Louis Till (1922 - July 2, 1945) was an American soldier and convicted rapist and murderer. He is best known as the father of Emmett Louis Till, whose murder in 1955 at the age of fourteen galvanized the African-American civil rights movement. A soldier during World War II, Louis Till was executed by the U.S. Army in 1945 after being found guilty of murder and rape. The circumstances of his death were little known even to his family until they were revealed after the trial of his son's murderers ten years later, which affected subsequent discourse on the death of Emmett Till.