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This NY Times article goes in depth with the details of how the death of a young black boy started the Civil Rights Movement.
The murder sparked the very first events of the civil rights movement. MLK and Rosa Parks  began fighting to gain rights for African American rights.

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Emmett Louis Till was born on July 25, 1941, on Chicago's South Side and was nicknamed Bobo because of his fun-loving, cheerful disposition while growing up in the segregated middle-class neighborhood. When he was 14 he went to Mississippi to spend the summer with his cousins, and his mother gave him his father's signet ring as a gift.

On Aug. 24, 1955, after an exhausting day of picking cotton in the scorching Delta sun, Till and his cousins went to a local store run by a poor white couple in their 20s, Roy and Carolyn Bryant. Ms. Bryant was working alone in the store when Till went in to buy bubblegum. It is not clear what happened inside, but soon afterward Ms. Bryant stormed out, presumably to get a pistol from her car parked outside. Till, unaware of the danger, whistled, and his cousins, now panicked, quickly drove him away.

Ms. Bryant later claimed that Till had flirted with her on a dare. The details would later change depending on when she told the story.

Four days later, around 2:30 a.m., Ms. Bryant's husband, Roy, and his half brother J. W. Milam pounded on the door of the Wright family home where Till was staying with a pistol. Bryant announced that they were "looking for the boy that did the talking." Forcing their way in, according to a PBS documentary about Till, they roused Till from sleep, marched him to their car and sped away.

Till's disfigured body was found three days later, "the most celebrated race-sex case since Scottsboro was born," the journalist William Bradford Huie wrote in Look magazine. His body was so mutilated that it could be identified only by the silver signet ring, still on his finger.

"Someone is going to pay for this," Till's mother wailed, according to an American National Biography web page about her. She demanded that her son's body be returned to Chicago for an open-coffin funeral. "I wanted the world to see," she said.

Till's body, unembalmed, was displayed publicly for four days. People left in tears. Some fainted.

The murder became a rallying point for the nascent civil rights movement. The Rev. Jesse Jackson called it the movement's "Big Bang."

"More than 100,000 people saw his body lying in that casket," he told The New York Times in 2003.

The Bryant brothers were found not guilty. After the acquittal, they kissed their wives, lit cigars and posed for pictures. And later, protected from double jeopardy, they boasted about how they had murdered Till.

Till's mother, Mamie Till Mobley, turned to the federal government to no avail. She tried to meet with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, but he refused. J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the F.B.I. at the time, declined to make the killing a federal case.

"There has been no allegation made," he said, "that the victim Emmett Till has been subjected to the deprivation of any right or privilege which is secured and protected by the Constitution and the laws of the United States."

The Till case became emblematic of a history of violence toward African-Americans and of the country's legacy of white supremacy. It provoked international outrage and pressure on political leaders in the United States. Young black Americans grasped the precariousness of their own lives, and figures like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers and many others were galvanized to press the fight on the front lines. Ms. Till Mobley became a teacher and civil rights activist herself, as did many whites.

As Mr. Jackson said, "Emmett's murder broke the emotional chains of Jim Crow."

Thanks for joining us this summer as we revisited some of the 200,000 memorable lives featured in The New York Times's archive.

We wandered back into a fatal Alaskan odyssey and over the rainbow. We heard the echoes of shots that reverberated in America and around the world. We mingled with criminals, leaders, protesters, artists and athletes, many who forever changed their professions. We relived the first steps on the moon and the speech that divided India and Pakistan. And we asked Anderson Cooper, Cory Booker, Dominique Dawes, Tom Brokaw and David H. Petraeus whom from our archives they would dine with, and why.

You can find more fascinating New York Times obituaries, year round, here and on our Twitter feed. Click here for the continuing feature "Notable Deaths of 2016", and if you want to revisit some of the most momentous obituaries to have appeared in The Times, you might look for "The Book of the Dead," a compilation of obituaries dating back to the newspaper's founding in 1851. It will be available for preorder and will appear on store shelves in October.

We welcome your feedback about Not Forgotten here. We hope you enjoyed it.

Robin Williams, an indefatigable, improvisational genius, arrived on screens as an alien and left as an Academy Award-winning actor.

After his death, two years ago today, The New York Times described him like this:

Onstage he was known for ricochet riffs on politics, social issues and cultural matters both high and low; tales of drug and alcohol abuse; lewd commentaries on relations between the sexes; and lightning-like improvisations on anything an audience member might toss at him. His gigs were always rife with frenetic, spot-on impersonations that included Hollywood stars, presidents, princes, prime ministers, popes and anonymous citizens of the world. His irreverence was legendary and uncurtailable.

We remember Williams with some of our favorite scenes and lines (some of which contain strong language), and encourage readers to do the same on Twitter using #tellnyt.

Williams broke through to mainstream audiences on this quirky sitcom, in which he played Mork from Ork, a sweet, goofy alien who befriends a young Colorado woman.

Williams earned an Academy Award nomination for playing Adrian Cronauer, a chatty Armed Forces Radio host in Saigon in the 1960s. "This is the first role that calls upon me to do what I do best - me," he said.

He voiced an unforgettably zany blue genie in the 1992 Walt Disney feature.

Williams played an actor who cross-dressed as a British housekeeper to spend more time with his children in this 1993 family comedy.

Williams's Oscar-winning turn as a therapist working with a troubled prodigy, played by Matt Damon, offered him a rare serious role that took advantage of his wide-ranging talents.

Williams starred in this black comedy as Rainbow Randolph, a children's TV show host who is fired for taking bribes and replaced by an upstanding performer played by Edward Norton.

On Kate Winslet's head piece: "The nice thing about this hat is that it covers up the head wound that made her think it was a good idea to wear it in the first place."

On Queen Elizabeth II: "Gowns by Helen Keller. Nice looking. Not at all like her stamp. Wears her watch over the glove, though - tacky."

On Donatella Versace: "That skin! She looks like something you'd hang off your door in Africa."

On herself: "My love life is like a piece of Swiss cheese; most of it's missing, and what's there stinks."

Joan Rivers, the irrepressible and sharply acerbic comedian, would have been 83 today, and since her death almost two years ago, she has left a celebrity-skewering void that can still be felt during every major red carpet event, from the Oscars to the Grammys, where the glitterati were sitting ducks for her as she hosted the E! show "Fashion Police."

As Katy Perry tweeted on the day Ms. Rivers died:

What's the point of wearing all these dumb costumes if Joan's not here to rip them apart RIP Joan Rivers. You are a one of a one. katyperry

(Ms. Rivers died undergoing a routine procedure in New York City. A settlement in a malpractice lawsuit filed by Ms. Rivers's daughter, Melissa, was reached in May.)

In honor of her birthday, we're asking readers to share their favorite zingers and one-liners by Ms. Rivers on Twitter using #TellNYT.

But beyond the red carpet, we remember Ms. Rivers today as one of America's first successful female stand-up comics in a landscape dominated by men. She paved the way for generations of comedians, distinguishing herself with slashing style and biting self-deprecation, even about her death.

"I've had so much plastic surgery," she once said. "When I die they will donate my body to Tupperware."

Ms. Rivers broke through in the 1960s as a guest on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson. A review in The New York Times in 1965 called her "an unusually bright girl who is overcoming the handicap of a woman comic, looks pretty and blonde and bright and yet manages to make people laugh."

But she was fired after she got her own show. Then her husband committed suicide. Driven by despair and desperation, she reinvented herself as a writer, producer and entrepreneur. In the 1990s she began "poking a microphone into freshly Botoxed faces on red carpets," and in 2010 she became a star of "Fashion Police." Nothing was sacred. No one was spared.

The Times obituary said:

"She would take the stage in a demure black sheath and ladylike pearls, a tiny bouffant blonde with a genteel air of sorority decorum. Then she'd stick her finger down her throat and regurgitate the dirt on the rich and famous, the stream-of-consciousness take on national heroes and sacrosanct cultural idols."

If you could have dinner with one person who is no longer with us, and whose obituary was published in The New York Times, who would it be, and why that person? Not Forgotten is asking that question of a variety of influential people this summer in a series of posts called Breaking Bread.
First up is Cory Booker, New Jersey's junior senator, a former mayor of Newark and a Democrat frequently mentioned as a potential vice-presidential running mate in the 2016 election.

Asked in a telephone interview on Wednesday to choose a dinner companion, Mr. Booker said he had gone back and forth between two of his heroes, both of whom rose from slavery: Harriet Tubman, the abolitionist who is most remembered for ushering dozens of slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad, and Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist author and orator and later prominent humanitarian and campaigner for women's rights.

Mr. Booker said he keeps a statue of Tubman and a picture of Douglass in his office.

The Douglass picture, he said, is "a constant reminder to me of the idea of lifelong service, of tireless, unyielding dedication to the ideals of our nation, and to his understanding that our nation's ideals of freedom and liberty can't just be fought for once in a while."

In the end he chose Douglass.

"He's just somebody who had a profound regality about him and a pervasive humility," Mr. Booker said. "And the way he engaged himself, and one of the last things he did before he died was going to a suffrage movement meeting."

The meeting was of the Women's National Council at Metzerott Hall in Washington. An honored guest, Douglass was escorted to the platform by the suffragettes Susan B. Anthony and Anna H. Shaw, The Times reported. Shortly after the meeting, on Feb. 20, 1895, he collapsed and died at his home in the capital while he and his wife waited for a carriage to take him to Hillsdale African Church, where he was to give a lecture. He was 78.

"It is a singular fact, in connection with the death of Mr. Douglass," The Times wrote in its obituary, "that the very last hours of his life were given in attention to one of the principles to which he has devoted his energies since his escape from slavery."

Douglass, who had escaped from slavery and taught himself to read, became a leading abolitionist in the North and an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln. "Mr. Douglass, perhaps more than any other man of his race, was instrumental in advancing the work of banishing the color line," the obituary said.

Mr. Booker said that Douglass had been a hero of his since childhood, when his parents taught him about great Americans. He described Douglass as "one who bent the arc of our history more toward justice," adding that he admired Douglass all the more for embracing manifold causes.

"He's a person who shows that all of our fights for justice are interwoven," Mr. Booker said

Mr. Booker said he strove to live up to Douglass's example.

"I'm hopeful that at the end of my life someone like Frederick Douglass would look at my life and say, 'Well done, you've proven yourself to be worthy of the legacy we left you,' " he said.

As a vegan, Mr. Booker acknowledged that choosing the dinner menu might be problematic. But he said he thought Douglass might enjoy the cuisine found at some of his favorite vegan restaurants in New Jersey.

"I would let him know that he could enjoy a healthy lifestyle, and really delicious food."

This summer, we invite you to join us as we exhume obituaries from our archives, some dating to the 19th century. You'll meet leaders, inventors, entertainers, artists, novelists and the infamous - each linked in some way to the obituary. On some days we'll ask influential people a simple question: If you could have dinner with one person who is no longer with us, who would it be, and why?

We welcome your feedback and ideas. You can send us an email using this form or tweet the editor of this project, Shreeya Sinha @shreeyasinha, or the main writer,@DSlotnik. Follow us on Twitter.

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Emmett Till, Whose Martyrdom Launched the Civil Rights Movement

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Emmett Louis Till was born on July 25, 1941, on Chicago's South Side and was nicknamed Bobo because of his fun-loving, cheerful disposition while growing up in the segregated middle-class neighborhood. When he was 14 he went to Mississippi to spend the summer with his cousins, and his mother gave him his father's signet ring as a gift.

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This video depicts the background story of Emmett Till and the effects his murder had on the Civil Rights Movement.
Emmett's murder sparked civil rights acts across the country. Retribution was needed after the brutal destruction of a 14 year old boy.

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Emmett's mother Mamie Till shared her feelings to the public in multiple speeches given out which helped sparked the Civil Rights Movement.
Emmett's mother wanted to go public about the murder of her son. She made multiple speeches about what needed to be done to achieve change, starting with justice her son and African American's in the states.

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Discover Mamie Till famous and rare quotes. Share Mamie Till quotations about son. "Two months ago I had a nice apartment..."

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Once word had gotten back to Emmett's mother, she insisted upon having an open casket funeral to show the damage that was done to her son. The image after shows the pure pain she experienced.
Mamie Till went public soon after she heard the news of Emmett. She made multiple speeches about what the country needed to change to improve the rights of black men and women. MLK heard what she wanted and it inspired him to take action.

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The murder of Emmett Till influenced many songs to be made depicting the tragedy that occurred. Some of them talked about the murder but some of them depicted the aftermath of the incident. Bob Dylan's "The Death of Emmett Till" describes the incident that occurred.
Music became a big tool to send messages about the civil rights movement. Songs like "The Death of Emmett Till" shed light on what happened to the entire nation in a slightly more comfortable light.

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Note: "The Death of Emmett Till" was recorded by Bob Dylan. Dylan first sang the song for a Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) benefit in February 1962 and the song appears on the 2010 album, "The Bootleg Series Vol. 9- the Witmark Demos 1962-1964."