The Blood of Emmett Till

 Book 35 of my 2021 Reading Challenge

The Blood of Emmett Till

by Timothy B. Tyson

Summary (via the book jacket)

published 2017

In1955, white men in the Mississippi Delta lunched a fourteen-year-old from Chicago named Emmett Till. His murder was part of a wave of white terrorism in the wake of the 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared public school segregation unconstitutional.

The national coalition organized to protest the Till lynching became the foundation of the modern civil rights movement. Only weeks later, Rosa Parks thought about young Emmett as she refused to move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Five years later, the Emmett Till generation, forever marked by the vicious killing of a boy their own age, launched sit-in campaigns that turned the struggle into a mass movement. "I can hear the blood of Emmett Till as it calls from the ground," shouted a black preacher in Albany, Georgia.

But what actually happened to Emmett Till - not the icon of injustice but the flesh-and-blood boy? Part detective story, part political history, Timothy Tyson's The Blood of Emmett Till draws on a wealth of new evidence, including the only interview given by Carolyn Bryant, the white woman in whose name Till was killed. Tyson's gripping narrative upends what we thought we knew about the most notorious racial crime in American history. 

First Impressions/Judging a Book by Its Cover

This book has been on my 'to-read' list since a friend gave it 5 stars in 2017.  

The cover is stark and black and I notice that Emmett Till's name is the largest text of the title - it takes up half of the front cover.  Looking at the description, that seems intentional because everyone knows about his death but few know about his life.

My Opinion

4 stars

There was a lot going on, especially with the trial for George Floyd's murder, while I was reading this.  I admit I definitely considered just returning this book to the library because I felt overwhelmed but then I realized choosing when to pay attention is a privilege and I can't call myself an ally if I'm also an ostrich.  That being said, I did take a break though, focusing more on current news than the past.  

I'm not saying I'm going above and beyond by reading this book, I'm just recognizing where I'm at and trying harder to witness and listen to the stories of those around me.

The author does a good job of giving platforms to both sides while gently pushing back on ideas that may now seem sunnier with time.  There are many reasons 'separate but equal' wasn't working and glamorizing the "good old days" is harmful to pretty much everyone but white men...those days weren't better than now for anyone else.

There were two aspects covered in the book that I definitely don't hear enough about and will research further.  One was the global effects and how other countries responded to America's civil rights issues.  The other was how easy it is, especially now looking back, for Northerners to lambast Southerners without examining themselves at all; minorities were/are struggling in the Northern states too.  

Quote from the Book

"White mobs lynched thousands of African Americans - even children occasionally - but it is Emmett Till's blood that indelibly marks a before and after. His lynching, his mother's decision to open the casket to the world, and the trial of Milam and Bryant spun the country, and arguably the world, in a different direction."