Before you begin to read my story, unfortunately there is no happy ending.
My name is Emmett Louis Till, I was born on July 25, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois. I am the only child of Louis and Mamie Till. I never knew my father, a private in the United States Army during World War II.
Let me tell you about my beloved mother, how I wish I can tell her I lover her and I am in a better place. My mother, Mamie, was by all accounts an extraordinary woman. While raising me as a single mother, she worked long hours for the Air Force as a clerk in charge of secret and confidential files.
My mother often working more than 12-hour days, I took on full domestic responsibilities from a very young age. I remember telling her, "If you work, and make the money, I will take care of everything else. I'll clean and cook. And I'll even do the laundry." If your parents are a single mom or dad. Please helped them with the chores because you don't know if one day you'll ever see them again.
I wish my father would have never met my mother. Because of his actions I was portrayed a rapist like him.
My father, Louis Till, grew up an orphan in New Madrid, Missouri. He worked at the Argo Corn Company, was an amateur boxer, and was popular with many women. When they met, he took her to an ice cream parlor for her first banana split. Her parents disapproved, thinking the charismatic Louis was "too sophisticated" for their daughter. At her mother's insistence, she broke off their courtship. But the persistent Louis won Mamie's heart, and they married on October 14, 1940. Both were 18 years old.
They separated in 1942, after he attacked her violently and she defended herself by throwing boiling water on him. Eventually Mamie obtained a restraining order against him; after violating this repeatedly, a judge forced him to choose between enlisting in the U.S. Army or facing jail time. He joined the Army in 1943.
In 1945 Louis Till was court-martialed on charges of the murder of an Italian woman and the rape of two others in Civitavecchia. After a lengthy investigation he was convicted, and was executed by hanging near Pisa on July 2, 1945.