1955
Mason, Mississippi, MS · On map
14-year-old Emmett Till was abducted, tortured, and lynched by two white men in Mason, Mississippi, after allegedly flirting with a white woman at a grocery store. His mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, held an open-casket funeral showing his mutilated body, which galvanized national outrage and became a catalyst for the modern civil rights movement. The killers confessed but were acquitted by an all-white jury; they later admitted guilt in a magazine interview.
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