Emmett Till was the face of the civil rights movement. His grotesquely mashed visage — made that way by two redneck Mississippians — remains the era’s most brutal image. The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till tells the tragic story: In 1955, Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago, was visiting family in Mississippi when he whistled at a white woman. He was later dragged from his bed by two white men and brutalized; his battered, barely recognizable body was discovered a few days later. The subsequent trial was a sham; the defendants (who later confessed to the murder) were acquitted by an all-white jury. This probing documentary prompted the Justice Department to reopen the case last year. Officials are now investigating charges of a conspiracy involving other people (the two men responsible for Till’s death are dead).
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This article appears in Feb 8-14, 2006.