Mamie Till Mobley Christopher Benson Popular Books

Mamie Till Mobley Christopher Benson Biography & Facts

Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley (born Mamie Elizabeth Carthan; November 23, 1921 – January 6, 2003) was an American educator and activist. She was the mother of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old teenager murdered in Mississippi on August 28, 1955, after accusations that he had whistled at a Caucasian grocery store cashier named Carolyn Bryant. For Emmett's funeral in Chicago, Mamie Till insisted that the casket containing his body be left open, because, in her words, "I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby." Born in Mississippi, Carthan had moved, as a child, with her parents to the Chicago area during the "Great Migration". After her son's murder, Mamie Till became an educator and activist in the Civil Rights Movement. Early life Born Mamie Elizabeth Carthan on November 23, 1921 in Webb, Mississippi, she was a young child when her family relocated from the Southern United States during the Great Migration, the period when hundreds of thousands of African-Americans moved to the Northern United States. In 1922, shortly after her birth, Mamie's father, Nash Carthan, moved to Argo, Illinois, near Chicago. There, he found work at the Argo Corn Products Refining Company. Alma Carthan joined her husband in January 1924, bringing along two-year-old Mamie and her brother, John. They settled in a predominantly African-American neighborhood in Argo. When Mamie was 13, her parents divorced. Devastated, Mamie threw herself into her schoolwork and excelled in her studies. Alma had high hopes for her only daughter, and although Alma Carthan said that in her day "the girls had one ambition—to get married", she encouraged Mamie in her studies. Mamie was the first African-American student to make the "A" Honor roll and only the fourth African-American student to graduate from the predominantly white Argo Community High School. At age 18, Mamie met a young man from New Madrid, Missouri named Louis Till. Employed by the Argo Corn Company, he was an amateur boxer, who was popular with women. Her parents disapproved, thinking the charismatic Till was "too sophisticated" for their daughter. At her mother's insistence, Mamie broke off their courtship. But the persistent Till won out, and they married on October 14, 1940. Both were 18 years old. Their only child, Emmett Louis Till, was born nine months later, on July 25, 1941. However, they separated in 1942 after Mamie found out that Louis had been unfaithful. He later choked her close to unconsciousness, to which she responded by throwing scalding water at him. Eventually, Mamie obtained a restraining order against him. After Louis violated this repeatedly, a judge forced him to choose between enlistment in the U.S. Army or jail time. Choosing the former, he joined the Army in 1943. In 1945, Ms. Till received notice from the War Department that, while serving in Italy, her husband was executed due to "willful misconduct". Her attempts to learn more were comprehensively blocked by the United States Army bureaucracy. The full details of Louis Till's criminal charges and execution emerged only ten years later. He (along with accomplice Fred A. McMurray) had been charged with raping and murdering an Italian woman. Both men were tried and convicted by a U.S. Army general court-martial and their sentence was death by hanging. Their sentences were appealed, but the appeals were denied. Both of their bodies were buried near the First World War U.S. Cemetery located at Oise-Aisne in an area known as Plot E, or the Fifth Field. Later analysis of the trial by John Edgar Wideman would call Louis Till's guilt into question. During the decade after the Second World War, Mamie had two brief marriages that both ended in divorce, first to Lemorse Mallory (in 1946) and then to Pink Bradley (1951). By the early 1950s, Mamie and Emmett had moved to Chicago's South Side. Mamie worked in the Air Force as a clerk who was in charge of confidential files. She worked more than 12-hour days and Emmett took care of the home while she was at work. Murder of Emmett Till In 1955, when Emmett was 14, his mother put him on the train to spend the summer visiting his cousins at the home of his great-uncle Moses Wright in Money, Mississippi. Before Emmett left for the vacation, his mother warned him that Chicago and Mississippi were different, that he would have to act differently, and he should know how to behave in front of whites in the South. She never saw him alive again, as Emmett was abducted and brutally murdered on August 28, 1955, after being accused of interacting inappropriately with a white woman. Three days after arriving in Money, Mississippi, on August 24, 1955, Emmett and his cousins went to Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market to buy refreshments after working on a farm field in the strong sun. The market mostly served the sharecroppers. Carolyn Bryant, the wife of store owner Roy Bryant, was alone in the store that day because her sister was watching the children. The precise facts of what happened at the store are disputed; however, Till was accused of touching, flirting, or whistling at Carolyn. At 2:30 in the morning on Sunday, August 28, 1955, Roy Bryant and his half-brother John William "J.W." Milam, kidnapped Till from Moses Wright's home. Till was abducted while he was sharing a bed with a cousin and there were a total of eight people in the cabin. Till's great-aunt offered the men money, but Milam refused it. They threatened death to those in the cabin if they did not let them take Emmett. Wright said he heard them ask someone in the car if this was the boy, and heard someone say "yes". Till admitted anyway to the men to being the one who had talked to Carolyn. They brutally pistol-whipped him, beat him, made him strip, and shot him dead before disposing of his body by dumping it in a river. Till was tossed over the Black Bayou Bridge in Glendora, near the Tallahatchie River. Emmett's face was unrecognizable because of the trauma. The only identifying feature that was a factor in identifying him was a family ring he was wearing. It was a silver ring with the initials "L.T." and "May 25, 1943" carved in it. The following month, Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam faced trial for Till's kidnapping and murder but were acquitted by the all-white jury after a five-day trial and a 67-minute deliberation on September 23, 1955. Four months later, one juror said, "If we hadn't stopped to drink pop, it wouldn't have taken that long." in an interview with Look magazine on January 24, 1956. Protected against double jeopardy, Roy and J.W. admitted to killing Emmett Till, and they were not tried twice. The men were paid and made a profit between $3,600 and $4,000. For her son's funeral, Mamie insisted that the casket containing his body be left open, because, in her words "I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby." Tens of thousands of people viewed Emmett's body, and photographs circulated the country. Jet magazine and the Chicago Defender .... Discover the Mamie Till Mobley Christopher Benson popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Mamie Till Mobley Christopher Benson books.