They say that Emmett Till was a bold and self-assured. He didn't understand the timid attitude of his Southern cousins toward whites. He even tried to impress them by showing them a photo of some white Chicago youths, claming the girl in the picture was his girlfriend.

One day he took the photo out of his wallet and showed it to a group of boys standing outside a country store in Money, Mississippi. Then the boys dared him to speak to a white woman in the store.

Many stories said that he brought candy/gum from Marie Bryant or Carolyn Bryant the names has change or it could have been the same person, walked out and said "Bye Baby" on his way out. Within hours everyone in the town had at least heard one version fo the incident.

Some said Emmett had asked Mrs. Bryant for a date; others said that he whistled at her. Whatever happened Roy Bryant was outraged that a black youth had been disrepectful to his wife. That weekend Roy and his half brother or brother in law went looking for Emmett.

Thats when they took him away and found him three days later a bullet in the skull, one eye gouged out and the head crushed in on one side. The face was unrecognizable. Mose Wright knew it was Till only because of a signet ring that remained on one finger. The ring had belonged to Emmett's father Louis, who had died ten years earlier, and bore his initials L.T.