Murder Victim, Civil Rights Figure. It is believed by many that his murder was the catalyst that started the American civil rights movement. A young African-American native of Chicago, Illinois, while visiting relatives in Mississippi, not understanding the profundity of racism there, accepted a dare to address an attractive white woman in a grocery store. He went in, bought some candy, and on the way out allegedly said "bye, baby." One observer claimed he had only whistled at her. A couple of days later, the woman's husband and his brother-in-law took him from the home he was visiting and drove him to the Tallahatchie River where they made him strip, beat him, gouged out one of his eyes and shot him in the head. They threw his body, with a 75 lb. fan attached, into the river. When his body was recovered, he was so badly disfigured that he could only be identified by an initialed ring. Authorities wanted to bury him quickly, but his mother requested that he be sent back to Chicago. When she saw him, she tearfully decided to have an open casket funeral so that the public could see what murderers had done to her only son. When a picture of his corpse was published in "Jet" magazine, black Americans collectively were indignant about the brutality. Emmett's killers were acquitted by a Mississippi jury, and both black America as well as major newspapers throughout the country condemned these outcomes, which became a catalyst for the youth of the 1950s to pursue the civil rights efforts of the 1960s.

Murder Victim, Civil Rights Figure. It is believed by many that his murder was the catalyst that started the American civil rights movement. A young African-American native of Chicago, Illinois, while visiting relatives in Mississippi, not understanding the profundity of racism there, accepted a dare to address an attractive white woman in a grocery store. He went in, bought some candy, and on the way out allegedly said "bye, baby." One observer claimed he had only whistled at her. A couple of days later, the woman's husband and his brother-in-law took him from the home he was visiting and drove him to the Tallahatchie River where they made him strip, beat him, gouged out one of his eyes and shot him in the head. They threw his body, with a 75 lb. fan attached, into the river. When his body was recovered, he was so badly disfigured that he could only be identified by an initialed ring. Authorities wanted to bury him quickly, but his mother requested that he be sent back to Chicago. When she saw him, she tearfully decided to have an open casket funeral so that the public could see what murderers had done to her only son. When a picture of his corpse was published in "Jet" magazine, black Americans collectively were indignant about the brutality. Emmett's killers were acquitted by a Mississippi jury, and both black America as well as major newspapers throughout the country condemned these outcomes, which became a catalyst for the youth of the 1950s to pursue the civil rights efforts of the 1960s.