Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old Black youth from Chicago, was visiting family in a small town in Mississippi during the summer of 1955. Likely showing off to friends, Emmett allegedly whistled at a young white woman, the local beauty-pageant queen, Carolyn Bryant. Three days later his brutally beaten body was discovered floating in the Tallahatchie River.

The extreme and shocking violence of this crime put a national spotlight on the “Jim Crow” ways of the South, and many Americans—Black and white—were further outraged at the speedy trial and acquittal of the white murderers. It was a galvanizing moment for Black leaders and ordinary citizens, including Rosa Parks and other activists. In clear, vivid detail, Chris Crowe investigates the before-and-aftermath of the crime, as well as the dramatic court trial, and examines its importance to the groundbreaking Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

With lively narrative and illustrated with fascinating contemporaneous photographs, this impressive, eye-opening work brings fresh insight to the famous case that highlighted—and eventually provoked changes in-race relations in America.

Early Recognition for Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case