Advertising Poster, Ebony Magazine, December 1955

In August 1955, a Black fourteen-year-old boy named Emmett Till was abducted from a relative's house while visiting family in Mississippi. Two white men accused him of teasing a white woman and lynched Till as punishment--his mutilated corpse was later pulled from the Tallahatchie River. An all-white jury found his murderers--who later admitted to the act--not guilty. The murder and acquittal were evidence of the Deep South's violent social codes. Till's mother insisted on displaying her son's disfigured body in an open casket for all to see. Outrage spurred community organization that ignited the modern Civil Rights movement.