Wright Thompson The Barn : The Murder of Emmett Till & the Cradle of American in White White

Haunting . . . The writing is often breathtaking, brutality amplified through perfectly crafted prose. The TimesExtraordinary . . . Serious history and skillful journalism, but with the nuance and wallop of a finely wrought novel. Washington PostWith a passion for truth and justice, and a fierce determination to dig for the secrets, Wright Thompson has produced an incredible history of a crime that changed America. John GrishamHow forces from around the world converged on the Mississippi Delta to bring about the most consequential murder in US history. Emmett Tills murder is one of the most infamous in American history a moment that, more than any other, awakened the world to the racism of the Deep South. Yet despite growing up just a few miles from where it happened, Wright Thompson knew nothing of it until he left Mississippi. This is no accident the coverup began at once, and it is ongoing. Over the course of five years research, Thompson has learnt that almost every part of the standard account of Tills killing is wrong. In August 1955, after the two men charged with the murder were acquitted by an allwhite jury, they gave a false confession to a journalist one that was misleading about where the murder took place and who was involved. We now know that at least eight people were present, and many more complicit. And we now know precisely where it took place inside a barn on a 36squaremile grid called Township 22 North, Range 4 West. This book tells the story of that... Wright Thompson The Barn : The Murder of Emmett Till & the Cradle of American in White