The injustice and murder of Emmett Till is one whose impact is still very much felt today. This book not only provided the outline of what had occurred but gave such extensive detail of what came before and after, Tyson's research was so thorough and provided so much more than I had previously known.
Till's death helped to fuel the civil rights movement. Hopefully, this book will be read by all.

A historical nonfiction about, well, look at the title. I've had my copy of this book for a year now, but I've only just gotten around to reading it. Real life has been so full of racist and depressing politics that I couldn't handle facing more of the same in my reading.

However, it turns out that The Blood of Emmett Till is more suspenseful than depressing. I mean, it's still about the violent murder of a 14-year-old child, don't get me wrong. It's not exactly light-hearted. But Tyson doesn't describe in detail what happened to Till after he was taken from his great-uncle's house until the last chapter. Instead most of the book is focused on recreating the wider cultural setting of the lynching, the personalities of the people involved, and the drama of the trial. There are some outright exciting stories in here, particularly one where reporters, lawyers, and activists go racing about rural Mississippi in disguise, hoping to find witnesses to help the prosecution.

I found the historical details to be the most interesting part of the book. The Brown vs Board of Education decision had been handed down only the previous year, and rage against school desegregation and the possibility of interracial marriage was being actively flamed by various white supremacist groups. Two voting rights activists had been murdered (and a third shot who survived) nearby earlier that same summer; none of the cases were even investigated, much less tried. These events likely influenced Till's killers to attack him, and their belief that they would get away with it. Tyson also shows how Till's death helped the burgeoning civil rights movement. Many of the most famous names come up in the reaction and protests during and after the trial: Medgar Evers, Rosa Parks, Bayard Rustin, as well as events like the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Greensboro Woolworth Lunch Counter Sit-ins.

It's an excellently written book with a page-turning quality nonfiction doesn't often have. I highly recommend it if you have the least interest in civil rights or America's racist history.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2221583726

not nearly as definitive but a useful entry point into understanding racial persecution in the US

When I first picked up this book I had to set it aside after reading the brutal conditions Till's body was found in. In fact, I had to walk away from this one several times because I was disgusted at the racism and sexism in some of the primary sources cited within its pages. Ultimately, I think this book should be required reading in many schools and college courses.

Emmett Till's death was a such a tragic murder and injustice in history. This book really went into detail of not only before the murder, the murder but also the trial. It also did not hold back on the people that were touched personally or nationally by his murder. This was one of the incidents that did help to start the Civil Rights movement. I really recommend this book especially if you are a student studying the rights of African American's in our history.

OMG! I can't even breath! Emmet Till, the most innocent of young children...to suffer through such a horrible and brutal, awful, racist death..I can't even breath! Thank you for bringing this story to the public consciousness..it needs to be told over and over and over and over again and again..heart breaking..and despicable!

Bringing to life one of the foremost victims of the Jim Crow era is no easy task. But Tyson does an admirable job covering the reality of Emmett Till, a black teenager, and the horror that unfolded in Money, Mississippi, and the struggle for justice both in the courtroom and in the wider eyes of American society. The inclusion of interviewing Carolyn Bryant, the supposed victim of Till's "whistle", makes for a painful but vital angle to the story. Sixty years later, with Black Lives Matter showing that the more things change, the more they stay the same, "Blood of Emmett Till" is a hard read emotionally, but a very worthwhile one.

Beaten and murdered, the face of Emmett Till’s lifeless body helped spark the civil rights movement. This book describes the events surrounding his death, his mother’s courageous decision to display his body and the trial that followed. Overall, I thought this was a well written and interesting book, most of it read like a novel. It was certainly meticulously researched and contained a wealth of sources. 4 out of 5 stars.

This book shed a light on the horrific event that led to the start of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's. For someone who did not know anything about Emmett Till; his story was never really taught in any of the history classes I ever took. This book was an informative book to understand what kind of world Emmett Till was living in at the time of his murder. Tyson took the time to explain the history of Jim Crow laws in Mississippi and how the Chicago of Till's time was as racially divided as the South. This book gave me a better understanding how the Civil Rights Movement began and how we should still continue to fight for equal rights for all races.

I was familiar with only the bare outline of the murder of Emmett Till before reading this book, but I leapt to read it when I saw it was by Tim Tyson, author of the astounding "Blood Done Sign My Name," about a widely witnessed murder of a black man by a white man in 1970s North Carolina. This newest book is not as strong as that one. The strong writing and novelistic recreation of the way Tyson tells history are here; the complications of too easy narratives that this true historian won't ignore are here; but despite the inclusion of the widely publicized interview Tyson had with Carolyn Bryant ("victim" of Till's possible whistle, silent in public from the 1954 trial to this publication), there is not much new here in terms of the facts of Till's lynching. And when the narrative ends, the implication piece gets a bit flowery in its prose, even when the content remains quite strong. (That alone is why four stars instead of five.)

I enjoyed this highly emotional read. Although it wasn't an extensive account of Emmett Till's murder, I learned about the lives and murders of others, and was given a history lesson about the NAACP.

Tyson’s book gives more details about the murder and in particular the trial. It also contains snippets on a conversation with Carolyn which reveal that she may have lied about what really happened when she met Till at the store on that fateful day.

The bravery of a number of people is one thing that stood out for me about this story. These are the people who decided not to remain silent at the face of injustice. I was deeply moved by Till’s uncle and other black witnesses who decided to testify despite the threats on their lives. Tears filled my eyes when I read about Wright, Emmett’s uncle, bravely standing up in court and identifying the man who kidnapped his nephew. He pointed right at the man and said, that’s him.I can only imagine how scary it was for witnesses to speak again against the white murderers in a town filled with white supremacists. Their bravery helped in shedding light about what happened to Till. Speaking about bravery, I truly admire Till’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley. Devastated by her son’s death, Mamie still stood up to fight for justice. Her decision to bury Till in Chicago and have an open-casket funeral despite the threats and warnings definitely helped shape history and send a strong message to the white supremacists who thought that they could silence her.

Tyson’s book does not only focus on the murder and the trial. Through the chapters, the author mentions other cases and incidents that occurred during the period. The race relations are described in detail to give a vivid description of the political climate in the 1950s. For a reader (like me) unfamiliar with some of the details about the racism and segregation, it was shocking and really disturbing. I mean, I don’t think I’ll ever really understand racism or any other form of hate. There is just no way to justify it.

The book is well researched and hence quite informative especially for readers who may not have a lot of knowledge about American History. The author explains the political climate in the country in the 50s with details of the two opposing sides. The fact that there were people who actually fought FOR segregation really surprised me. As in for real, these folks were trying to protect segregation and fight against the change. Thankfully, they lost the battle.

I recommend The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson to anyone interested in learning more about Till’s murder and the circumstances that surrounded it. If you have an interest in American history and the civil rights movement then this is the book for you. To readers who are not familiar with the case, this book is insightful and it will help you understand what took place. The author not only explains the circumstances surrounding this devastating case but also provides details about the impact of the murder on the white supremacists and the effect that it had on those who mourned Till. Through the pages, we also get to learn how the murder shaped the course of history.

Towards the end of the book, the author makes a profound statement by illustrating how six decades later, America is still Killing Emmett Till. He puts the social injustices in the present context to demonstrate how they may be different from the 1950s but they are still happening. I thought of Trayvon Martin when I read the final chapters. It really does make you think, doesn’t it?

THE BLOOD OF EMMETT TILL by Timothy B. Tyson
Undoubtedly you heard the news last week that Carolyn Bryant Donham had recanted her statements about Emmett Till's actions prior to his horrific death over 60 years ago. In 2008, she told Duke University historian and author Timothy B. Tyson that "Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him." And Tyson has crafted a new book, THE BLOOD OF EMMETT TILL , based on her interview and many others, plus recently recovered court transcripts. In fact, roughly a fourth of this almost 300 page book is bibliography, notes and index. PBS' American Experience has an extensive set of web pages devoted to The Murder of Emmett Till, including his killers'subsequent confession which was published in Look magazine in 1956.

Tyson's book covers the Emmett Till story, but also explains the political history of how those events prompted the modern civil rights movement and refers to many recent sad events involving racial profiling and violence. THE BLOOD OF EMMETT TILL received a starred review from Booklist. We have numerous books and videos available in the library about Emmett Till including A Wreath for Emmett Till filled with 15 beautiful sonnets by Marilyn Nelson and Death of Innocence by Mamie Till-Mobley, another parent writing about a son's too early death.

The blog post begins with a Review of REST IN POWER by Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin and also contains this links:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-emmett-till-accuser-false-testimony-20170128-story.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/sfeature/sf_look_confession.html

What an intense book about a tragedy in this Country. This is a part of our history that needs to be remembered, taught to the young people. Most I have asked if they knew who Emmett Till was did not know who he was. This saddens me. This book should be required reading in high school and college. We must never forget this innocent young man.. And this book is one way to learn and remember. The author did some fantastic research for this book. It was not just rehashed news. It was new and bold. I loved it. I recommend it to everyone!

I recieved a copy of this book for an honest review

A lot of people have heard of the story of Emett Till, the 14 year old black male that was brutally beaten and killed while visiting relatives in Mississippi. Now readers are given an inside depth of this young man, and the woman who lied when she accused him of some despicable acts. A very informative story.

As a teacher of English literature, I would delve superficially into the story of Emmett Till when we read Toni Morrison novels; the emotional beginning of the civil rights movement still had interest to my students of the 21st century. However, I 'did not know what I did not know.' Having read Tyson's previous book, Blood Done Sign My Name (it is also excellent), I knew this author was a perceptive researcher and a powerful, honest writer. The first page of Emmett Till and I was hooked. This is an in-depth look at the story of 14 year-old Chicago boy, visiting relatives in Mississippi in 1955, whose body is found beaten, shot, and drowned in a river. His mother's decision to hold an open casket, to show the world what was 'done to my boy,' mobilized the nascent movement for civil rights in the south. WWII had opened up the power of resistance, but the laws of the South, as well as the purposeful blindness of the North, demanded a passionate call to action. Emmett Till's murder was it. Tyson does a masterful job of detailing the life of Mamie Till and Emmett's other relatives, the background on the many heroic NAACP workers at the time, the arrest and trial of the two perpetrators, and the life behind the woman who accused the young boy of verbally and physically assaulting her. At times the long lists of organizations and occasional repetition, particularly in the epilogue, slowed the book down. However, the historical significance of this event, the tie-in to today and the Black Lives Matter movement, and the powerful story-telling of Timothy Tyson makes this a book that I believe deserves, and needs, to be read. It would be a powerful tool in a classroom, as well as a worthy book club choice to provoke conversation and connections.

"How do you give a crash course in hatred to a boy who has only known love?"
-- Mamie Till, mother of Emmett Till

Emmett Till. The boy whose lynching galvanized a global movement. Right now, the media seems to be afire with one of the revelations of this book: that Carolyn Bryant has finally admitted that she lied and that Emmett Till never accosted her. Other than her admission, that's not exactly a surprise. So what is the story of Emmett Till? While on a trip to Mississippi from his home in Chicago, he stopped in at Carolyn Bryant's store and bought candy from her. He may have said something pert to her. He may have put the money directly in her hand--physical contact, a taboo in Mississippi--rather than leaving it on the counter. He wolf whistled when she ran out after him in a fury to get the gun out of her car. JW Milam and Roy Bryant, Carolyn Bryant's husband and brother-in-law, pulled Emmett Till from his house, beat and whipped him for hours until his face and body were pulp, shot him in the head, tied with wire to a 74-pound industrial fan, and thrown into the Tallahatchie River.

Before she changed her story to attempted rape to provide an indefensible defense for a lynch mob, Bryant originally said only that Till "insulted" her. When her husband and brother-in-law came to lynch Emmett, they demanded that the family produce the boy who had done the "smart talk." This pretense of the "mystery" of Emmett Till's case is and always has been utterly fatuous. As Carolyn Bryant herself said,
"Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him."

The story of Emmett Till is so short, so heartbreaking. But the story of what comes after is both terrible and uplifting, and Timothy Tyson does the story justice. He starts by laying out the political backdrop, a necessary step to explain the meaning of Emmett Till's death to his killers and to those who mourned him. Emmett Till was not a naif to the world of bigotry and racism. Chicago was one of the most racially divided cities in America, and throughout his childhood, guerilla warfare raged over attempted housing desegregation. Dawson and Daley may have given lip service to equality, but they actively maintained segregation because it furthered their political ends. In both Chicago, as in Mississippi, black families kept loaded firearms in close reach, knowing that a lynch mob could burst through the door at any minute.

Mississippi, on the other hand, "outstripped the rest of the nation in virtually every measure of lynching." Vagrancy, a.k.a. "Jobless while Black," was treated as a crime, and through the convict leasing programs, black "criminals" were leased out to plantations as slave labor. To get the ballot, prospective black voters were forced to answer questions like, "Do you want your children to go to school with white children?" or "Are you a member or do you support the NAACP?" Citizens' Councils, white supremacy groups formed in the wake of Brown v Board of Education, terrorized African Americans with "personal visits" and by publishing their names, addresses, and phone numbers in newspapers. As with the present practice of doxxing, lynch mobs were never far behind. And it worked. As Tyson notes, "In the seven counties with a population more than 60 percent black, African Americans cast a combined total of two votes in 1954."

Citizens' councils were obsessed with maintaining white supremacy in the face of the federal government's decrees, and for them, as Tyson puts it, "The unsullied Southern white woman became the most important symbol of white male superiority." Emmett's death was, for his murderers, about keeping African-Americans in their place, and fearmongers used the "the old song of the Bruised Southern Lily and the Black Beast Rapist" to whip whites into hysterical furor. As J.W. Milam, one of Till's murderer's, put it:
"As long as I live and can do anything about it, n** are going to stay in their place. N** ain't gonna vote where I live. If they did, they'd control the government. They ain't gonna go to school with my kids. And when a n** even gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he's tired o' livin'. I'm likely to kill him."
Interviews showed later that none of the jurors ever doubted that Milam and Bryant were guilty, but they simply didn't consider the murder of a black boy who insulted a white woman to be a crime.

Emmett's death came after a host of assassinations of various civil rights leaders whose murders were treated as "accidents." Despite the coroner's verdict, the mutilations, the bullet, the fan hog-tied to the body, the local newspapers still termed the death an "odd accident" and Sheriff Shelton claimed that the bullet fragments were "most likely filings from his teeth" and put about the theory that the whole case was a fake concocted by the NAACP. If it hadn't been for Mamie Till, Emmett's death would have been just another lynching. But her strength and determination and courage transformed his death into "a watershed historical moment." As she said,
"I took the privacy of my own grief and turned it into a public issue, a political issue, one which set in motion the dynamic force that ultimately led to a generation of social and legal progress for this country."

The Blood of Emmett Till is an exceptional work. Not only does it bring humanity to the major players; it also vividly details the political and cultural backdrop and the global movement that Mamie Till and her allies galvanized. The writing and story are so compelling that I found myself racing through it like a thriller, even though I knew the outcome. Tyson captures the pathos, but also the hope, the bravery, the valiant actions of the witnesses who, like Moses Wright, stood in front of a white court and accused a white man.

If you want a better understanding of racism and the Civil Rights movement, add The Blood of Emmett Till to your list. I'll leave you with a quote:
"That we blame the murderous pack is not the problem; even the idea that we can blame the black boy is not so much the problem, though it is absurd. The problem is why we blame them: we do so to avoid seeing that the lynching of Emmett Till was caused by the nature and history of America itself and by a social system that has changed over the decades, but not so much as we pretend.
[...]
Ask yourself whether America's predicament is really so different now.
[...]
We are still killing black youth because we have not yet killed white supremacy."

THE BLOOD OF EMMETT TILL BY TIMOTHY B. TYSON

This book is based on the true story of one of the last lynching's to take place in Mississippi. It also goes into a great deal of detail the history of race relations since 1919 when the great migration from Mississippi to Chicago of African American's fleeing North from the South. It was not the book I thought it was going to be. It is marketed to include the only interview Carolyn Bryant ever granted. Sadly at her request, that interview is sealed until 2038. The author does quote her as saying "Nothing that boy did, deserved what happened to him." She also admits to not being able to remember the events.

Emmett Till was a 14 year old African American who loved baseball and was from South Chicago. He went down to Mississippi to visit his cousin's and Uncle in the summer of 1955. Emmett and his cousin's and some other boys stopped into a store to buy some candy and according to Carolyn Bryant held onto her hand too long as he passed her the money to pay for the candy. This author has really done his research well when he states that we will probably never know what really transpired between Emmett Till and Carolyn Bryant. What is known is that at approximately 2:00 AM in the morning Carolyn's husband Roy Bryant and her brother in law abducted Emmett Till from his Uncle's house. At the trial an 18 year old witness named Willie saw a pick up truck pass him with four white males in the cab which included Carolyn's husband Roy Bryant and his brother in law drive up to a utility shed with three African American's including Emmett Till on Sunday,the next day. Then Willie heard sounds coming from the shed as if somebody was getting a whipping.

Emmett's Uncle got worried when Emmett was taken at gun point and began to search for Emmett. A boy that was fishing found Emmett's body floating in the Tallahatchie river. The boy went to get his father who alerted authorities who had to tie a rope and use a boat to pull Emmett free. Emmett had been weighed down with a gin fan and barbed wire tied around his neck. He had one eye completely missing, the other eye dangling loose from his eye socket. Emmett's mother insisted on having an open casket to show the world what was done to her son. She also got in touch with the press so the picture of Emmett's lynching could be shared with the world which was covered nationally and internationally, the very graphic atrocities that had been done to her only son. This horrific lynching took place in August of 1955, in Mississippi.

I was very saddened and horrified to read about this true story of the tragic and inhumane way Emmett was tortured. Carolyn Bryant has changed her story so many times, it is hard to know why she would have even mentioned Emmett Till to her husband and brother in law. I was sick to my stomach reading about Emmett's torture and death in Mississippi. I read about the all white, all men jury. Emmett's Uncle Moses and Willie were brave to point out in open court the two men that were responsible for Emmett's abduction and who were last seen with Emmett. There was some dispute over which jurisdiction the trial should have taken place in. There were no women allowed to serve on the jury.

At the time of Emmett Till's death the author cites his sources with footnotes and has a list of publications he used for writing this book. Apparently, Mississippi didn't allow African Americans' their constitutional right to vote. There existed a group called "The council" who killed anybody that helped African Americans vote in any type of elections. Mississippi defied the Supreme Court's ruling of Brown which gave African Americans the right to desegregation of school's. Emmett Till's mother Mamie took part in fundraisers for the NAACP and marches where thousands of people showed up to raise funds for groups such as the NAACP, to be able to give African Americans the equalities that they deserved and were being deprived of. According to this author four days after Rosa Park's saw the picture of Emmett Till's battered body, Rosa made her historic decision to stay in her seat on the bus. The boycotts of the bus began which helped raise money for those groups who were fighting for equal rights that were being ignored.

The fundraiser's and rallies that Emmett's mother Mamie attended (which I don't know how she was able to attend so soon after the murder of her only child) is said to have helped pave the way for the beginning of the Civil Right's movement. I think the author did a fantastic job explaining all of the historic events that gave birth to the Civil Right's. I was a little bit disappointed that the book was marketed with the idea that the interview with this author and Carolyn Bryant was going to be part of this story. It is not included except for one small statement. After reading such a comprehensive recounting of historical events of the political climate, that her only interview is sealed until 2038, by her wishes.

This book encapsulates the political climate since Reconstruction through the aftermath of the brutalities that were suffered by Emmett Till, stating case after case of what the African American inequalities and countless death's visited to anybody just trying to vote in an election. Neither Roy Bryant or his brother in law was held accountable for Emmett Till's brutal murder. Both men were found not guilty by the all white, all men jury. After the trial was over the defense lawyer was paid $1000.00 and $3ooo.00 was paid to Roy Bryant and his brother in law Miliam for their story which they knew they could not be brought to trial. They admitted to their ghastly actions in their abduction and murder that they took part in Emmett Till's demise. The reasons they gave for kidnapping and brutally torturing and murdering young 14 year old Emmett are too inflammatory for me to repeat. Do read this book because it is carefully researched and includes many quotations from the principal people involved.

What I liked about the book was learning details of from Reconstruction to the present, that we all owe it to society to stop the injustices that African American's suffer today. The author reminds us of the incident in Ferguson, the over incarceration African Americans still experience today. All the shootings which are widely publicized today of the police that kill African American's. I saw on the news a couple of months ago, where police shot an African American in the back because he put his hand in his pocket. His wife had videotaped the shooting on her cell phone. The book reminds us of the incident In Ferguson where the death of an African American and the police officers responsible were acquitted. This book was not an easy book to read for me. I am glad that I read it, because I will be more committed to doing what I can do, to help that useless police brutalities are given attention and hopefully, if each person writes to their congressmen who witness these type of injustice. Is more tolerant to the idea that we all are born created equal. We all deserve a fair and unbiased right to be treated with equality.

Thank you to Net Galley, Timothy B. Tyson for writing this book and Simon & Schuster for providing me with my digital copy for a fair and honest review.

THE BLOOD OF EMMETT TILL by Timothy B. Tyson

THE BLOOD OF EMMETT TILL is a tremendously important and terribly perturbing work of nonfiction. Intensifying the perturbation and pervasive grief, even now, 61 years in the future, is that the Emmett Till tragedy occurred. This is not a work of scary fiction; this is real.

In August 1955, a fourteen-year-old Chicago adolescent traveled with family to visit relatives in Mississippi. He eventually returned, but not alive. For shortly after his arrival, he was abducted from the home of his cousins, at night, and murdered. His “failing”? He may—or may not—have addressed a white woman.

The author, Timothy B. Tyson, is a Ph.D. In American History, who as a child experienced a public murder of a black male by a white male, in his own home town. In this book, his clear-eyed understanding of history, particularly pre-Civil Rights Movement history, not only in Mississippi and throughout the South, but also in segregationist Chicago, vividly portrays life as it existed for African-Americans, 90 years after the end of the Civil War. The political antics, white-supremacy interests, and fear above all of “miscegenation” or “mongrelization” during this era are revealed as historian Tyson turns over the rocks of deceit, betrayal, and race rage. Certainly contemporary conditions are far from ideal, but the Jim Crow Era here brought to life should sicken and dismay every reader. The murder of Emmett Till was wrong on all counts, but one of its consequences was to ignite the fires of Civil Rights and propel the Movement that has brought some changes.