How was Emmett Tills murdered?

Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy, was brutally beaten, shot in the head, and thrown into a river in Mississippi in 1955. This horrific act of violence was a racially motivated murder by two white men who accused Till of whistling at a white woman. The men were acquitted by an all-white jury, but later confessed to the crime in a magazine interview. Till's murder was a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.