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The Blood of Emmett Till Paperback – December 5, 2017
by Timothy B. Tyson
* Longlisted for the National Book Award * Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award * A New York Times Notable Book * A Washington Post Notable Book * An NPR Best Book of 2017 * A Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2017 * An Atlanta Journal-Constitution Best Southern Book of 2017 *
This extraordinary New York Times bestseller reexamines a pivotal event of the civil rights movement—the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till—“and demands that we do the one vital thing we aren’t often enough asked to do with history: learn from it” (The Atlantic).
In 1955, white men in the Mississippi Delta lynched 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. 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, Black students who called themselves “the Emmett Till generation” launched sit-in campaigns that turned the struggle for civil rights into a mass movement. Till’s lynching became the most notorious hate crime in American history.
But what actually happened to Emmett Till—not the icon of injustice, but the flesh-and-blood boy? Part detective story, part political history, The Blood of Emmett Till “unfolds like a movie” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution), drawing on a wealth of new evidence, including a shocking admission of Till’s innocence from the woman in whose name he was killed. “Jolting and powerful” (The Washington Post), the book “provides fresh insight into the way race has informed and deformed our democratic institutions” (Diane McWhorter, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Carry Me Home) and “calls us to the cause of justice today” (Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, president of the North Carolina NAACP).
Editorial Reviews
Review
“The Blood of Emmett Till is a work critical not just to our understanding of something that happened in America in 1955 but of what happens in America here and now. It is a jolting and powerful book... swift-flying and meticulously researched.” -- Leonard Pitts, The Washington Post
“An insightful, revealing and important new inquiry into the tragedy that mobilized and energized a generation of Americans to stand and fight against racial bigotry.”
-- Bryan Stevenson, New York Times bestselling author of Just Mercy
“Tim Tyson’s genius as a historian, author, and social visionary informs his unique commitment to write truth to power authentically and fearlessly.”
-- Dr. Benjamin Chavis, former executive director of the NAACP
“What sets Tyson's book apart is the wide-angle lens he uses to examine the lynching, and the ugly parallels between past and present… A terrific writer and storyteller, Tyson compels a closer look at a heinous crime and the consequential decisions, large and small, that made it a national issue.”, Minneapolis Star Tribune
“A critical book... [that] manages to turn the past into prophecy and demands that we do the one vital thing we aren’t often enough asked to do with history: learn from it.” -- Vann R. Newkirk II, The Atlantic
“The Blood of Emmett Till unfolds like a movie, moving from scene to reconstructed scene, panning out to help the reader understand the racism and bigotry that crafted the citadel of white supremacy and focusing in on intimate exchanges imbued with meaning....” -- Lawrence Jackson, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“No American historian working today captures the nuances of white supremacy and the ways in which it engulfs us all more convincingly than Tyson.” -- Steve Nathans-Kelly, First of the Month
“Astonishingly relevant.... At once thrilling and agonizing.” , Jezebel
“I couldn’t stop reading Timothy Tyson’s The Blood of Emmett Till. It is civil rights history that captivates the reader like a mystery novel....” -- Patricia Bell-Scott, author of The Firebrand and the First Lady
“Eloquent and outraged.... A stunning success essential for our times.”
-- Nell Irvin Painter, author of The History of White People
About the Author
Timothy B. Tyson is Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, Visiting Professor of American Christianity and Southern Culture at Duke Divinity School, and adjunct professor of American Studies at the University of North Carolina. He is the author of The Blood of Emmett Till, a New York Times bestseller; Blood Done Sign My Name, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of the Southern Book Award for Nonfiction and the Grawemeyer Award in Religion, as well as the basis for a feature film; and Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power, winner of the James Rawley Prize for best book on race and the Frederick Jackson Turner Prize for best first book in US History from the Organization of American Historians, and the basis for the prize-winning documentary Negroes with Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power. He serves on the executive board of the North Carolina NAACP and the UNC Center for Civil Rights.
Product details
- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition (December 5, 2017)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1476714851
- ISBN-13: 978-1476714851
- Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.4 inches
- Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
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