Louis Till

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Louis Till (died July 2, 1945) was the father of Emmett Louis Till, who was murdered when he was 14 in Mississippi. Louis Till was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943. While in Italy, he was convicted of raping two women and murdering a third,[1][2] and executed by the Army by hanging near Pisa on July 2, 1945. A fellow captive of Ezra Pound (imprisoned for his fascist radio broadcasts in support of the Axis powers), Till is mentioned in lines 171-173 of Canto 74 of the Pisan Cantos:[3]

Till was hung yesterday
for murder and rape with trimmings

The full circumstance's of Till's death were unknown at the time to his widow Mamie Carthan Till, who was informed only that her husband had been killed due to "willful misconduct". Mamie Till, along with the general public, found out the true circumstances when Mississippi senator James Eastland, an avowed segregationist, found and released the information weeks before Emmett Till's killers were to go before a grand jury on kidnapping charges.[4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ PBS People and Events: Mamie Till Mobley
  2. ^ FBI Report -- Emmett Louis Till -- Louis Till execution, page 19
  3. ^ Pound, Ezra (1948). The Pisan Cantos. New York: New Directions. ISBN 0-8112-1558-X. 
  4. ^ PBS American Experience Online Forum - The Murder of Emmett Till