Emmett Till

John Edgar Wideman Explores The Emmett Till Case

... August of 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was visiting relatives in the tiny town of Money, Miss. Raised in Chicago, Till was untrained in Southern racial etiquette, and (accounts vary) he either wolf-whistled or said something sassy to a local white woman. Days later, Till's battered, mutilated body, with a bullet in the brain, was dragged from the nearby Tallahatchie River. Two white men, one the husband of the woman, were later acquitted of the murder by an all-white jury after an hour's deliberation. Till's mother had the body shipped home to Chicago and insisted on an open-casket and public funeral. Photos of Till's battered corpse, widely circulated by the black press and by Jet magazine, helped spark the civil righrts campaigns gaining steam in the 1950 s. Sixty years later, Emmett Till's murder continues to reverberate. Wilmington native Timothy Tyson ("Blood Done Sign My Name") has a new book about the case, "The Blood of Emmett Till," coming out Jan. 31 from Simon & ...

Dog Delivers Newspapers To Residents' Doorsteps

... not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including “honor” killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation. Sec. 2.  Policy.  It is the policy of the United States to protect its citizens from foreign nationals who intend to commit terrorist attacks in the United States; and to prevent the admission of foreign nationals who intend to exploit United States immigration laws for malevolent purposes. Sec. 3.  Suspension of Issuance of Visas and Other Immigration Benefits to Nationals of Countries of Particular Concern.  (a)  The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, shall immediately conduct a review to determine the information needed from any country to adjudicate any visa, admission, or other benefit under the INA (adjudications) in order to determine that the individual seeking the benefit is who the individual claims to be and is not a ...

Fsu Scholar Plays Role In Telling Emmett Till Story At Historic Mississippi Courthouse

... can call up the trial transcript on their smartphones while in the courtroom and ideally do keyword searching to relive a moment during the trial.”. The NPS grant will fund the installation of retractable projectors, screens, speakers, sensors and touchscreen kiosks that will provide access to information about Till’s murder and the historical significance of Tallahatchie County. The building will remain an active and operating courthouse, which means that large or obtrusive physical exhibits are precluded from the renovations. However, Houck believes that the intelligent use of technology will more than compensate for a lack of elaborate physical displays. “Brick and mortar commemorative work is great but also very expensive and prone to destruction,” Houck said. “Our smartphone app as well as kiosk technology will help facilitate a more accurate and robust understanding of the Till case, why it’s important in U. S. public memory and hopefully some level of racial reconciliation, which the Delta ...

How Author Timothy Tyson Found The Woman At The Center Of The Emmett Till Case

... is unfortunate. Her changed attitude, if genuine, might have real meaning today, what with a polarized electorate, renewed racial tensions, and organizations and Web sites promoting white supremacy. Shortly before the election, I talked to Myrlie Evers-Williams, the 83-year-old widow of Medgar Evers, who was assassinated by a racist attacker in 1963. She told me that the vitriol in evidence at some of Donald Trump’s rallies last year had given her “more and more and stronger flashbacks” to fearful years she thought were long gone. That said, she also expressed that she wanted “the past to stay the past. Medgar wanted America to be better.”. Her hopes are echoed by the Reverend Jesse Jackson. And yet, for the civil rights leader, the impact of Till’s killing resonates to this day. “It’s like Russian roulette,” Jackson insists. “You can never tell what bullet goes off in a galvanizing ...

Activist Leads Discussion

... a fractured skull in the Selma March, where a nation was exposed to the brutality inflicted on protesters by police. During the 1963 March on Washington, Lewis proclaimed, "We want our freedom and we want it now." Segregation and denying basic voting rights ruled the southern mindset, where African Americans were forced to sit in the back of the bus, denied service at lunch counters, or forced to take draconian literacy tests at voter registration offices. Even today, Lewis wants young people to "get in the way," not to accept the status quo, to fight the powers that deny basic rights to fellow citizens. While often the victims of violence, Lewis and the movement preached and practiced non-violent protest. Miller's life has taken a similar route, willing every day to "get in the way." He was first arrested at ...

Mattie Smith Colin, Defender Reporter On Emmett Till, Dead At 98

... for more than half a century. She covered news and politics and served as food and fashion editor. Her reporting was second to none, Scott said. The Defender’s owner-publisher John H. Sengstacke “had the utmost confidence in Mattie,” he said. Sengstacke entrusted Mrs. Colin with shepherding the many VIPs who attended the Defender’s yearly Bud Billiken Day parade, including former President Harry Truman, who was there in 1956. Later, she served as grand marshal. Young Mattie grew up in Bronzeville near 37 th and Calumet. Her mother, also named Mattie, died while giving birth to her, and she was raised by her father Frank, a jitney owner and driver, and his relatives, according to Anne L. Fredd, a cousin by marriage. She attended Raymond grade school and Fenger High School and studied journalism at Loyola and Northwestern universities. In 1965, Mattie Smith Colin volunteered to do publicity in Washington, D. C. ,for President Lyndon Johnson’s inauguration. | Supplied photo. In 1952, she married her bridge partner Robert N. Colin, a Chicago cop who later worked in the Cook County assessor’s office. After he retired, he considered it his job to drive Mrs. Colin to her many work ...

Grant To Expand Professor's Work Commemorating Civil-rights Martyr

... plans call for the addition of speakers, sensors and a touch-screen kiosk. There is no timeline, as yet, for completion of the work. The courthouse was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. Between 2007 and 2013 the second-floor courtroom and the building’s exterior were restored to their 1955 appearance. The current award will restore the original entrances, reopen the vault and, in general, return the building’s first floor to its 1955 condition. When the work is done, the entire courthouse will be restored to its 1955 condition. The Emmett Till Memory Project is a collaborative project with Patrick Weems of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, Davis Houck of Florida State and Chris Spielvogel of Penn State. Photos: At top, the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi. Photo by Pablo Correa. At right, Emmett Till. Photo via Wiki Commons. The University of Kansas is a major comprehensive research and teaching university. The ...

Woman At Center Of Emmett Till Case Speaks, But Reveals Little

... being involved in the torture. Ever since the trial, Donham has refused to give interviews or talk about her lurid testimony. In the new book, she tells Tyson that she made some of it up — in particular the grabbing of the waist. “I want to tell you” what happened that day at the store, Donham tells Tyson in the opening chapter. “Honestly, I just don’t remember. It was 50 years ago. You tell these stories for so long that they seem true, but that part (the grabbing of the waist) is not true.”. She goes on to say, however: “Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him.”. Donham also tells Tyson that neither her former husband nor Milam fired the fatal shot into Till’s head. Instead, she says that Roy Bryant’s brother, Raymond, told her that the shot was fired by Melvin Campbell, who was J. W. Milam’s brother-in-law and apparently at the barn that night. All of those mentioned by Donham are dead. Tyson does an admirable job of condensing and updating information about the case, using a 2006 FBI report on Till’s murder to weave together a historical tapestry. But Tyson doesn’t press Donham on her role in the events surrounding the death. Interestingly, ...

Crestview Boe Members Receive Update On The Emmett Till Project

... season, Lordstown advanced to the Division III district finals before losing to Rootstown, 2-1. After sitting through much of the meeting before he was introduced, Malone said much of what he heard on Wednesday only reinforced his decision to come to Crestview. Part of that was the way he sees Crestview and its students represent themselves on the fields. “I’m also honored and privileged,” Malone said, using words he had heard others say earlier in the evening, “to join this great team that’s here. I look forward to working with these student athletes.”. — Student board member Dawson Bennett reported on the maker space program at the school, which is giving students interested in science and especially computers a chance to utilize some equipment hands on. He said most recently students have been excited by the chance to utilize a virtual reality headset. — The Rebel ...

Emmett Till Is The Subject Of Two Books On The Genealogy Of Trauma

... injustice. Tyson’s and Wideman’s books are complementary to one another: neither offers a complete examination of the saga of the Till family. Wideman focuses on what came before, Tyson on what came after. Wideman’s “Writing to Save a Life: The Louis Till File” is a mirror in which to reflect on the murder. Tyson’s “The Blood of Emmett Till” is, perhaps, a magnifying glass. If Wideman is a weaver of the fabric of America’s history during the life of Emmett Till, Tyson is the museum’s curator, giving context to the other author’s inquiries and experiences. To both authors, Emmett — and by extension, Louis and Mamie Till — are historical touchstones. The reverberations of their traumatic legacy still tinges the edges of the African-American experience, even in its modern incantation, with the murders of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Keith Lamont Scott and Alton Sterling, and the exoneration of their killers. The societal ramifications and emotional cost of living in perilous times feels markedly ...

Book Commemorating Death Of Emmett Till To Release January 31

... but could not be retried. Till’s mother, Mamie, decided to have an open-casket funeral service, so the world could see what these men had done to her only son. Thousands attended the funeral service to honor the young boy who suffered needlessly, and to show support for the boy’s mother and family. It was a launching pad for the civil rights movement and is a story that will never be forgotten. The world will never know what Till would have become, or how he would have been known had he lived. Author Timothy B. Tyson sought out to discover and uncover more of Till’s story to ensure it would never be lost in time. He wrote the book “The Blood of Emmett Till,” which is published by Simon & Schuster and is set to release January 31. Timothy Tyson is an award-winning author and Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. He is also Professor of American Studies at the University of Carolina. His book, “Blood Done Sign My Name,” has been given the distinction of finalist for the National Book Critics Circle ...