In August 1955, the mutilated body of Emmett Till-a fourteen-year-old black Chicago youth-was pulled from Mississippi's Tallahatchie River. Abducted, severely beaten, and finally thrown into the river with a weight fastened around his neck with barbed wire, Till, an eighth-grader, was killed for allegedly whistling at a white woman. The nation was horrified by Till's death. When the all-white, all-male jury hastily acquitted the two white defendants, the outcry reached a frenzied pitch-spurring a fury that would prove critical in the mobilization of black resistance to white racism in the Deep South. In this sensitive inquiry, historian Stephen J. Whitfield probes Till's death; its ideological roots; the potent myths concerning race, sexuality, and violence; and the incident's enduring effects on American national life. As he recreates the trial, its participants, and the social structure of the Delta, Whitfield examines how white rural Mississippians actually tried two of their own. Though they were acquitted, these same defendants were soon being ostracized by their own neighbors, and within four months of Till's death, Southern blacks were staging the historic Montgomery bus boycott-the first major battle in the coming war against racial injustice that would lead to the passage of civil rights legislation a decade later.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN-13
9780801843266
eBay Product ID (ePID)
96694042
Product Key Features
Subject Area
Economic Sociology, Civil Service
Author
Stephen J. Whitfield
Publication Name
A Death in the Delta: the Story of Emmett Till
Format
Paperback
Language
English
Subject
History
Publication Year
1991
Type
Textbook
Number of Pages
208 Pages
Dimensions
Item Height
235mm
Item Width
156mm
Item Weight
318g
Additional Product Features
Title_Author
Stephen J. Whitfield
Country/Region of Manufacture
United States
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