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The Reverend George Lee, a grocery owner and NAACP field worker, lived in Belzoni, Mississippi, was shot and killed point blank while driving after trying to vote.
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Emmett Louis Till was visiting relatives in Mississippi on August 24, 1955, he reportedly flirted with a white cashier at a grocery store. Four days later, two white men kidnapped Till, beat him and shot him in the head. Emmett Tills murder galvanized the emerging Civil Rights Movement.
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Till's body was shipped to Chicago, where his mother opted to have an open-casket funeral with Till's body on display . Thousands of people came to the Roberts Temple Church of God to see the evidence of this brutal hate crime. Till's mother said that, despite the enormous pain it caused her to see her son's dead body on display, she opted for an open-casket funeral in an effort to "let the world see what has happened, because there is no way I could describe this.
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Jury selection began on September 19 and finding twelve unbiased jurors would not be easy. In 1955 non of the black residents of Tallahatchie County were registered voters, thus, no blacks were eligible to serve on the juror.
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After 67 minutes deliberating, the jurors announced the verdict of "not guilty". The jury's verdict provoked angry calls for federal legislation to protect the civil rights of black Americans. Protest rallies, drawing thousands in some cases , were held in severa cities.
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The LeFlore County grand jury in Greenwood, Mississippi. The grand jury refuses to indict Milam or Bryant for kidnapping. The two white men go free.
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On December 1, 1955, after a long day's work at a Montgomery department store, where she worked as a seamstress, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger and was arrested at the scene. Rosa recalled that her refusal that she was tired of giving in.
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In 1955, the Women's Political Council issued a leaflet calling for a boycott of Montgomery buses.
Don't ride the bus to work, to town, to school, or any place Monday, December 5.
Another Negro Woman has been arrested because she refused to give up her bus seat.
