A Death in the Delta; The Story of Emmett Till

New York: The Free Press, 1988. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xiv, 193, [1] pages. Includes Map, Illustrations, Preface, Acknowledgments, The Ideology of Lynching; Chicago Boy; Trial by Jury; The Shock of Exoneration; Washington, D.C.; Revolution; Race and Sex; No Longer White; Also includes Notes, Bibliography, and Index. At lest three thousand blacks have been lynched in the United States since Emancipation. But in addition to the terrible crime perpetrated against those whose lives were cut short by torture and terror, the victims have also suffered oblivion. Almost nobody knows their names--except that of Emmett Till (1941-55). Why the memory of his brief life and his ugly death can not be erased is ultimately the subject of this book. A Death in the Delta is not a general history of lynching in microcosm, nor is it an examination of the rape complex, nor is it intended as more than an illustration of the fatal operations of white supremacy. The author has tried only to be faithful to the relevant facts of the case, to elucidate its impact, and then to consider its significance. This book is a powerful recreation of a terrifying episode in American race relations. This story illuminates both change and continuity in the modern South. Evocatively written and intellectually engaging, this book will appeal to anyone interested in understanding the roots of our racial dilemma. Stephen J. Whitfield holds the Max Richter Chair in American Civilization at Brandeis University, where he has taught since 1972. He is the author of eight books, including A Death in the Delta (1988), The Culture of the Cold War (1991) and In Search of American Jewish Culture (1999). Derived from a Kirkus review: The story of the 1955 kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till, the myths and emotional climate of the South that condoned it and absolved his killers, and the impact of these events on the then-dormant civil-rights movement. A cheeky 14-year-old Chicago boy, Till may have acted on a dare when he walked into a small store in a Mississippi Delta village and reportedly asked the young white woman behind the counter for a date and then whistled at her. Her husband and his half-brother kidnapped him in front of the relatives he was visiting, pistol-whipped him in a remote barn, and then shot him. Despite conclusive evidence of guilt, a jury found the killers innocent on both counts. Till, says Whitfield, was a victim of southern paranoia about black male sexuality. Convinced that equality would lead to rampant rape of "pure" white women and miscegenation, the South had mobilized to fight black voter registration attempts and defy Supreme Court-ordered school desegregation. The murder of Till and the subsequent firestorm of indignation may have encouraged Martin Luther King to lead the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott; the Till case, says Whitfield, was the "breaking point" of black meekness in the face of rampant racism. Meticulously documented, this work illuminates our understanding of our era's dramatic changes in the relations between southern blacks and whites.