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History. True Crime. Nonfiction. Mississippi, 1955: fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was murdered by a white mob after making flirtatious remarks to a white woman, Carolyn Bryant. Till's attackers were never convicted, but his lynching became one of the most notorious hate crimes in American history. It launched protests across the country, helped the NAACP gain thousands of members, and inspired famous activists like Rosa Parks to stand up and fight for equal rights for the first time. Part detective story, part political history, Tyson revises the history of the Till case, using a wide range of new sources, including the only interview ever given by Carolyn Bryant. In a time where discussions of race are once again coming to the fore, Tyson redefines this crucial moment in civil rights history.… (more)
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"In many inner cities the drug trade is the only enterprise that is hiring, while the national unemployment rate
"We are still killing black youth because we have not yet killed white supremacy."
Wow. Just wow. This is an excellent historical telling of the murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African-American boy killed in 1955 by white men in Mississippi. Emmett was visiting Mississippi for the summer; his home was in Chicago. Tyson does an excellent job of sorting through what is known, what is suspected, and what can be concluded from this brutal and senseless murder of a young Black boy at the hands of white supremacist men, angry at his apparent disrespectful comments to one of their wives. Even if Till did the worst of that which he was accused of doing: grabbing the hand of a white woman at a store counter, asking her for a date, wolf-whistling at her later as she went to her car for a pistol.... none of that even remotely deserves the kind of brutal beating and slaying to which he was subjected. His body was found a few days later, bloated and damaged, floating in the Tallahatchie River with a gin fan tied to his neck with a stretch of barbed wire. The murder is tagged as a significant catalyst for the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century.
Most of the book is an exploration of history. What happened in Leflore County of Mississippi on August 28, 1955? Tyson shifts deftly between historical record and rational deduction.
It's his epilogue, though, that lands a direct hit. He persuasively describes the white supremacy that yet permeates our society, perhaps not the virulent and visceral white supremacy of the men who murdered young Emmett Till, but the polite and practiced white supremacy of progressives (like me), well-intentioned members of society who remain immobile in the face of today's persistent and pernicious societal segregation, today's Jim Crow. Tyson is not throwing stones, but his analysis is compelling and level-headed.
This is a surprisingly quick read and highly recommended. It's a great history lesson and a thought-provoking work.
In August 1955, fourteen year old Emmett Till, on summer vacation in Alabama from the more liberal Chicago, may have accidently touched Mrs. Donham's hand when he paid for his purchases. He may have given what was described as a wolf whistle as he left the store. His friends said he had a stammer and often relied on whistling instead. But in her interview with the author, Carolyn Bryant Donham admitted that there was no obscene language, no grabbing her or attempted rape as she had reported to her husband and also testified as she sat as a witness in the murder trial.
It was a horrific incident which would have gone unknown as just one more killing of a black person, except for the extreme bravery of Emmett's mother, Mamie, who insisted her son be brought home to Chicago for burial. She then had an open casket funeral so all could see the torture her baby had endured before he died. Emmett Till's name became a rallying point in the Civil Rights movement.
Although the murderers were brought to trial, they were judged not guilty by an all white male jury. Subsequently, one of them was paid by Life magazine for his story – and he was brutally honest about what he had done, knowing he could not be re-tried.
This book does a wonderful job of putting the horrific incident in the historical context, including the May 17, 1954 Brown Vs Board of Education Supreme Court decision to integrate schools. It was a time when blacks were beginning to assert their right to register to vote and were being violently prevented from doing so. It was a time of brutal, almost casual racism when white men thought they were justified to kill blacks for any or no reason.
When told of the abduction “Sheriff Smith knew Roy and J. W. and immediately assumed that they had killed the boy and thrown his body in the river. ....(Sheriff Crosby Smith said) 'It was custom, what was being done around here in those days. We went by custom when something like that happened, and that's usually what they done to 'em '.” p 58
And this quote:
”According to William Bradford Huie, Milam later justified Till's lynching using the terms of violent racial and sexual politics: 'Just as long as I live and can do anything about it, niggers are going to 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 even gets close to mentioning sex with a white, he's tired of livin'. I'm likely to kill him. Me and my folks fought for this country, and we've got some rights .. .'Chicago boy,' I said, 'I'm tired of em sending your kind down here to stir up trouble. God damn you, I'm going to make an example of you just so everybody can see how my folks stand.' “ p. 77
And finally:
“When we blame those who brought about the brutal murder of Emmett Till, we have to count President Eisenhower, who did not consider the national honor at stake when white Southerners prevented African Americans from voting: who would not enforce the edicts of the highest court in the land, telling Chief Justice Earl Warren, 'All opponents of desegregation are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in schools alongside some big, overgrown Negroes.' We must count Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr., who demurred that the federal government had no jurisdiction in the political assassinations of George Lee and Lamar Smith that summer, thus not only preventing African Americans from voting, but also enabling Milam and Bryant to feel confident that they could murder a fourteen-year-old boy with impunity. Brownell, a creature of politics, likewise refused to intervene in the Till case. . . Above all, we have to count the millions of citizens of all colors and in all regions who knew about the rampant racial injustice in America and did nothing to end it. The black novelist Chester Himes wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Post the day he heard the news of Milam's and Bryan's acquittals: ' The real horror comes when your dead brain must face the fact that we as a nation don't want to stop. If we wanted to, we would.' ” p. 209
Excellent book, well written and researched. Highly recommended.
As photographs go it isn’t much but the story
This is just one of many tremendous acts of courage described in this account of the lynching of Till and the trial that arguably served as a catalyst for the protests of the Civil Rights Era. I’ve often heard of the case but never knew before now how integral a part it played in the campaign to defeat Jim Crow. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I sincerely hope that everyone reads it. This was a very dark time in our history that we should never forget.
Emmett was from Chicago. Visiting his uncle in Money,
His body was found stuck in the river with only his knees and feet shown. When rescued from the river, his bloated face was monster like, with a clear gun shot through his forehead. Three days in the water, as all of Money, Mississippi waited to see what the outcome would when/if the two murderous men were on trial.
Found not guilty, just a short time later, Look magazine paid them $4,000 to tell the "true" story. They admitted to beating him senseless. He had it coming to him according to the sad, sad, majority of whites in that area of Mississippi. Later, those on the jury would say that they all knew and believed that they men were guilty.
Of saddest revelation is the fact that lo these years later, the author found the wife of one of the murderers. she confessed that much of what happened did not happen. Perhaps Emmett made the taboo/mistake of allowing his black hand to touch her white hand when she gave him the change from his bubble gum purchase at the store she and her husband owned. But, no mater what, at the time of the writing of the book, she said nothing could warrant what happened to that boy.
I think I'm finished reading books on this subject, it gets me so upset and so very, very sad.
I listened to the book and cried. The book may have pictures but since I had the audible version I googled Emmett's pictures. What a handsome young man! What a shame. The book is filled with details as to why he was there and not in Chicago. The "witnesses", later to claim it never happened. All the details of the times, the town, the people involved. How they got away with murder and three weeks later confessed but couldn't be convicted then. (Sold their story to Look magazine.)
All because he whistled at a woman.
I wonder what they would think if they knew we would have a rich, nasty man that brags about how many times he grabs women by their...
and people voted this same scumbag to be the leader of the country...what is wrong with this country?
Although I already knew the basics of the case I enjoyed the deeper look at the main players in the saga. It is important to remind people of Emmett Till, especially in this climate of heightened racial tensions. Today's generations need to learn about Emmett till because it is too easy to forget what the climate in America was for African Americans in the not so distant past. The recent events in Charlottesville completely boggle my mind. It seems like the events there took place in Emmett Till's time not in in 2017. Too many good people have died to prevent this kind of thing from happening today. The fact that white supremacists feel that it is okay to march in public makes this book even more important.
At the murder trail everyone knew who had killed the boy but the jury found them innocent. The mother of Emmett Till, the murdered boy, decided she was going to get justice for her son and she started to agitate through the press and civil rights organizations which eventually led to the Civil Rights movement success of the late 1950's and 1960's. Rosa Parks claims that the Emmett Till story inspired her to refuse to give up her seat on the Montgomery City bus.
The author, Tyson, demonstrates how the global outrage over this case led to the overthrow of Jim Crow although as he points out in the last chapter, racism and white supremacy are still huge problems in the Unites States.
The story is well-known. Till was visiting his cousins from Chicago in the heart of the Mississippi delta. He allegedly insulted and physically assaulted Carolyn Bryant who was behind the counter at her husband's store. For this he was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by Bryant's brother-in-law and husband. His body was recovered from the Tallachatchie River several days later. His mother in her grief and anger made the brave decision to display his gruesome body in an open casket. A photo was published across the nation and world and brought about an enormous reaction to this horrendous act.
Tyson's research shed new light on this story. He tracked down Carolyn Bryant, now almost eighty and living in Raleigh, North Carolina. Bryant revealed that her testimony that Till had physically assaulted her was false.
The pervasive discrimination in the South during this era was widely known. Even in the 1950's lynchings still occurred. The oppression of African-Americans was completely interwoven in Southern society at all levels of class in all components of social and civic institutions. African-Americans dared to attempt to vote only at peril for their lives. They could not serve on juries or give testimony in court against white people. There was a burgeoning civil rights movement whose leaders carried out their agenda at literal risk to their lives; a number were indeed assassinated. This book is much more than a true crime story; it gives a vivid picture of the relations between the white supremacist hierarchy and African-Americans in the South. Tyson does not let the North off the hook; he describes the pervasive, if somewhat more subtle, discrimination in Chicago where Till's family had migrated.
The almost instant acquittal of the defendants by an all-white, all-male jury was shocking but not unexpected. Tyson describes a bizarre tactic of the defense to convey to the jury that Till, by his actions toward a white woman, deserved his fate. He reminds us of the pathological obsession of white Southerners over the possibility of sexual relations between blacks and whites.
What is perhaps stunning to contemplate is that this systemic discrimination and injustice occurred within the lifetimes of many people living today. I was raised in the deep South during this era and remember vividly the overt signs and symbols of discrimination and subjugation of African-Americans. Even ten years after the 1955 Brown v. Topeka Board of Education decision I did not see a single black face in any school I attended. Segregation in public transit was as complete as it was in Rosa Park's time. "Whites Only" signs were everywhere. I like to remember that due to the influence of my northern-born parents I was aware of and repulsed by this gross inequity; I hope my memory is accurate. I do know that racism and discrimination, while not as blatant as in Till's time, is still present in our society, expressed in "dog whistle" ways by many in private and public life, even at the highest levels.
All in all, not bad, but not spectacular either.
In addition to discussing what happened to poor 14 year old Emmett Till in MS in 1955, most of the book is
I have the author's other book which will be more personal as it is a horrible story of a murder that happened when he was a child.
While I found the book to be interesting, I also, found myself getting bogged down in some of the background information. Once I was by that, and more into the actual events, it not only became interesting, but thought
It makes the reader wonder if we really have come as far as we think in race relations. While some things may seem to have improved (desegregated schools, interracial marriage, more job opportunities); others, such as race relations, seem stuck in the past and are repeating themselves.
One thing I would have liked to have seen in this book, was an additional page or two, telling what happened to the main participants in this book; such as are they still alive, what they did afterwards for a living, and if deceased, when they died.
I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to know what the South (since this is where it takes place) was like in the 1940's to 1960's for the African American population. And then ask themselves this question... have race relations really changed all that much ??
(Side note: I can't really recommend the audio. Side side note: UGH, why are male readers so frequently awful?? Especially when it comes to phrasing women's voices?? UGGGGHHHHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGH. I get that many of them are actors so maybe they feel the need to do voices, but I don't need voices if you're gonna be like that. That's why authors write, "he said, she said." If the only way you characterize a woman's voice is to raise the pitch and make her sound like a shrinking violet, then you aren't a very good actor...or observer. I wish all audiobook samples used the reader reading from a section of dialog, so I could decide whether to continue from the get-go. /end rant)