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Overall Summary
The Blood of Emmett Till is a 2017 nonfiction book by Timothy B. Tyson. It provides an account of the 1955 murder of a young African American boy named Emmet Till, who was visiting his family in Mississippi from Chicago, where they had moved to escape racial violence and seek better employment opportunities during the Great Migration.
The Civil War ended slavery, but it did not end racism. It was only during Reconstruction that Northern whites tried to change the South’s caste system by making free blacks more self-sufficient and independent of whites. They also made it possible for blacks to participate in government and vote. Southern whites fought back, however, after Reconstruction; they instituted Jim Crow laws that continued slavery under a different name. The doctrine of white supremacy was used to justify this continuation of slavery; according to its assumptions, blacks had to defer or be treated with violence (lynching).
During the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt rallied blacks to his side. Blacks also served during World War II and gained a sense of empowerment that led them to demand civil rights in the South after the war. They were prevented from voting by poll taxes as well as violence. Segregation kept blacks out of white communities and schools.
Things began to change in the 1950s. The Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 desegregated public schools. It provoked a reaction from Southerners who formed Citizens’ Councils to resist black attempts to bring about change in Southern culture, which Tyson describes and argues is partly responsible for the murder of Emmett Till.
While visiting Mississippi, Till broke the custom of blacks being subservient to whites. He touched a white woman’s hand and spoke in an improper manner. The woman took offense and told her husband, who helped kidnap Till with his friends. They beat him brutally before killing him by throwing his body into a river. However, the body reappeared several days later; they were arrested for murder but found not guilty because they were white men and he was black.
Till’s mother used her son’s murder to organize blacks in the South. She decided that his open casket would show people how bad racism was and inspire them to fight it. Tyson argues that Till’s death had a profound effect on the civil rights movement, galvanizing support for change and convincing many that racism had to end.
Chapter 1: “Nothing That Boy Did”
A black teenager named Emmett Till is murdered by two white men in Mississippi. He supposedly made a pass at a young woman, who reported that he did more than just make a pass at her. The newspapers then ran with the story of his attempted rape, which created an atmosphere of hysteria and led to the acquittal of the perpetrators even though they were guilty. This incident was one of many that sparked outrage among African Americans across the United States and ultimately led to civil rights legislation being passed to end racism in southern states.
Chapter 2: “Boots on the Porch”
Tyson tells the story of two white men who come to get Emmett Till from Reverend Moses Wright’s house. The title, “Boots on the Porch,” refers to how the men carry flashlights and.45-caliber pistols as they approach the house. They wake up Emmett by shining their lights in his face and ask him if he is Emmett Till, which he confirms. Then they take him out into a car that waits for them in the woods. One of them asks someone else if they got the right boy, and someone replies with yes.
