Lopi LaRoe
Emmett Till
Oil on Wood
3 ½ “ X 2 ½ “
2005
In August 1955, fourteen-year-old Chicagoan Emmett Till visited relatives in Mississippi. At Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market, a store owned by a white couple, Roy and Carolyn Bryant, Till is said to have whistled at Mrs. Bryant. Several days later, on Aug. 28, Till was kidnapped, brutally beaten, shot, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River, his mutilated corpse barely identifiable. Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J. W. Milam, were arrested for the murder. The all-white jury in Sumner, Mississippi, took just over an hour to reach their verdict to acquit them. One juror said that they took a soda-pop break during the deliberations to stretch them out and "make it look good." With double-jeopardy protecting them from being retried, the two later boasted about the murder in a Look magazine interview.