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The event that launched the civil rights movement - the 1955 lynching of young Emmett Till - now reexamined by an award-winning author with access to never-before-heard accounts from those involved as well as recently recovered court transcripts from the trial.
In 1955, a fourteen-year-old black boy named Emmett Till, who had come down from Chicago to visit relatives in Mississippi, was murdered by a group of white men. He had gone into a small country store a few days earlier and made flirtatious remarks to a white woman, twenty-one-year-old Carolyn Bryant; Bryant's husband and brother-in-law were two of Till's attackers. They were never convicted, but Till's lynching became one of the most notorious hate crimes in American history. It set off a wave of 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, Timothy Tyson's The Blood of Emmett Till revises the history of the Till case, not only changing the specifics that we thought we knew, but showing how the murder ignited the modern civil rights movement. Tyson uses a wide range of new sources, including the only interview ever given by Carolyn Bryant; the transcript of the murder trial, missing since 1955 and only recovered in 2005; and a recent FBI report on the case. In a time where discussions of race are once again coming to the fore, The Blood of Emmett Till redefines a crucial moment in civil rights history.
"Starred Review. Cinematically engaging, harrowing, and poignant, Tyson's monumental work illuminates Emmett Till's murder and serves as a powerful reminder that certain stories in history merit frequent retelling." - Publishers Weekly
"Bolstered by prodigious research...Tyson skillfully demonstrates how, in our allegedly post-racial country, a "national racial caste system" remains in place." - Kirkus
"This highly readable book is likely to remain the final account of the Till murder and trial and its impact in the United States and abroad. It will appeal to anyone interested in African American history and the judicial process." - Library Journal
"Tim Tyson has universalized the Emmett Till story to make it an American tragedy. His bracing, granular narrative provides fresh insight into the way race has informed and deformed our democratic institutions." - Diane McWhorter, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Carry Me Home
"A powerful tale of violence summoned by the southern demons of race, class, and gender. Till's memory burns brighter with each year and is a touchstone for understanding white violence against black men in our nation today." - William Ferris, co-editor of The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture
This information about The Blood of Emmett Till was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Timothy B. Tyson is Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, Visiting Professor of American Christianity and Southern Culture at Duke Divinity School, and adjunct professor of American Studies at the University of North Carolina. He is the author of The Blood of Emmett Till; Blood Done Sign My Name, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, winner of the Southern Book Award for Nonfiction and the Grawemeyer Award in Religion, among others; and Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power, winner of the James Rawley Prize for best book on race and the Frederick Jackson Turner Prize for best first book in US History from the Organization of American Historians. He serves on the executive board of the North Carolina NAACP.
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