(AURN News) — On Sept. 23, 1955, an all-white jury in Mississippi acquitted Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam of murdering 14-year-old Emmett Till.
Till, a Black teenager from Chicago, had been abducted, brutally beaten, shot and dumped in the Tallahatchie River after being accused of offending a white woman.
Despite eyewitness testimony from Till’s great-uncle, Moses Wright, who courageously identified Bryant and Milam in open court, the jury deliberated for only 67 minutes before returning not guilty verdicts.
One juror later joked that the decision would have come faster if they had not stopped for a drink.
Just four months later, on Jan. 24, 1956, Look magazine published an article in which Bryant and Milam admitted to killing Till. Protected by double jeopardy, Bryant and Milam could not be tried again for Till’s murder.
The case became a defining symbol of racial terror in the Jim Crow and segregated South.
