I wrote about Emmett Till on August 28, 2005, on the 50th anniversary of his death, then ten years later. And I’m still writing about Emmett Till.
He was the Chicago-born black teenager who was murdered, purportedly for whistling at a white woman, in rural Mississippi in August 1955. He disappeared 70 years ago today; his mutilated body was found three days later. “His mother allowed photos to be taken of his open casket, and the horrifying pictures helped galvanize the Civil Rights movement, including the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech eight years, to the day, later.”
As I’ve noted, “I want to know why I can see that photo in my mind’s eye when the event took place when I was only two years old. I’m guessing that on the fifth anniversary in 1960, Ebony and/or Jet magazines reran the photos. I saw them, and the images seared in my mind to this day.
“His brutal demise, which helped energize the efforts for black equality, has been the subject of Dreaming Emmett, the first play by the Nobel-winning African-American writer Toni Morrison, in 1986, and the Oscar-nominated short film My Nephew Emmett (2017), both of which I have seen.”
But I have not yet seen Till (2022). “In 1955, after Emmett Till is murdered in a brutal lynching, his mother vows to expose the racism behind the attack while working to have those involved brought to justice.”
Here’s a curious thing I discovered recently: Emmett has an IMDb page, not Till, the character in the movies, but the actual person.
The Barn
I have not read the book The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi by Wright Thompson. “A shocking and revelatory account of the murder of Emmett Till, laying bare the global forces that converged on the Mississippi Delta in the long lead-up to the crime, and how the truth was hidden for so long.
“Wright Thompson’s family farm in Mississippi is twenty-three miles from the site of one of the most notorious and consequential killings in American history, yet he learned of it only when he left the state for college. To this day, fundamental truths about the crime are hidden and 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.”
From here: “The instant New York Times bestseller • Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, Slate, Vanity Fair, TIME, Buzzfeed, Smithsonian, BookPage, KCUR, Kirkus, and Boston Globe
“It literally changed my outlook on the world…incredible.” —Shonda Rhimes.
“The Barn is serious history and skillful journalism, but with the nuance and wallop of a finely wrought novel… The Barn describes not just the poison of silence and lies, but also the dignity of courage and truth.” — The Washington Post
CBS Sunday Morning: “The Barn”: A murder in Mississippi, and the evil hiding in plain sight, 1 Dec 2024
A musing about Matthew Shepard as Emmett Till
My Name Is Emmett Till – Emmylou Harris
A monument, and then…
2023: A New Monument to Till Doesn’t Measure Progress, But It Does Matter
February 2025: A new exhibit at the Chicago History Museum focuses on the infamous trial.
June 2025: National monument honoring Emmett Till at risk of removal due to Trump’s anti-DEI initiatives and budget cuts. They are trying to disappear Emmett again.
Understand the attitude
Heather Cox Richardson wrote on July 25, quoting a Guardian article, about how, on May 2, 2025, “a Florida Highway Patrol officer pulled over a van with 18-year-old U.S. citizen Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio and two undocumented men in it. ” Read about the abuse, but especially the ICE attitude.
Then she noted Emmett Till’s birthday – he would have been 84 -and discussed his death. She cited LIFE magazine photos, two PBS pieces, an article from LOOK magazine, and Saving Places in sharing this stunning parallel:
“In September 1955, an all-white jury took just over an hour to find [Roy] Bryant and [J.W.] Milam not guilty. A member of the jury said, “We wouldn’t have taken so long if we hadn’t stopped to drink pop.”
“Immune from further prosecution, Bryant and Milam told their story to Look magazine for $4,000. They said they had kidnapped and beaten Till to frighten him, but when he refused to beg for mercy, they drove him to the river. Milam asked, ‘You still as good as I am?’ and when Till answered, ‘Yeah,’ they shot him, tied a 75-pound cotton gin fan around his neck with barbed wire, and threw him in.
“‘What else could we do?’ Milam said. ‘He was hopeless. I’m no bully. I never hurt a n#gger in my life. I like n#ggers, in their place. I know how to work ’em. But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, n#ggers are gonna stay in their place.'”
Just this week, thousands of pages of records have been released detailing the government’s response to the lynching.