(CNN) -

Both were African-American teenagers who left home and never came back. Both ran afoul of unwritten racial codes. Both didn't live to see what symbols they became.

Trayvon Martin and Emmett Till.

They died 57 years apart, but their names and legacies may be forever merged. Martin, a 17-year-old black teenager who was shot to death by a white Hispanic neighborhood watchman, is on the verge of becoming this generation's Emmett Till, some are saying.

Scores of angry Americans - black and white - have taken to Facebook and news sites to compare Martin's fate to Till, the 14-year-old black boy who was murdered in Mississippi in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white women.

Washington Post writer Eugene Robinson invoked Till in Martin's case to say black men still wear a "bull's-eye" throughout their lives. Columnists for The New Yorker, and online sites like BET.com and thegrio.com made the same analogy.

Is the comparison fair?

"Emmett Till broke the code of his time by speaking in a suggestive, teasing way to a white women - Martin by wearing a hoodie and walking at night through a white neighborhood. The reason for the second death is every bit as outrageous as

the reason for the first," says Mark Naison, an African-American studies and history professor at Fordham University in New York.

Martin's death has re-ignited debate over the public perception of black men.

"I don't think anyone doubts that if the race of those two were reversed that the perpetrator would be arrested," says Chris Johnson, one of the creators of "The Question Bridge," an interactive exhibition that focused on black men, "the most opaque and feared demographic in America," according to organizers.

"The Question Bridge" exhibition toured the country this year, showing videos of black men posing and answering questions of black men from different generations. Johnson said it was designed to shed many of the labels attached to black men - such as being criminals - by getting them to talk openly about it.

The questions were abstract, but Martin's case made it more personal, Johnson says: It shows many black men are still feared and shackled by stereotypes, just as they were in Till's time.

Till was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, when he allegedly flirted with a white woman in a store. He was abducted at night from his great uncle's home, tortured and murdered. His body was dumped in a river.

A relative of Till identified in court two men who he said kidnapped his nephew. The jury deliberated 67 minutes before acquitting the men, who were photographed grinning and laughing in court.

Till's death drew people's attention to a corrupt legal system in the Jim Crow South. Martin's death is drawing people's attention to the legal conduct of Florida police and the state's gun laws, says Randolph McLaughlin, a New York attorney and professor at Pace Law School in New York.

"Just as in Emmett Till's case, nothing was done by local authorities," he says. "It was fine to lynch a black kid then. It's fine to kill a black kid now."

Till's mother took advantage of an emerging technology -- television -- to mobilize the nation on behalf of her son. She also insisted that photos of her son's deformed corpse be made public.

Till's mother's decision to go to the media galvanized the nation, says David Aretha, author of "The Murder of Emmett Till."

"When Emmett's coffin arrived via train in Chicago, she touched the box and fell to the ground. As five men lifted the wrapped body out of the box, she wailed 'Oh, God. Oh, God. My only boy,'" Aretha says.

Television cameras recorded the heartbreaking scene.

When Aretha heard about the death of Martin, he says he thought about the similarities to Till's death.

"The murders themselves were appalling, but what really angered the general public was the injustice - highly questionable laws and customs that allowed for whites to freely murder blacks in the Jim Crow South and for someone to almost randomly shoot anyone in the Martin case," Aretha says.

Still, there are some significant differences between Till and Martin, others say.

Till violated the racial codes of the South by his swagger and talking to a white woman, says James Peterson, an African-American studies professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

Martin didn't do anything, Peterson says.

"Trayvon Martin was literally walking to his father's house," he says. "This is racial profiling and vigilante justice gone wrong."

Blacks had little political power in 1955. The president of the United States is now black, as well as the nation's attorney general, Peterson says.

Some black leaders called on President Obama to call Martin's family. Obama has to appear impartial, Peterson says, but the president expressed sympathy for Martin's family.

"If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," Obama said.

"He can't call Trayvon Martin's parents and console them," Peterson says. "That will make it seem like the Justice Department is not fine and balanced."

Till's case had unexpected political consequences, says Aretha.

"The Till case, without question, fueled the emerging civil rights movement," he says. "... Someone asked Rosa Parks why she didn't get up [from her bus seat] when she was threatened. She said she thought about Emmett Till and couldn't go back anymore.

"We will see if the murder of Trayvon Martin sparks another kind of social movement."

* * *

To view the original story CLICK HERE

* * *

Inquiries may be directed to Professor Randolph McLaughlin at 212-619-5400