On August 20, 1955, Mamie Till rushed her son Emmett to the 63rd Street station in Chicago to catch the southbound train to Money, Mississippi.
Emmett's hometown Cubs were on a road trip too, playing in Milwaukee against the Braves. The only African-American pitcher on the roster, Sam Jones, lost the game 6-1. Earlier that season, he had became the first African-American to pitch a no-hitter in the Major Leagues. In 1955, African-American players had only been playing in MLB for 8 seasons, and it was only the second full season that the Cubs had black players on the roster. They had a grand total of three: Ernie Banks, Gene Baker and Sam Jones.
On August 24, 1955 Emmett Till joined a group of teenagers, seven boys and one girl, at Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market for refreshments to cool off after a long day of picking cotton in the hot sun. Bryant's Grocery, owned by a white couple, Roy and Carolyn Bryant, sold supplies and candy to a primarily black clientele of sharecroppers and their children. Emmett went into the store to buy bubble gum. Some of the kids outside the store will later say they heard Emmett whistle at Carolyn Bryant.
August 28, around 2:30 a.m., Roy Bryant, Carolyn's husband, and his half brother J. W. Milam, kidnapped Emmett Till from Moses Wright's (his great uncle) home. They will later describe brutally beating him, taking him to the edge of the Tallahatchie River, shooting him in the head, fastening a large metal fan used for ginning cotton to his neck with barbed wire, and pushing the body into the river.
Later that same night, the Cubs were in the Polo Grounds at New York, winning 3-0. The hitting stars were the only two African-American hitters in the lineup, Gene Baker (who hit a double), and Ernie Banks (who hit two triples and scored two of the three runs.)
August 29: J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant were arrested on kidnapping charges in LeFlore County in connection with Till's disappearance. They were jailed in Greenwood, Mississippi and held without bond.
September 2: In Chicago, Mamie Till arrived at the Illinois Central Terminal to receive Emmett's casket. She was surrounded by family and photographers who snapped her photo collapsing in grief at the sight of the casket. The body was taken to the A. A. Rayner & Sons Funeral Home. The Jackson [Mississippi] Daily News decried the "brutal, senseless crime" but complained that the NAACP is working "to arouse hatred and fear" by calling Till's murder a lynching.
The Cubs returned home to Chicago on the same day. Ernie Banks lead the Cubs to a 12-2 victory. In the game, he became the first shortstop in baseball history to hit 40 home runs. Just two years earlier he had been playing in the Negro Leagues.
One hundred days later, 12/5/55—Rosa Parks wouldn't go to the back of the bus, and the Civil Rights movement began in earnest.
