Which 1955 murder case galvanized national attention after the killing of Emmett Till?

The Emmett Till murder case galvanized national attention after the killing of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi in 1955.

Till, a Black teenager from Chicago, was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, when he was accused of offending a white woman in a grocery store. Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam abducted him from his relatives’ home, beat him, shot him, and dumped his body in the Tallahatchie River.

Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted on an open-casket funeral in Chicago so the public could see what had happened. Photographs of his mutilated body were published widely and forced many Americans to confront the brutality of racist violence.

An all-white jury acquitted Bryant and Milam in September 1955. The men later admitted responsibility in a paid magazine interview, but they could not be retried because of double-jeopardy protections. The case became a powerful catalyst for civil-rights activism.