GAWM Final Assesment

Question 1

What was the nickname of the man who was housing Emmett Till on the night of till’s kidnapping?

Answer 1

The preacher

Question 2

How was Emmett’s life different because he lived in the north, not the south?

Answer 2

He was able to live a carefree life, and had many more opportunities to do things he wouldn’t have been able to do if he lived in the South. He would have known about racial violence, but wouldn’t have been affected by it. Better paying jobs, businesses catered to exclusively black people, and racial violence was rare

Question 3

List events or inventions that emerged during Emmett Till’s short life

Answer 3

World War II, Israel became a free country, the first atomic bomb, McDonald’s and Disneyland emerged, color TV, the polio vaccine, the Holocaust

Question 4

Why was Bryant’s Market important to the black population in Money, Mississippi

Answer 4

It became the social hub/local hangout for them

Question 5

What did the general white population initially think about Bryant and Milam?

Answer 5

They thought that Bryant and Milam were guilty

Question 6

What is described as “one of the most dramatic moments in Mississippi trial history”? (hint: an action by a witness during testimony)

Answer 6

Mose Wright stood up and pointed at Bryant and Milam, identifying them and the men who took Emmett

Question 7

How was Mrs. Bradley described during her testimony?

Answer 7

Poised, clear-headed, fashionably dressed, confident, determined, and spoke in good English with a highly audible tone

Question 8

What did the defense try their hardest to get Mrs. Bradley to say during her testimony?

Answer 8

She could not say without a reasonable doubt that it was, in fact, Emmett’s body.

Question 9

What was the price paid by the prosecutors’ witnesses, including Mose Wright and Willie Reed?

Answer 9

They couldn’t live in Mississippi anymore because they would have been murdered. They had to flee the state immediately.

Question 10

What would it have taken to actually get Bryant and Milam convicted?

Answer 10

A white man from the South would have had to testify that he saw the murder occur.

Question 11

Why was the jury not allowed to hear Mrs. Bryant’s testimony?

Answer 11

The judge said it had been too long between the actual assault and the court case.

Question 12

What did Sheriff Strider, a white doctor, and a white embalmer all testify?

Answer 12

There was no way the body could be identified as Emmett’s and it was in the river for at least 10 days.

Question 13

During Chatham’s (the prosecutor’s) closing argument, what were Bryant and Milam doing?

Answer 13

They showed little emotion and sat in their seats with twisted smiles smoking cigars.

Question 14

What did the defense lawyers turn to in order to convince the jury of an acquittal?

Answer 14

They turned to Southern patriotism and racism to convince the jury of an acquittal.

Question 15

How long did it actually take the jury to decide the verdict? What did they do during this time?

Answer 15

1 hour and 8 minutes. They waited longer and drank Cokes at their leisure.

Question 16

What did the Sheriff say when questioned about receiving threats and hate mail?

Answer 16

He said he wanted to tell all of those people who sent him the mail that if they ever came down to Mississippi, the same thing that happened to Emmett Till was going to happen to them.

Question 17

Why did the public opinion about Milam and Bryant’s guilt change?

Answer 17

The press gave the trial too much negative attention and upset white Southerners.

Question 18

Why did the defense attorneys - and everyone else - know they had won before the trial even started?

Answer 18

The jury was made of racist white men.

Question 19

What was the defense attorneys’ strategy? In other words, what did they have to do?

Answer 19

They had to prove reasonable doubt that it was Emmett’s body.

Question 20

How did Bryant and Milam act like they were “out to a picnic” in the courtroom?

Answer 20

They played with their kids and ate ice cream.

Question 21

Why weren’t there any black jurors?

Answer 21

There were no black people registered to vote in their county.

Question 22

Who attended court with Mrs. Bradley?

Answer 22

A black US Congressman, Charles Digg.

Question 23

Sheriff Strider was a key figure in shaping the case. What actions did he perform?

Answer 23

He locked up two witnesses and held them under false names, he said the body was too old to be Emmett, he riled up the public so they felt threatened by northern agitators, he didn’t want to allow black reporters in the courtroom, and he recommended racist men for the jury.

Question 24

What made Emmett go into Bryant’s Market and speak to Mrs. Bryant?

Answer 24

One of the boys who was standing outside the store with Emmett said that if he actually knew so much about white girls, he could go get a date with the “pretty little white woman” inside the store.

Question 25

What was the “strongest and most fiercely enforced Jim Crow taboo”?

Answer 25

The idea of a black man “mixing” with a white woman.

Question 26

Where were the boys supposed to be when the Carolyn Bryant / Emmett Till interaction occurred?

Answer 26

They were supposed to be in church.

Question 27

According to Carolyn Bryant, what actions did Emmett take when he “molested” her?

Answer 27

Grabbed her and pulled her toward him, asked her out on a date, and put his hands on her waist.

Question 28

How did Carolyn Bryant react to the incident?

Answer 28

She grabbed a gun and tried to hide it from her husband.

Question 29

Roy Bryant immediately came after the boys the night of the incident.

Answer 29

False

Question 30

The citizens of Money, Mississippi - black and white - all expected Roy Bryant to retaliate against Emmett.

Answer 30

True

Question 31

What two UNEXPECTED things did Mamie Bradley do when she found out about Emmett’s kidnapping?

Answer 31

She contacted newspapers and made her bed.

Question 32

Which of the following was not an injury Emmett suffered?

Answer 32

His arms and legs were not broken.

Question 33

How did Mose identify Emmett’s body?

Answer 33

He saw the ring Emmett’s father wore on the corpse’s hand.

Question 34

What was Mamie Bradley so focused on when she heard of Emmett’s death?

Answer 34

Getting his body out of Mississippi.

Question 35

What happened to Emmett’s father?

Answer 35

He died serving during WWII.

Question 36

What sickness did Emmett suffer when he was a child? What was the lasting result?

Answer 36

He contracted Polio; he suffered from a stutter.

Question 37

What is the term for the movement of black people to northern cities to seek better opportunities?

Answer 37

The Great Migration.

Question 38

How did Emmett’s friends and family describe him? In other words, what was he like?

Answer 38

He was a leader, fun-loving, a jokester, a peace-keeper among friends, hardworking, and helpful.

Question 39

Why did Emmett travel to Mississippi?

Answer 39

He wanted to go visit his uncle and two cousins.

Question 40

Use adjectives to describe Money, Mississippi

Answer 40

Small, rural, hot, and poor.

Question 41

Why was Emmett Till like a celebrity to the people of Money, Mississippi?

Answer 41

He told stories of having white girlfriends and carried photos of white women.

Question 42

How was Emmett’s life in the north the same as if he had lived in the south? In other words, what would have been the same no matter where he lived?

Answer 42

He had many friends and played sports

Question 43

What event came to be known as “Black Monday”?

Answer 43

The day the Supreme Court ruled school must be desegregated.

Question 44

What was the ironic result of desegregation laws? In other words, in what way was desegregation counter-productive, especially in the beginning?

Answer 44

There was more violence towards blacks because whites were angry.

Question 45

Although warned, Emmett was not prepared for his visit to Mississippi. Of what specifically did his mother tell him he might have to do?

Answer 45

Not talk or look at a white woman.

Question 46

Why did tension already exist between the north and south before the Till case?

Answer 46

Brown v Board of education made school segregation illegal

Question 47

Black people had been lynched by white people for years before the Till case. What made this different?

Answer 47

The intense media coverage drew worldwide attention

Question 48

What “crime” did Emmett Till commit that resulted in his kidnapping and murder?

Answer 48

He whistled at and spoke improperly to a white woman.

Question 49

The Till case was the first time white men were indicted for killing a black person - true or false?

Answer 49

True

Question 50

At the time, what were white southerners most worried about?

Answer 50

Their southern way of life was under attack and in jeporady.

Question 51

What is one detail of the case that makes it difficult to understand how the jury could have acquitted Milam and Bryant?

Answer 51

Bryant and Milam admitted to kidnapping Emmett Till.

Question 52

What event followed the Till case that many tend to identify as the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement?

Answer 52

Rosa Parks boycotted on a Montgomery bus, starting bus boycotts.

Question 53

Short answer: Mrs. Bradley says the “longest-lasting lesson of all” is “what happens to any of us, anywhere in the world, had better be the business of us all.” What does this mean? Refer to specific details from the text.

Answer 53

Mrs. Bradley’s quote means that even though something bad happens somewhere else, it doesn’t mean it can’t affect other people’s lives. This is shown because Emmett’s murder occurred in Money, Mississippi, a small, rural town, and it got nation-wide attention from the media. People in the North knew about it, and people in the South who weren’t from Mississippi knew about it. People who aren’t directly affected by an event like Emmett’s murder shouldn’t pretend that it doesn’t exist.

Question 54

How did Emmett Till’s death ignite the civil rights movement? Refer to specific details from the text.

Answer 54

Emmett Till’s murder ignited the civil rights movement because it made everybody who was working for equal rights angry and determined. For example, on page 114, it states that Rosa Parks wouldn’t have done what she did if she wasn’t already angered by the murder of Emmett Till. Also, on page 111 it says that, “…no single event had ever generated enough support, enough publicity, or enough outrage to unify a large-scale effort to oppose segregation.” After the trial, Bryant and Milam did the interviews for Look magazine, and when they admitted how they killed Emmett, it enraged even more people further advancing the civil rights movement. Without the motivation to make a stand, the anger at racist people, and the media coverage created my the Emmett Till case, the civil rights movement would have been a lot harder to ignite.