This is a story about America in its pre-civil rights struggle, and how the brutal murder of an innocent Chicago boy forced the country to face its own ugliness. The impact of Emmett Till’s brutal murder is told from the perspective of his neighborhood friends, and who he was before he became an unwilling symbol of the horror of racial hatred. His courageous mother, Mrs. Mamie (Till) Bradley, exhibited her strength and sense of justice when she refused to allow her son’s casket to be closed for the funeral. The truth of what happened to her son was not only etched on his bloated and broken face but on the conscience of the country’s psyche.