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On this day in 1941 Emmet Till was born.  From Chicago, Illinois, Till’s murder has been characterized as a “brutal murder” in a region of Mississippi known as the Mississippi Delta in the small town of Money in Leflore County. The main suspects were acquitted but later admitted to committing the crime. Till’s mother had an open casket funeral to let everyone see how her son had been brutally killed. He had been shot and beaten; he was then thrown into the Tallahatchie River with a 75-pound cotton gin fan tied to his neck with barbed wire as a weight. His body stayed in the river for three days until it was discovered and retrieved by two fishermen.

Also on this date:

1943 The SS Leonard Roy Harmon was the first navy fighting ship named after an African-American.

1968  Ellen Holly appeared on ABC’s “One Life To Live” becoming the first Black actress on day-time television.