The death of Emmett Till is widely regarded as a central moment in the civil rights movement. The 1955 kidnapping, brutal torture, and murder of the 14-year-old Chicagoan, targeted by two white men for allegedly whistling at a white woman in Money, Mississippi, marked a turning point and catalyzed the growing awareness of racial discrimination in America.
Yet despite Till’s centrality to our current understanding, his story was largely out of public consciousness for decades, only to reemerge as its weight in history became clearer. Anderson traces the determined efforts of filmmakers, lawyers, civil rights activists, and Till’s family in reigniting interest in his case, culminating in a FBI-led investigation nearly 50 years later.
By Devery S. Anderson (University Press of Mississippi)
