Who was Emmett Till? Taraji P Henson calls for Jussie Smollett's release from jail by invoking 1955 lynching incident

American actor Jussie Smollett's former co-star Taraji P Henson has compared the hate crime faker to lynching victim Emmett Till in a recent Instagram post. The latter also asked for Smollett's release.

On March 13, the 51-year-old actress took to her Instagram handle to share an all-black picture with #FREEJUSSIE written in white.

In the caption, she wrote that the custodial sentence given to the defamed actor by a Chicago judge was too severe, and the actor should be allowed to serve it through house arrest and probation instead.

She then made his case's comparison with Emmett Till, who was murdered based on a lie, and how the people involved did not receive any jail time. Taraji P Henson said that in Jussie Smollett's case, no one was hurt or killed.

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Who was Emmett Till, whose case Taraji P Henson compared to Jussie Smollett's?

As per Britannica, Emmett Till was an African-American teenager whose killing catalyzed the Civil Rights Movement in America.

Born in Chicago's South Side to working-class parents, the 14-year-old took a trip to rural Mississippi to spend the summer with his relatives in 1955. A few days after his arrival, he went to a local grocery shop, where he allegedly flirted with the white shop lady, who then reported the incident to her husband, Roy Bryant.

On August 28, Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam abducted Till at gunpoint and beat up the boy badly, gouging out one of his eyes. Later, they took him to the banks of Tallahatchie River and shot him in the head. The duo then tied the teen's corpse to a large metal fan with barbed wire and threw it into the river.

The following day, Bryant and Milam were arrested after Till's relatives reported the kidnapping to the police. Till's corpse was discovered in the river on August 31, 1955.

As a result of the assault, Till's face was unrecognizable, and he could only be positively identified by his father's monogrammed ring.

As for the current case, in 2019, Jussie Smollett, who is black and gay, falsely alleged that he had been attacked after a night of drinking in Chicago by two men. He also alleged that they used racist and homophobic slurs.

Ultimately, the truth came out, and he was convicted last year of fabricating the hate attack. During his sentencing on March 10, Smollett said that he could fall victim to a killing made to look like suicide, a reference to the hanging death of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in 2019 in a Manhattan jail cell.

Jussie Smollett and Taraji P. Henson grew particularly close after the former portrayed Henson's character Cookie Lyon's son, Jamal Lyon, in Empire, the Fox drama series.