African-American youth who was beaten and murdered for talking to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, a white woman, in 1955. His murder and subsequent trial were pivotal events in the instigation of the African-American Civl Rights Movement and were covered heavily in the 1987 Emmy award-winning series Eyes on the Prize.
He attended McCosh Elementary School.
Carolyn's husband, Roy, and his half-brother Milam abducted 14-year-old Till, removed one of his eyes, and shot him before tying a 70-pound cotton gin fan to his neck with barbed wire and dumping him in the Tallahatchie River.
His mother insisted that he had a public funeral with an open casket to publicize his death.
Bryant and Milam were acquitted of his murder, although they admitted to killing him in a magazine interview. The trial added momentum to the Civil Rights Movement, which was led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
