weissinger Chatham, Robert B. Smith, III and James Hamilton Caldwell, Jr. The Defense team: Jesse J. Breland, C. Sidney Carlton, Robert H. Henderson, Joseph W. Kellum, John W. Whitten. Also, I am not associated with Chatham. NNF (talk) 17:00, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

vh;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;ghjjjjjjjjj —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.216.141.30 (talk) 14:10, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

One reference the page doesn't include is in a Richard Pryor track, "God," on the cd "That 'African American' is still crazy."

The only source I can find is a review of his box set on amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Richard-Pryor-Recordings-1968-1992/product-reviews/B00004YR3M?pageNumber=4

I'm not really hip to wikipedia to know how to add this, but I thought I'd put the idea out there. --Sootandlucy (talk) 02:45, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

PBS docmentary

Did the PBS documentary about Till really say that while in the car with his two soon to be murderers Till verbally threatened his kidnappers in some form? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.142.209.152 (talk) 04:33, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Dates are wrong

Some of the dates in the Till article are predated by 8 years (including Till's birth and death dates). Why did this happen? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.77.133.71 (talk) 09:21, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Fixed, looks like IP vandalism to me. WuhWuzDat 12:11, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Why would someone do that to a child?

This is a tragic story that a child and adult really need to read and hear.

Alot of people have questions "why would someone do that to a child?" Well this is my answers... Those men who beat Emmet have a sick mind. Emmet Till was just a young man who did a little whistle at a women that was a different color. Young Emmet came from a town where they do not believe in slavery or slaying. I think the men who did the beating on Emmet should of told Emmet to not whistle at his women instead of beating him to death. Emmet was just a child, it would of been different if it was an adult but still I think no one should do that to anyone because of what they did to Emmet was ridiculous just of little whistle to tell that women she was pretty. If I was a man i would want another man to say my women was pretty because that tells you that you got it good. So you think about it...'THANK YOU' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.110.1.109 (talk) 18:03, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

While I'm inclined to agree with you, this isn't a discussion forum. Talk pages are only used to improve articles. AniMatedraw 18:11, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

The previous writer is correct about this not being a discussion forum, but while we are on the subject, whether Till whistled at the woman or not is a matter of dispute with contradictory accounts. We have accounts stating that he was stuttering and an innocuous comment was misinterpreted, and accounts that he was extremely sexually aggressive with the woman. But this is why you should actually read the article instead of posting inane, uninformed message board outrage.(24.62.126.170 (talk) 05:54, 15 May 2010 (UTC))

hello

i have been sad and mad that the people didnt respect emmit tills RIP thats very disrepectful and i hope however did that should be punished but last but not least i give the up most repect to emmit till father and mother love peace and soul dishema martin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.175.45.203 (talk) 16:41, 13 July 2009 (UTC) Again, this is not a discussion board, especially when the post appears to have originated with someone who is functionally illiterate.(24.62.126.170 (talk) 05:57, 15 May 2010 (UTC))

Joe Pullen, Jo Etha Collier; Like Emmett Till, Both Killed in Mississippi Delta

Emmett Till, 14, was beaten and killed August 28, 1955 in the heart of the Mississippi Delta just outside of the small cotton town of Drew. His body was taken to the nearby Tallahatchie River where it was dumped.

The murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till was not the first time for the mistreatment and killing of African Americans in the Mississippi Delta. Historians now define the period from 1954 (the year of the Brown v. Board of Education decision and the year before young Till’s death) to 1965 as the Modern Civil Rights Movement. But the African-American struggle for freedom and civil rights began long before Brown and continued well past 1965.

Some of Drew’s black elders still talk about a story passed down by their parents and relatives focusing on a 1923 gunfight raging into the early morning hours of December 15 between Joe Pullen, a tenant farmer and WWI veteran, and plantation manager W.T. Saunders.

The fight would turn out to be a watershed event in U.S. history.

Pullen shot and killed Saunders during an argument over money and then Pullen’s own life ended in a ditch at the edge of Drew when he was shot after an all-night gun battle.

The small town, the birthplace of football hero Archie Manning, had buzzed with rumors that several dozen posse members were killed and possibly hundreds wounded before Pullen was taken down by machine gunners brought in from Clarksdale; some older Drew residents maintain that for years after the gunfight, a good number of people were using canes and displaying other signs of injuries received during the gun battle.

There are several versions of the Joe Pullen story, both written and spoken. In one account, nearly one thousand white men searched the swamps around Drew to find Pullen. The tenant farmer was said to have killed 4, 17 or 19 whites and wounded 8, 38 or 40 before he was machine gunned down. He either died immediately or was dragged through the streets and then killed.

Local news accounts of this event were few. The weekly Indianola newspaper carried one small paragraph on December 20, 1923 reporting that: “J. L. Doggett of Clarksdale and Kenneth Blackwood of Drew, posse men wounded Friday by negro, Joe Pullen, are reported as improving rapidly as could be expected.”

Associated Press reported that “…four men lost their lives in a spectacular gun battle which raged until 1 o’clock this morning between Joe Pullen, Negro tenant farmer, and a posse of several hundred men in the swamps of the Mississippi delta near Drew. Nine other wounded three probably fatally. Pullen was finally captured when four members of the posse stormed the drainage ditch in which he was entrenched. The Negro died an hour later from bullet wounds. The trouble started when Pullen’s employer came to his house to collect a debt.”

Fannie Lou Hamer, well-known civil rights activist from nearby Ruleville, would later talk about the shoot-out that occurred when she was a child. Hamer said that Pullen’s body was dragged into town and that people cut off body parts to keep as souvenirs. “Mississippi was a quiet place for a long time [afterwards].”

L. C. Dorsey, a Ph.D. sociologist of Jackson, Miss., remembered how as a young child living on a Sunflower County plantation between Ruleville and Drew she heard from her father and relatives the story of Pullen. Dorsey said that her own father often did not receive the money due him as a sharecropper, and Dorsey believed the Pullen incident had much to do with his fear of questioning “the man” over money he was owed.

Pullen’s family protested to the President [Calvin Coolidge] who sent an investigative team “because the man had been in the service, and that was what his family talked about, that this man had served his country and this is how he was treated. He had done nothing wrong and had been killed for trying to defend himself against the crew,” Dorsey said.

Alabama historian, Nan Woodruff, author of American Congo, adds that Sanders may have offered Pullen $150 to recruit families to work on the plantation, and when Pullen kept the money without providing the service, the fight began.

Woodruff terms Pullen’s gunfight another “watershed event” “much like the Elaine Massacre [across the Mississippi River in nearby Arkansas, 1919] as blacks challenged the structure of white supremacy throughout the 1920s. White Mississippi planters reportedly crossed the river to participate in the battle.

Woodruff and other black history researchers write that many Southern black people had always carried guns for hunting and self-protection, but the frequency of armed confrontations between planters and croppers, based on the frequency of reporting, may have increased in the decade following World War I.

Over the years, an unknown number of black women were murdered in and around Drew, local historians report, for sleeping with husbands of white women; their bodies thrown into “Whore’s Lake” three miles outside of Drew.

Drew is also home to the children of the late Mae Bertha and Matthew Carter. On August 12, 1965, they enrolled in school in the Drew school system. The Carter children integrated Sunflower schools and their story is a testament to the courage and determination of the family to secure equal education for their children.

Despite almost daily harassment, as well as guns fired into their home, the Carter family persevered and seven of the Carter children went on to graduate from the University of Mississippi, an achievement unequaled in any other Mississippi family.

But killings in Drew had not ended by 1965. On May 25, 1971 Jo Etha Collier, an 18-year-old black girl, was shot dead in her hometown of Drew less than an hour after she graduated from desegregated Drew High School.

School integration had gone smoothly in Drew even through a majority of white parents had taken their children out of Drew High School. Those who stayed were getting along well with their black classmates and there were no reported racial incidents during the school year.

That night, racial peace was shattered when Collier was shot while walking down a street crowded with other youngsters celebrating the end of the school year. A green Ford passed by, followed by the report of a gun, and Jo-Etha Collier slumped to the ground. She had been shot below the ear and was bleeding heavily; she died before reaching the hospital.

Collier had been popular with her classmates, starring on the girls' basketball and track teams. She had received a specially created award for her school spirit and had planned to attend nearby Mississippi Valley State College in the fall. Witnesses easily recognized the killers' car, reported Time Magazine and the Cleveland, Mississippi newspaper.

Loaded weapons were found with them when police picked up the killers four hours later in nearby Cleveland, only 18 miles away. The .22-cal. Pistol with one round expended was still with them.

It was later determined that Collier was shot by Wesley Parks, 25, of Drew. Parks, his brother, and his nephew, Allen Wilkerson, 19, of Memphis were all in the car. All three men were initially charged with murder, but only Wesley Parks was tried. Parks eventually served three years of a five year sentence in prison.

For years, rumors would circulated in Drew that a local teacher was also in the car. Fannie Lou Hamer of nearby Drew, a voter registration activist, asserted that a voter-registration drive aided by young whites from the North had started local resentment and was the cause of Collier’s death. Collier had not participated in the drive.

State N.A.A.C.P. President Aaron Henry, of nearby Clarksdale, told reporters, "Apparently they were out to kill a black, any black."

Calling the shooting a "deplorable and appalling act," President Nixon ordered the FBI to investigate and determine whether a federal offense had been committed. When the FBI reports were requested in April 2004 under the Freedom of Information Act by this writer, were reportedly “destroyed on March 116, 2004.” No reason was given.

Collier’s tragic murder, amid the bright promise of the new South, was only a tragic reminder of the old.

Sklopfer (talk) 20:14, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Murder date discrepancy

According to the Murder section of this article, Emmett was abducted August 28. His body was found "three days after his abduction" and then "the brothers were soon under official suspicion for the boy's disappearance and were arrested August 29 after spending the night with relatives". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.94.38.34 (talk) 16:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Good catch, that section has listed the August 29 arrest date since it was first written in 2006. I've fixed it with the closest thing to an arrest date I can find in the Google news archive, "early September". No mention in that article that they were in Ruleville, so that part was dropped. Thanks for pointing this out. --CliffC (talk) 19:40, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Know definitions and your history.

I would suggest to Yako Fujimato, that you are the one that needs to know your history and facts. A good read for everyone in this country is:

By The Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America

http://www.amazon.com/At-Hands-Persons-Lynching-America/dp/0375503242

Know your information and have some point of reference before criticizing others.

Also, this is certainly a pivotal moment for the civil rights movement in the US. It incited rage in many Americans; white, black or otherwise, as Till was merely a child who was LYNCHED. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.28.230.230 (talk) 15:55, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

He was NOT lynched. If the unread, and uninformed would actually learn the word's definition, we would not need to listen to this. He was not lynched, and you would need to be an ignoramus to seriously contend that he was! (24.62.126.170 (talk) 06:01, 15 May 2010 (UTC))

Wonderful Poem Re Emmett Till's Casket

Be sure to read the poem on Emmett Till's Casket in the Easter Week New Yorker--it is a superb poem and a superb tribute to the fate of Emmett Till. Joan K. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.41.38.29 (talk) 20:43, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Requested move (June 2010)

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved to Murder of Emmett Till SilkTork *YES! 23:48, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Emmett Till → Murder of Emmett Till — This article is about the murder and its consequences, not a biography. Relisted. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:55, 3 July 2010 (UTC) Robofish (talk) 22:35, 26 June 2010 (UTC) Should this article be renamed to Murder of Emmett Till? After all, it's not really a biography - it's about Till's murder, and the events that followed, rather than his life. The guideline WP:ONEEVENT may be relevant here (not that I'm suggesting Till is not notable, but rather that his death is the central focus of the article). Robofish (talk) 14:35, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

  • Support - nominator is correct, it's not a biography by any stretch. --CliffC (talk) 18:25, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose Although most of the article is about the murder, and its consequences, there is biographical content also. How much biography do you think a teenager has? At his age it would normally be Born—Went to school/Skipped school—Listened to music/Played videogames/Did a bit of petty crime/Played a bit of sport—Died. Skinsmoke (talk) 19:52, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
    • That seems like a strong argument that there isn't enough biographical content to justify an article on the person alone, and that it should focus on the murder. --Golbez (talk) 04:42, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Mildly Oppose. I think that this is a biography. Till is, as Robofish points out, notable for his murder, but that one event, with subsequent related events including the 1956 trial and the investigations decades later, was so widely noted as to make Till himself notable. I don't see any great need for a name change, but certainly would not object creating Murder of Emmett Till as a redirect to this page. Cnilep (talk) 17:57, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose I think the content of an article should be based upon it's name, and not the other way around. If this article is not written like a biography, then it should rewritten. WP:ONEEVENT does not say that people only known for one incident should be only have a redirect to the article about the incident. Rather it says it is a judgment call, based upon the importance of the event and the importance of the particular person in the event. So for example Joe the Plumber and Rodney King get their own articles because of their notability, even though they are mainly known for single events. And I think Emmett Till is important enough to have his own article. I also think details about the murder of him should be in this article, so as not to have it stuff repeated unnecessarily. Unless ofcourse the article gets so long as to qualify for a split under WP:LENGTH.TheFreeloader (talk) 19:20, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
I think it's rather nonsensical that we should write articles based on whatever name under which someone several years ago decided to create an article. Articles should be about notable things, some of which are events, some of which are people. Emmett Till as a person is far less notable than is the murder of Emmett Till. --Atemperman (talk) 00:53, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
But how can you separate out the person from the events which happen to and because of this person. To me they are inseparable. WP:ONEEVENT says that if an event is significant and an individual's role in it is substantial, which I would say is the case here, a person maybe should have his or her own article.
I see that a a lot of people take offense at my notion that an article's content should be based on its name. But think about it this way, what if for example Barrack Obama's article got skewed so as to mainly be about the his 2008 election campaign, and not be much like a biography anymore, should that article then be renamed Barrack Obama's 2008 presidential election campaign, and have the Barrack Obama article merely be a redirect. I think not, it should be rewritten so as to include other notable information about him, and then maybe, if all the notable details about his election campaign could fit in the article, it could be split off to have an article about only that.
It has to be said though that the argument I made initially was mainly a theoretical one, as I do not think this article actually leaves out a lot of notable information about Emmett Till. I think the rewriting which will have to take place if this is to be made into an article only about the murder of Emmett Till is probably much larger than the one to keep this as a biography.TheFreeloader (talk) 21:29, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
If we have good encyclopedia content, we should put it under the best title for that content. If that means the former title is left as a redirect even though a good article could possibly be written under that title, then someone is free to write a new article for that title. But the solution is not to leave content about one topic under the title of another topic, simply because we don't have the content that should go under the latter title. If the Obama article were virtually entirely about the election campaign and not about Obama as a person, and we had no article that did talk about Obama as a person, then yes, we should leave Obama's name as a redirect, rather than use it as the title for an article about another topic.
Skimming the Emmett Till article right now, I see virtually nothing that would be out of place in an article about the murder, the events leading up to the murder, and the aftermath of the murder. I don't know what "rewriting" you imagine would need to take place whether the article stays at this title or is relocated, but I can only conclude that you and I have quite different ideas about what belongs in an article about a person and what belongs in an article about a famous murder case. Propaniac (talk) 16:26, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
All you seem to be arguing for here is to create a content fork. There is no reason why to split the subject of Emmett Till and the murder of him, as that murder is already a part of the subject of Emmett Till. I really do not see how anybody can argue that details about a person's death does not belong in a biography about that person. Which parts of this article do you think is not about Emmett Till?
As to what has to be changed to make this an article about the murder only, I would say that both the infobox, part of the lead and part of Background section would probably have to changed. Not a lot, but still more than the virtually nothing which has to be changed to keep this a biography.TheFreeloader (talk) 12:42, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
WP:Content fork is really about multiple articles addressing the same subject, which is not what anyone is arguing for here, because after the move there would still be only one article. But if there were an article about Emmett Till and another article about his murder, that would still be fine, as the guideline indicates: "Sometimes, when an article gets long (see Wikipedia:Article size), a section of the article is made into its own article, and the handling of the subject in the main article is condensed to a brief summary. This is completely normal Wikipedia procedure." We have zillions of examples of articles that are subtopics of other articles, e.g. Early life of George W. Bush, List of accolades received by Avatar, Cher singles discography.
As for what parts of this article I think are not about Emmett Till, the 85% of it that describe events after his death would probably be a good start. Of course, the article should contain information about the trial, but basically as part of a summary of his legacy. Propaniac (talk) 14:22, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
Well I pointed this out already to begin with, that if this article became too long, then it maybe could get split up in two. But as it is now, this article contains 33kB of readable prose. And WP:SIZERULE states that articles with under 40kB of readable prose do not warrant a split based on size alone.
I think that most of the description of events after Emmitt Till's death in this article is, if not directly about Emmett Till, then very closely linked to him. And again I don't think it is true to say that something can be connected to the death of a person without also then being connected to the person himself. It just doesn't make sense to say that.TheFreeloader (talk) 16:25, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
Sure, everything about the trial for his murder is "connected" to Emmett Till the person, but that doesn't mean it all belongs in an article about the person. A good article about someone does not go into tremendous detail about every single aspect related to that person's life, because not every detail is relevant in providing an overview of who that person is and why they are notable enough to have an article written about them. And nobody has suggested splitting the article, they've suggested moving it. (I am going to try really hard now to stop responding to this discussion because clearly it's not going to make any difference.) Propaniac (talk) 18:10, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
Well, then I just don't see how those details can be relevant to the death of a person but not the person itself. To me the death of a person is just a subcategory under the larger subject of the person itself, and anything that would fit under the former topic would also per default fit in under the latter. To whether this is about a split, I think that could the result of this move probably be, because as you said it, if this is moved, people can always come along and make a new article about Emmett Till, as it still is a notable subject. The upshot of that would be to have split the details included in this article about the murder of Emmett Till from the rest of the article about him. As to whether this discussion matters or not, I will say that even though I seem to be quite a lot in the minority here, I still am the only one here who has quoted actual WP policy and therefore I think my position should still have chance, as Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a democracy.TheFreeloader (talk) 20:55, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Support He is known (and is here in Wikipedia) because of his murder, not because of his life. The article is about his murder, not about his life (and the argument that we should just rewrite the article to match the title, and not simply move it to the appropriate title, is really bizarre). Propaniac (talk) 19:08, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Support per User:Skinsmoke ("How much biography do you think a teenager has?"). The might be a case for an article on Emmet Till but this article isn't it. It's overwhelmingly about the Murder of Emmett Till. — AjaxSmack 03:19, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Support This article is about an event, the murder of Emmett Till, which had significant consequences on the American Civil Rights Movement. This should be made clear in the title. City of Destruction (The Celestial City) 22:01, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Support per others' reasons as well as per my rebuttal of TheFreeloader's argument. --Atemperman (talk) 00:53, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Support. The article isn't a biography of Till, it is about his murder. The title change makes perfect sense. TheFreeloader's argument that "If this article is not written like a biography, then it should rewritten" is approaching the issue the wrong way round - the murder of Till is what is notable, not Till himself. We write articles based on how reliable sources approach topics, not according to the specific titles we choose when starting them. Fences&Windows 16:59, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Support The topic of interest is the murder. I don't see why the article would need to be re-written.   Will Beback  talk  20:45, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The Death of Roy Bryant

Did Roy Bryant die in 1991 or 1994? He is mentioned as having died in 1991 in the introduction, yet in the section titled After the Trial he is listed as having died in 1994. Great article though, I have enjoyed reading it! SpencerCollins (talk) 11:36, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Focus of Article

I agree with the title, "Murder of Emmett Till." To my knowledge, Emmett Till is not noteworthy except for his having been murdered. John Paul Parks (talk) 22:30, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Castration Theory

We have the testimony of his mother that is genitals were intact, so castration does not appear to have occurred. It is improbable for another reason. It is likely that they would have (a) whipped him and castrated him or (b) they would have killed him, but there is no reason to do both. According to the PBS video, "Eyes on the Prize," he bragged that he had white girlfriends in Chicago. Knowing Chicago, that seems unlikely, but such a remark would have inflamed his killers to the point of irrationality, given the mores and social conventions of rural Mississippi at the time. John Paul Parks (talk) 22:30, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Article improvement

I did some puttering around in the article earlier today, just some copyediting. There seem to be enough materials in the Further reading section to make this a respectable piece as it should be. I just tagged a statement with a [dubious – discuss] tag, which I generally don't like doing. But in this case even though Look magazine may have printed that Till insulted and provoked his murderers while they were beating him, I have read the opposite, that he screamed for his mother and for mercy. At this it becomes a neutrality issue and there may be a source that can address how reliable the Look magazine article is about this issue.

As the talk page seems to be somewhat active, I guess people are watching the article. I'm going to see what I can do to improve the article enough to remove all the problematic tags and make this a coherent and cohesive treatment of Till's murder. Any thoughts? --Moni3 (talk) 02:36, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I removed some cites from the lead as cites are not required in the lead. I did not want to lose them, however, so they are [1][2][3]

This is too specific for the lead: The killers, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, are now deceased. Milam died on December 31, 1980 and is buried in Greenville, Mississippi. His obituary appeared in the Delta Democrat Times and made no mention of the Emmett Till murder. Roy Bryant died on September 1, 1991 and is buried in Ruleville, Mississippi. His obituary in the Bolivar Commercial also made no mention of the Emmett Till murder.[citation needed] --Moni3 (talk) 02:52, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Expressing the sense of Congress with respect to the murder of Emmett Till

Rename discussion redux (October 2010)

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Arbitrarily0 (talk) 17:13, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Murder of Emmett Till → Emmett Till — Although consensus agreed to move this article to Murder of Emmett Till in June of this year, I believe the decisions made for that move were based on an incomplete and poorly constructed article. This is what that version looked like. I have since rewritten most of the article (still working on it), expanding it considerably with much better sourcing. With that in mind, my reasons for moving the article are:

  • The early childhood section is expanded and there is as much biographical information as sources with due weight allow.
  • Till became known for his murder, but the events following his murder have placed his name at iconic importance in the Civil Rights Movement. This was not in the article when editors voted to move the article. Much like Matthew Shepard (actually, more than Matthew Shepard) Till represents more than his life or his murder. Like Natalee Holloway, the amount of press that has surrounded the questions about Till's death is considerable. More to the point I guess, historians are calling Till America's Anne Frank.
  • The murder of Till is no longer the primary focus of the article. The funeral, trial, role in the Civil Rights Movement, and subsequent investigations about Till take as much weight as his murder. The combination of all the materials written about Till and the impact events leading up to and following his death had on Civil Rights in the U.S. should be re-examined. WP:ONEEVENT no longer applies. --Moni3 (talk) 19:18, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Survey

  • Weak support - without intimate knowledge of the subject matter, your argument seems to make sense and he deserves a wider biographical article.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:31, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
Let me clarify: the biographical material in the article is pretty much what the article deserves. I do not think it wise to expand more about Till's life. However, his death has had profound effects. "Emmett Till" as a term symbolizes as much as "Watergate" as an event. --Moni3 (talk) 23:01, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
So when people say "Emmett Till" are they using that as a synonym for the events surrounding his death? Or are they genuinely referring to the man himself? (Or a mixture of the two?) Remember that "Watergate" is actually a shorthand for Watergate scandal rather than for the far less significant offices in which it took place.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:25, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
When people refer to Emmett Till, they usually refer to the 14-year-old. But it can also be used as an event. What was the turning point of when blacks became involved in the civil rights movement in large numbers? Emmett Till. Not just his murder, but the image of his body, the press attention directed at his mother, the trial, and the questions about identification of the body that went unresolved for decades. Emmett Till represents a profound motivating injustice. I understand that Watergate refers to a scandal, but it also represents a turning point in which (combined with other factors) Americans lost trust in their government and the press divorced itself from the secrecy of the White House. At any rate, I wanted to make clear that sources do not dedicate more biographical information to Till's life, but they certainly make clear that Till represents something larger than his 14 years. --Moni3 (talk) 23:34, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
Well it sounds from what you say that he is clearly a noteworthy individual beyond the WP:ONEEVENT so I shall upgrade my vote to "full" support.  — Amakuru (talk) 07:21, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
Really? How? Outside of his murder and the profound consequences, what is notable? — AjaxSmack 04:08, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
Have you read the changes made to the article? If so, can you explain how Till does not fit into the same parameters of Matthew Shepard, Natalee Holloway, or Anne Frank? --Moni3 (talk) 04:35, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
I think it does. However, I disagree with the current location of Matthew Shepard and Natalee Holloway per WP:ONEEVENT as well. None of the three did anything notable except get murdered/disappear. — AjaxSmack 04:42, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
Per the WP:1E guideline (which is very short on detail for this sort of thing), In some cases, however, a person famous for only one event may be more widely known than the event itself, for example, the Tank Man. In such cases, the article about the event may be most appropriately named for the person involved. Till's murder was notable. An entire article about the press attention it received in Mississippi is feasible, the trial itself is notable, Till's role as the catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement is notable, that his death "has this mythic quality like the Kennedy assassination"... I think the article now well establishes that Till's impact far exceeds the fact that he was murdered. Till eclipsed "Murder of" status the moment Roy Wilkins released his statement from the NAACP in September 1955. (Plus, it's rather useless to have a "Murder" section in an article titled "Murder of Person X".) --Moni3 (talk) 04:56, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
WP:1E applies to Anne Frank but not the others. There doesn't appear to be anything encyclopedically notable about the lives of Till, Shepard, or Holloway other than facts surrounding their respective notable events. All of the things you cite above are the results of Till's murder, not his life. (Till, alive, had no "role as the catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement". None of his beliefs or actions in his lifetime resulted in such a role. It resulted only from his murder.) If you can show some impact he had outside of his murder, i.e., before his death or as a result of actions he took (other than those that triggered his murder), please elucidate. — AjaxSmack 05:53, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
I don't read it that way and I find no reason to read it that way in the guideline. Rather, the circumstances that came from Till's murder were so widely reported, were themselves historic moments, initiated a larger movement: inspired a group of people to participate in the largest social upheaval in the 20th century in the U.S., and have been transformed and become symbols through memorial and literature, that calling the article "Murder of" relegates the issues of the subject to one of lesser importance than what sources make clear. And because it's not specific in the guidelines, it makes me very uncomfortable that editors who are unfamiliar with the sources and content of the article are weighing in to make this decision. This, in my opinion, borders on Original Research and abuses consensus.
However, that's the weakness of the guidelines, and I'm happy to get clarification from WP:Notability (People) or the Village Pump. This argument has been had multiple times at Shepard's, Holloway's, and I'm sure other articles. To solve it at each article's talk page creates problematic inconsistencies (JonBenet Ramsey, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner). I think that's the next step. Despite the one support one oppose here, it's more important to get clarification on this than resolve the decision that results from this request for move. --Moni3 (talk) 13:53, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Still oppose as I did with the previous such request. Although recent changes make the article read more like a biography, the vast majority of the content (except for the early childhood section) is still about the murder and its consequences. The examples proffered for comparison in the nomination likewise should not be at their current titles for the same reason (WP:ONEEVENT). — AjaxSmack 04:08, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Support for move/rename. The article is a fine, fine piece of work (thank you Moni3) on an iconic and important figure whose importance well exceeds the basic facts of his death. WP1E does not apply here: Till is tremendously significant, and treating his life (at least from the article title) as nothing more than a brief prelude to his death does no justice to either. Drmies (talk) 14:03, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Support. The article currently discusses more than just the murder and the surrounding events of that.--Cúchullain t/c 16:46, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The death of Till's father

When I rewrote the article the information was in a jumble, so eventually I placed the information about Louis Till's death in with all the press attention where the sources do. This accomplishes several things: it places the information about Louis Till in the context of the rhetorical war of words in the Mississippi press where it received the most weight and attention. It also parallels what Emmett and Mamie Till-Bradley knew about Louis Till at the time. It furthermore avoids having to repeat information already covered.

Placing the information about how Louis Till died in the Army in the Early childhood section brings new questions that falsely arise. Why would Emmett Till wear a ring of a rapist and murderer? But he didn't know how Louis Till died, so you have to explain it again, making it redundant. Sources address the issue of Till's father in the chronology of the case: October 1955 when this information was obtained by Eastland and Stennis and leaked to Jackson newspapers.

So, while I respect that you disagree about when the article should mention Louis Till's death, you need to take into consideration where the sources discuss it, in what circumstances, and the construction of the article as a whole. --Moni3 (talk) 17:07, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

My problem with the former wording is that it just says "He died in the service in 1945", which is potentially misleading. To my mind, and assuredly to many others, "died in the service" strongly implies "killed in action" or at least "died in some way as a result of being an active duty serviceman". As such it's a bit of a twist for the reader to learn later that what actually happened is that he executed by his own country after a court-martial. Whitfield says he "died in Europe in the summer of 1945..." which doesn't have the same connotations, perhaps a rewording will do. Perhaps just "died in 1945". Or, "died in 1945 in circumstances that were not revealed to his family."--Cúchullain t/c 18:23, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
Ok, how about ...and he died in the Army in 1945? --Moni3 (talk) 18:44, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
I think that would be better.--Cúchullain t/c 18:51, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
Actually, wouldn't he have been dishonorably discharged as part of his sentence? If so he would technically not have been in the Army.--Cúchullain t/c 19:02, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
To say simply "...and he died in the Army in 1945" begs the question of how he died. It is encyclopedic to answer the how immediately (he was executed), but the rape-and-murder why can properly wait for later. In the current context, "He was executed by the Army in 1945, but the details of his death were not revealed to Mamie at the time" is a good approach. --CliffC (talk) 22:04, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
That early in the article is not a good approach. That's a giant whoa! to any reader. To leave it unexplained for three more sections is distracting. To explain it this early in the article is more distracting. I rechecked the source, Louis Till was court martialled and executed by the Army. It's sufficient to say he died in 1945 and allow the full discussion on how the press treated his death in the proper context of the rhetorical battle between North and South. --Moni3 (talk) 22:16, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
Well, I also agree that simply saying that he died begs the question of how he died, and a brief mention that he was executed but that this was unknown to the family is appropriate. Currently, this article is structured much more like a biography, whereas the sources deal primarily (or exclusively) with the case itself, so it would make sense to include events that occurred in Emmett's early life in the "Early life" section. However, I'm okay with avoiding it so long as we're not suggesting incorrect conclusions with potentially confusing wording.
Also, I checked an old copy of the U.S. Manual for Courts-Martial. Section 126a says that (at least at the time of WWII) a dishonorable discharge is considered to be included in any death sentence. My understanding is that Louis Till would technically not been "in the Army" at the time he died. As such just saying he "died in 1945" is probably a better way to go.--Cúchullain t/c 13:17, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Muhammad Ali

What's at issue with the way this is worded? --Moni3 (talk) 16:59, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

"Upon learning of what happened to Till, in Louisville, Kentucky, young Cassius Clay (later famed boxer Muhammad Ali) took out his frustration by derailing a locomotive engine.[96]"

I won't presume to correct an article that has come to FA status, but Visual rhetoric: a reader in communication and American culture at

http://books.google.com/books?id=gxR_LBkVyToC&pg=PT289&lpg=PT289&dq=%22emmett+till+%22+%28%22cassius+clay%22%7Cmuhammad+ali%22%29+railroad+tracks&source=bl&ots=-_KKiPMm_k&sig=IdM-TnzNFHIPqxoMSyQIyZWwiQM&hl=en&ei=q_IITf6pMIGs8AbMgLWIAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=tracks&f=false

explains in detail what Ali actually did (put iron shoe rests on the tracks) and the result (tracks torn up). Could someone please incorporate these facts so that Wikipedia does not seem to be painting the 13-year-old Ali as Paul Bunyan? This statement is a real "huh?" moment for readers. --CliffC (talk) 17:09, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

What do you suggest? The statement is accurate without being overly detailed. "took out his frustration by placing iron shoe rests on nearby train tracks, derailing an engine" is too detailed, and I think begs more "What?" from the reader than the undetailed version. --Moni3 (talk) 17:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
I wasn't suggesting that wording, just pointing out how the book explains what happened. I suggest "...took out his frustration by vandalizing nearby railroad tracks, causing a locomotive engine to derail", similar to what I wrote earlier.
The incident in Ali's own words, at Muhammad Ali, the People's Champ http://books.google.com/books?id=YNF75xexXKIC&pg=PA76&dq=%22swollen+and+bashed+in,+his+eyes%22&hl=en&ei=BfgITZOtPMWt8Aarvql1&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22swollen%20and%20bashed%20in%2C%20his%20eyes%22&f=false --CliffC (talk) 17:35, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Ok, well I spent an hour or so rewriting the sentence and I liked no version provided or that I could come up with. So I spent some time not trying to rewrite it. I was hoping time spent away from it would either make the sentence seem better or prove that it doesn't really matter with the current wording. So, CliffC, after a couple days, does it seem that Clay could derail an engine with his bare hands? I did not think Clay had done so when I added the information to the article. How necessary is this clarification? --Moni3 (talk) 16:24, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
Well, whether one believes that Ali could derail a locomotive with his bare hands or not, as written the sentence does create for at least some readers a silly image of exactly that. I would guess that when a 1-edit IP drew our attention to the sentence by removing it entirely here, it was because he or she had the same "Huh?" moment that I did once I saw it. Let's revise the sentence and source it directly to Ali's own words as quoted in Muhammad Ali, the People's Champ[13] rather than to Hampton. I suggest (following nowiki'd for cut-and-paste):
After seeing pictures of Till's mutilated body, in [[Louisville, Kentucky]], young Cassius Clay (later famed boxer [[Muhammad Ali]]) and a friend took out their frustration by vandalizing local railroad tracks, causing a locomotive to derail.<ref>{{cite book |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=YNF75xexXKIC&pg=PA77&lpg=PA77&dq=muhammad+%22walked+down+to+Ronnie+King%27s%22&source=bl&ots=qulpTMbcNN&sig=QsP0m3l808wYCPecxxV2awHvwLM&hl=en&ei=V_cLTYbiIIXmsQOzk_HaCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false |title=Muhammad Ali, the People's Champ |last=Gorn |first=Elliott J. |publisher=University of Illinois Press |page=77 |date=1998 |quote= |isbn= 978-0252067211 |accessdate=December 17, 2010 }}</ref>
--CliffC (talk) 00:10, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
  1. ^ Parker, Laura (2004-03-10). "Justice pursued for Emmett Till". USA Today. Retrieved 2007-08-24.
  2. ^ Younge, Gary (2004-05-22). "US reopens murder case that lit civil rights fuse". The Guardian. Retrieved 2010-08-28.
  3. ^ "Emmett Till's Body Reburied". WMAQ-TV. 2005-06-04. Retrieved 2007-08-24.
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