Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement (Race, Rhetoric, and Media Series)

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Groundbreaking new evidence and Tyson’s masterful prose make The Blood of Emmett Till a devastating indictment of America, both past and present. In a separate section, Anderson looks at how the story of Till's death reemerged after 50 years and sparked an intense investigation, including the exhumation of Till's body. Tyson skillfully demonstrates how, in our allegedly post-racial country, a "national racial caste system" remains in place. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Their brazen admission that they had murdered Till caused prominent civil rights leaders to push the federal government harder to investigate the case.

Part detective story, part political history, The Blood of Emmett Till “unfolds like a movie” ( The Atlanta Journal-Constitution), drawing on a wealth of new evidence, including a shocking admission of Till’s innocence from the woman in whose name he was killed. He concludes with his own theory about the case and its legacy, a fund to investigate cold cases of civil rights murders prior to 1970. In November 1955, a grand jury declined to indict Bryant and Milam for kidnapping, despite their own admissions of having taken Till. That even though the media kept repeating the story Carolyn Bryant had told, that didn’t mean it was true.

According to Wright, Till did not have a photo of a white girl, and no one dared him to flirt with Bryant. A week before Till arrived in Mississippi, a black activist named Lamar Smith was shot and killed in front of the county courthouse in Brookhaven for political organizing. Her decision focused attention on not only American racism and the barbarism of lynching but also the limitations and vulnerabilities of American democracy". In the event that the defendants were convicted, the defense wanted her testimony on record to aid in a possible appeal.s legacy this week, a book about a seminal event in American history — an event that motivated King's fight for civil rights — was released. It's important to people understanding how the word of a white person against a black person was law, and a lot of black people lost their lives because of it. Following his disappearance, a newspaper account stated that Till sometimes whistled to alleviate his stuttering.