Bill Cosby’s publicist on Friday compared his sexual assault conviction to the plight of Emmett Till, the black teenager who was lynched and disfigured in Mississippi in 1955 after he was wrongfully accused of flirting with a white woman.

Mr. Cosby was convicted on Thursday of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman, Andrea Constand, at his home 14 years ago. More than 50 other women have accused him of sexual abuse.

Till, by contrast, was 14 years old in 1955, when a white woman accused him of flirting and whistling at her. Four days later, a group of white men forced their way into the home where he was staying and abducted him. He was beaten, shot in the head and thrown into a river. His body was found three days later, mutilated so badly it could be identified only by the ring he was wearing.

His accuser, Carolyn Bryant Donham, later told a historian that Till had not been menacing or sexually crude toward her.