Editing J.W. Milam (section)

{{Mature}}{{Important}}
{{Villain Infobox
|image = JW_Milam.jpg
|fullname = John William Milam
|alias = J.W. Milam
|origin = Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, U.S.
|occupation = Heavy machinery operator
|goals = Kill Emmett Till and get away with it <small>(succeeded)</small>
|crimes = [[Murder]]<br>[[Torture]]<br>[[Xenophobia]]<br>[[Kidnapping]]<br>Mutilation<br>[[Negrophobia]]<br>[[Hate crime]]s
|type of villain = Racist Murderer}}
{{Quote|As long as I live and can do anything about it, niggers are gonna stay in their place. Niggers ain't gonna vote where I live. If they did, they'd control the government. They ain't gonna go to school with my kids. And when a nigger gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he's tired o' livin'. I'm likely to kill him.|Milam in his confession to the murder.}}
'''John William Milam''' (18 February 1919 - 31 December 1980) was one of two people (the other was his half-brother [[Roy Bryant]]) responsible for the 1955 abduction and [[lynching]] of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African-American who had allegedly wolf-whistled Bryant's wife [[Carolyn Bryant]]. Bryant and Milam were tried for the murder but were acquitted by an all-white jury, sparking national outrage.

The lynching of Emmett Till was one of the first [[hate crime]]s to garner national attention and inspired many African-Americans to fight against the discriminatory [[Jim Crow laws]], thus kick-starting the African-American civil rights movement.