Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil
Rights Movement offers the first, and as of 2018, only comprehensive
account of the 1955 murder, the trial, and the 2004-2007 FBI
investigation into the case and Mississippi grand jury decision. By all
accounts, it is the definitive account of the case. It tells the story
of Emmett Till, the fourteen-year-old African American boy from Chicago
brutally lynched for a harmless flirtation at a country store in the
Mississippi Delta. Anderson utilizes documents that had never been
available to previous researchers, such as the trial transcript,
long-hidden depositions by key players in the case, and interviews given
by Carolyn Bryant to the FBI in 2004 (her first in fifty years), as well
as other recently revealed FBI documents. Anderson also interviewed
family members of the accused killers, most of whom agreed to talk for
the first time, as well as several journalists who covered the murder
trial in 1955.
Till's murder and the acquittal of his killers by an all-white jury set
off a firestorm of protests that reverberated all over the world and
spurred on the civil rights movement. Like no other event in modern
history, the death of Emmett Till provoked people all over the United
States to seek social change. Anderson's exhaustively researched book
was also the basis for the ABC miniseries Women of the Movement, which
was written/executive-produced by Marissa Jo Cerar; directed by Gina
Prince-Bythewood, Tina Mabry, Julie Dash, and Kasi Lemmons; and
executive-produced by Jay-Z, Jay Brown, Tyran "Ty Ty" Smith, Will Smith,
James Lassiter, Aaron Kaplan, Dana Honor, Michael Lohmann, Rosanna
Grace, Alex Foster, John Powers Middleton, and David Clark.
For over six decades the Till story has continued to haunt the South as
the lingering injustice of Till's murder and the aftermath altered many
lives. Fifty years after the murder, renewed interest in the case led
the Justice Department to open an investigation into identifying and
possibly prosecuting accomplices of the two men originally tried.
Between 2004 and 2005, the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted the
first real probe into the killing and turned up important information
that had been lost for decades. Anderson covers the events that led up
to this probe in great detail, as well as the investigation itself.
This book will stand as the definitive work on Emmett Till for years to
come. Incorporating much new information, the book demonstrates how the
Emmett Till murder exemplifies the Jim Crow South at its nadir. The
author accessed a wealth of new evidence. Anderson made a dozen trips to
Mississippi and Chicago over a ten-year period to conduct research and
interview witnesses and reporters who covered the trial. In Emmett
Till, Anderson corrects the historical record and presents this
critical saga in its entirety.
