ECU Libraries Catalog

Let the people see : the story of Emmett Till / Elliott J. Gorn.

Author/creator Gorn, Elliott J., 1951- author.
Format Book and Print
Publication Info New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2018.
Descriptionx, 380 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Subject(s)
Portion of title Story of Emmett Till
Contents I seen two knees and feet -- Argo, Illinois -- Money, Mississippi -- I'm kinda scared there's been foul play -- Lynching -- We will not be integrated -- Let the people see what they did to my boy -- Mississippi's infamy -- Trial -- A good place to raise a boy -- The news capitol of the United States -- Fair and impartial men -- Moses Wright -- Undertaker Chester Miller -- Sheriff George Smith and deputy John Ed Cothran -- Mamie Till Bradley -- An interracial manhunt -- Willie Reed -- Carolyn Bryant -- Sheriff Clarence Strider -- Doctor L. B. Otken and undertaker H. D. Malone -- Your forefathers will turn over in their graves -- I'm real happy at the result -- The soul of America -- Each of you own a little bit of Emmett -- A propaganda victory for international communism -- Louis Till -- Evil such as the Till case are the result of a system -- As far as I know, the case is closed -- We call upon the president of the United States -- This is a war in Mississippi -- Few talk about the Till case -- The time had come. I could feel it. I could see it. -- We've known his story forever -- A whistle or a wink.
Abstract "While visiting family in Mississippi in August 1955, Emmett Till allegedly whistled at a white woman working behind the counter of a crossroads country store. Her husband and brother-in-law kidnapped the fourteen-year-old Chicago kid in the middle of the night and tortured, beat, and shot him. Three days later, his body rose from the Tallahatchie River, a cotton gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire. Confronting her son's nightmarishly disfigured face, Mamie Till-Mobley, Till's mother, decided that his funeral in Chicago would be open-casket. 'Let the people see what they did to my boy.' The South Side church where her son's body lay in state kept its doors open day and night. More than one hundred thousand people came and saw his face. Millions more stared at the photographs of it published in the African American press, especially Jet magazine and the Chicago Defender. The pictures galvanized the black community. Journalists and activists drove down to the Mississippi Delta, and risked their lives interviewing townsfolk, encouraging witnesses, spiriting those in danger out of the region, and above all keeping the news cycle turning. Less than a month after Till's murder, despite strong evidence, a fair-minded judge, and prosecutors eager for a conviction, an all-white jury found Till's killers not guilty. For African Americans, the Till lynching and acquittal was a defining moment. Muhammad Ali, Rosa Parks, Anne Moody, John Lewis, and countless others later said that it changed their lives. They were 'the Emmett Till generation,' and they would help lead the greatest mass movement in twentieth-century America. His story haunts us still, its meanings blurring and shifting with time. Documentaries, histories, memoirs, and oral testimony have revealed new facts. In 2005, fifty years after the lynching, his murderers long dead, the FBI reopened the Till case. They reopened it again the summer of 2018, after new revelations came to light. Building on all the material, old and new, Elliott J. Gorn offers the most complete and immersive account of Emmett Till's story. Let the People See also probes its enduring truths, truths we confront with each fresh spasm of racial violence. Till is more with us today than at any time since 1955, his name invoked whenever another young black man falls victim. His face remains the face of racism, and, as Gorn shows us in this haunting and definitive account, we cannot turn away from it."--Dust jacket.
Abstract August 1955. Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till from Chicago was murdered in Mississippi for having-- supposedly-- flirted with a white woman named Carolyn Bryant, who was working behind the counter of a store. His naked body was recovered in the Tallahatchie River, weighed down by a cotton-gin fan. Till's killers were acquitted, but details of what had happened to him became public; the story gripped the country and sparked outrage. It continues to haunt the American conscience. In 2005 the FBI reopened the case. With access to new evidence and a broadened historical context, Gorn considers how and why the story of Emmett Till still resonates, and likely always will. -- adapted from jacket
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references and index.
Genre/formHistory.
Genre/formNonfiction.
LCCN 2018001885
ISBN9780199325122 hardcover alkaline paper
ISBN019932512X hardcover alkaline paper
Standard identifier# 40028658637

Available Items

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Joyner General Stacks HV6465 .M7 G67 2018 ✔ Available Place Hold