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Emmett Till

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Emmett Till

‘He Had a Life Before Death’: Remembering Emmett Till for the Child He Was

Till’s cousin recalled him as a jokester who “loved to make people laugh” as she reflected on their childhood ahead of what would have been his 80th birthday.
Barn where Emmett Till was killed

His Name Was Emmett Till

In 1955, just past daybreak, a Chevrolet truck pulled up to an unmarked building. A 14-year-old child was in the back.

The Unfinished Story of Emmett Till’s Final Journey

Till was murdered 65 years ago. Sites of commemoration across the Mississippi Delta still struggle with what’s history and what’s hearsay.
Installation of new historical marker by Emmet Till Memorial Commission at Graball Landing, October 2019.

Bulletproofing American History

Mabel Wilson discusses the history of racial violence and the continued vandalism and destruction of Black historical memorials in the Deep South.

Remembering Emmett Till

The ruins of a country store suggest that locals have neglected the memory of Emmett Till’s murder.

People Keep Shooting Up The Sign Commemorating Emmett Till’s Murder

It has been a target of vandals ever since it was dedicated.

The Justice Department Is Reinvestigating the 1955 Slaying of Emmett Till

His brutal killing shocked the world and helped inspire the civil rights movement.
Left, a young Emmett Till. Right, Carolyn Bryant with her two young sons at Till's murder trial, 1955.

How Author Timothy Tyson Found the Woman at the Center of the Emmett Till Case

The woman whose testimony was central to the infamous case admits feeling 'tender sorrow.'
Carolyn Bryant with her husband, Roy Bryant, and their children during his trial in 1955.

Carolyn Bryant Donham Dies at 88; Her Words Doomed Emmett Till

She accused Emmett of accosting her. Her testimony led to acquittals of her husband and his half-brother in a murder that galvanized the civil rights movement.
Shot full of 317 bullet holes, a sign marking where police recovered the body of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi is displayed at the Smithsonian Museum of American History last month.
partner

Excluding Black Americans From Our History Has Proved Deadly

Why it's so important to remember even our ugliest and most racist chapters.
Headshot of William Faulkner

‘A Land Where the Dead Past Walks’

Faulkner’s chroniclers have to reconcile the novelist’s often repellent political positions with the extraordinary meditations on race, violence, and cruelty in his fiction.

How Poverty Is Reshaping the Story of Emmett Till's Murder

Beset by poverty, Glendora, Mississippi clings desperately to a version of Till's story that few others seem to believe.
Rod Serling at the typewriter, at his Westport, Connecticut, home in 1956.

An Early Run-In With Censors Led Rod Serling to 'The Twilight Zone'

His failed attempts to bring the Emmett Till tragedy to television forced him to get creative.

Emmett Till’s Murder, and How America Remembers Its Darkest Moments

He walked into a store and it changed civil rights. Now the store symbolizes the struggle to address the nation’s racial violence.

The New Mississippi Civil Rights Museum Refuses to Sugarcoat History

Our critic visits a museum whose story is unfolding, from 1960s Jackson to Charlottesville. It leaves us upset —and that’s good.

Simeon Booker, Intrepid Chronicler of Civil Rights Struggle for Jet and Ebony, Dies at 99

He risked his life to expose Emmett Till’s death and the Freedom Rides to a national audience.
W.E.B. Du Bois.

Racial Violence in Black and White

From lynching photos to Black Lives Matter – what does it mean to look at images of African Americans being murdered?
The Fisk Jubilee Singers.

How the Negro Spiritual Changed American Popular Music—And America Itself

In 1871, the Fisk University singers embarked on a tour that introduced white Americans to a Black sound that would reshape the nation.
From left: A red and white sign protesting Critical Race Theory, groups of people stand in a parking lot

(White) Christian Roots of Slavery, Native American Genocide, and Ongoing Efforts to Erase History

15th century dogma connects the genocide and land dispossession of Native Americans with the enslavement and oppression of African Americans throughout history.
An overhead view of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

An Oral History of the March on Washington, 60 Years After MLK’s Dream

The Post interviewed March on Washington participants and voices from younger generations to tell the story of Aug. 28, 1963 and what it means now.