[CrosscutSaw]

Emmett Till was a just-turned-14-year-old *child*, whose only “crime” was allegedly whistling at a white woman. Not touching, not threatening, or even approaching, but whistling. Just what, exactly, did he “deserve”.

He deserved a reprimand and to be told to learn how to respect women, his elders, and other people in general. Depending on his attitude, he may also have deserved a swift kick in the ass.

He certainly didn't deserve to be brutally murdered. But let's not make this kid out to be some kind of model child just minding his own business. He got in trouble for being a jerk in the wrong time, in the wrong place and to the wrong people.

[OldSpice]

He may have deserved at most a verbal reprimand, by authorised personnel, not some yahoos from the street. And for his murder, the perps that killed him should have been hanged, drawn and quartered.

[squarebarb]

I must say you are no quitter.

[Sherman Logan]

He got in trouble for being a jerk in the wrong time, in the wrong place and to the wrong people.

Nope. He got in trouble for not "staying in his place." A white boy who did the same would have been ignored (probably), told off or even punched out. He would not have been severely beaten up or killed.

The murder was a pure assertion of racial privilege. Its purpose was to terrorize other members of the inferior race.

[Lockbar]

I'm going to go along with crosscut. Apparently most of you folks never spent time in the south. I as a white boy from Chicago I spent one very hot summer down south in the days of segregated water fountains and bus stations. I learned very quickly that manners were very different in Dixie. Not that I had a bad experience, but you learned very quickly from observations that rules were different for everybody, even white people. If I had been a smart A$$ yankee white boy from Chicago and whistled at a white woman, I would have been near beaten to pulp also. And I would have deserved it.