RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, in a report to Congress in March 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it was reopening its investigation into the murder of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old African-American boy and Chicago native whose abduction and killing remains among the most devastating examples of racial violence in the South; and
WHEREAS, the reopening of the Emmett Till investigation is a renewed and prominent test for the U.S. Department of Justice whose officials continue to investigate unsolved crimes dating back to the Civil Rights Movement that are thought to have been racially motivated; and
WHEREAS, in addition, the U.S. Department of Justice's reopening of the Emmett Till investigation is an opportunity to achieve significant change to the challenges of race that continue to plague our nation; and
WHEREAS, Emmett Till was born on July 25, 1941 on Chicago's South Side, and would have celebrated his 77th birthday this year; and
WHEREAS, Emmett Till was brutally murdered on August 28, 1955 while visiting family in Money, Mississippi after being accused of whistling at a white woman in her family's store; and
WHEREAS, tens of thousands attended Emmett Till's funeral or viewed his open casket in Chicago, and images of his mutilated body rallied popular black support and white sympathy across the United States; and
WHEREAS, on September 23, 1955 Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, the men responsible for Emmett Till's kidnapping and murder, were acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury after an hour of deliberation, believing the state had failed to prove the identity of the body; and
WHEREAS, the brutality of Emmett Till's murder and the fact that his killers were acquitted of their crimes drew immense attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States, and were an early catalyst of the Civil Rights Movement; and
WHEREAS, the City of Chicago continues to memorialize Emmett Till's legacy with the naming of a section of ...
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