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The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi
by Wright ThompsonA shocking and revelatory account of the murder of Emmett Till that lays bare how forces from around the world converged on the Mississippi Delta in the long lead-up to the crime, and how the truth was erased for so long.
Wright Thompson's family farm in Mississippi is 23 miles from the site of one of the most notorious and consequential killings in American history, yet he had to leave the state for college before he learned the first thing about it. To this day, fundamental truths about the crime are widely unknown, including where it took place and how many people were involved. This is no accident: the cover-up began at once, and it is ongoing.
In August 1955, two men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were charged with the torture and murder of the 14-year-old Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi. After their inevitable acquittal in a mockery of justice, they gave a false confession to a journalist, which was misleading about where the long night of hell took place and who was involved. In fact, Wright Thompson reveals, at least eight people can be placed at the scene, which was inside the barn of one of the killers, on a plot of land within the six-square-mile grid whose official name is Township 22 North, Range 4 West, Section 2, West Half, fabled in the Delta of myth as the birthplace of the blues on nearby Dockery Plantation.
Even in the context of the racist caste regime of the time, the four-hour torture and murder of a Black boy barely in his teens for whistling at a young white woman was acutely depraved; Till's mother Mamie Till-Mobley's decision to keep the casket open seared the crime indelibly into American consciousness. Wright Thompson has a deep understanding of this story—the world of the families of both Emmett Till and his killers, and all the forces that aligned to place them together on that spot on the map. As he shows, the full horror of the crime was its inevitability, and how much about it we still need to understand. Ultimately this is a story about property, and money, and power, and white supremacy. It implicates all of us. In The Barn, Thompson brings to life the small group of dedicated people who have been engaged in the hard, fearful business of bringing the truth to light. Putting the killing floor of the barn on the map of Township 22 North, Range 4 West, Section 2, West Half, and the Delta, and America, is a way of mapping the road this country must travel if we are to heal our oldest, deepest wound.
1
The Barn
Willie Reed awoke early Sunday morning to the sound of mockingbirds. Mosquitoes hovered and darted on the bayou behind his house. The cypress floorboards creaked beneath his feet. He stepped outside into a visible wall of humidity. Local kids like Willie had a name for the little riffles rising from the dirt: heat monkeys, animated like a living thing. A Mississippi Delta sunrise is feral and predatory; even at 6:00 a.m., the air feels hot on the way in and stagnant on the way out. Daylight had broken an hour before Reed started his short walk to Patterson's country store, one of the many little places out in the country that sold rag bologna and hoop cheese. It was August 28, 1955. His grandfather wanted fresh meat to cook for breakfast. He was eighteen years old, with a boyish face that made him look at least three or four years younger, with almond-shaped eyes and delicate lashes. His girlfriend, Ella Mae, lived a few miles south on Roy Clark's plantation. Late August meant...
Christopher Benson, Associate Professor, Medill School of Journalism; co-author with Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., A Few Days Full of Trouble: Revelations on the Journey to Justice for My Cousin and Best Friend, Emmett Till
In this arresting, insightful book, Wright Thompson takes a deep dive into the historical record to guide us on a compelling, thousand-year international journey of power, greed, corruption and injustice, leading inevitably to the lynching of Emmett Till. Kiese Laymon, author of Long Division and Heavy: An American Memoir
The Barn is the most brutal, layered and absolutely beautiful book about Mississippi, and really how the world conspired with the best and worst parts of Mississippi, I will ever read. In Mississippi, we talk about athletes who bust their ass, skills be damned. Well, every generation you get a few writers with the engine of a 747 and the skill of a wizard. We see it in Ward, Wright, Faulkner and Trethewey. And that finely crafted motor is on full display in this work by Wright Thompson. The Barn is the new standard in research and book-making. There is one Wright Thompson. And we are so lucky he loves Mississippi. Reporting and reckoning can get no better, or more important, than this. Mississippi, goddamn.
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