Research Guides: Emmett Till Project: Journal Articles

The Event

Behold the Corpse: Violent Images and the Case of Emmett Till The widely disseminated image of Emmett Till's mutilated corpse illustrated the ugliness of racial violence and the aggregate power of the black community.
Emmett Till and the Force of American Memory. This article discusses and offers excerpts from the book manuscript "Sometimes It Causes Me to Tremble: Emmett Till and the Force of American Memory." The book is an account of the responses of African Americans born before 1965 to the murder of Emmett Till, an African American youth murdered in 1955.
News, Race, and the Status Quo: The Case of Emmett Louis Till. Using inductive and deductive framing analysis, the authors examine how 4 newspapers covered a key event sparking the civil rights movement - the 1955 murder of Emmett Till - in an effort to gauge how the press covers events that are part of larger social ferment. The Daily Sentinel-Star (Grenada, Mississippi), Greenwood Commonwealth (Mississippi), Chicago Tribune, and Chicago Defender varied in intensity of coverage, use of sources, and attention to crime news and, as a result, framed the story differently.
On the Record: The Emmett Till Murder Trial and the Southern Press. The article presents a summary of the 1955 trial of J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant for the murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy visiting Money, Mississippi from Chicago, Illinois. Milam and Bryant were found innocent following a short jury deliberation, but later published confessions in "Look" Magazine. The summary was constructed using sentences taken verbatim from newspaper accounts of the trial published in the Southern U.S.
A CASE STUDY IN SOUTHERN JUSTICE: THE MURDER AND TRIAL OF EMMETT TILL. Using personal interviews conducted with jurors, law enforcement officials, lawyers, and other people involved with the trial of Emmett Till, this essay argues that a guilty verdict in the case was a foregone conclusion. Despite evidence that the body discovered in the Tallahatchie River was in fact that of Emmett Till, local Mississippians rallied around Roy Bryant and J .W. Milam. In addition, personal interviews suggest that two black men were purposefully hidden in a local Charleston, Mississippi, jail in order to limit the prosecution's case.

The Legacy

Administration of Joseph R. Biden, Jr., 2022 Remarks on Signing the Emmett Till Antilynching Act Transcript of dialogue by President Biden and others as the Emmett Till Antilynching Act was signed into law.
Implementation of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act History of the act, why it was created, and explanation for its wording and implementation.
"The Nightmare Is Not Cured": Emmett Till and American Healing Examines different perspectives on the image of Emmett Till as it relates to diverse Americans.
The Trauma of the Routine: Lessons on Cultural Trauma from the Emmett Till Verdict Cultural traumas are socially mediated processes that occur when groups endure horrific events that forever change their consciousness and identity. According to cultural sociologists, these traumas arise out of shocks to the routine or the taken for granted. Understanding such traumas is critical for developing solutions that can address group suffering. Using the African American community's response to the not guilty verdict in the Emmett Till murder trial as a case study, this article extends cultural trauma theory by explicating how cultural traumas can arise not only when routines are disrupted but also when they are maintained and reaffirmed in a public or official manner. In so doing, this article analyzes the interplay between the history or accumulation of the "routine" harm at issue, the shocking or unusual occurrences that frequently precede such "routine" harms, the harm itself, and public discourse about such harm's meaning in cultivating a cultural trauma narrative.
The Violent Bear It Away: Emmett Till and the Modernization of Law Enforcement in Mississippi. The article discusses the case of Emmet Till and the modernization of law enforcement in Mississippi. It recollects how Till was killed and talks about the implication of his death to the law enforcement in the state. It mentions that James P. Coleman, former governor of Mississippi, had decided to make improvements on the state's racial matters concerning law enforcement which is related to the death of Till.

Emmett Till in Art and Culture

Forgotten Manuscripts: "Blues for Emmett Till": The Earliest Extant Song about the Murder of Emmett Till. This article discusses the song "The Blues for Emmett Till," the earliest extant song about the racial lynching of Emmett Till on August 28, 1955. Details are given describing the cultural and literary response to the crime by the African American and white community. Accounts are provided contextualizing the composition of the song by Aaron Kramer and Clyde Appleton in the months that followed. Analysis is offered discussing how the song's text reflects the social outrage which surrounded the incident.
Haunting America: Emmett Till in Music and Song Examines how the history of Emmett Till has been used in American music throughout the years.
Submitted for Their Approval: Rod Serling and the Lynching of Emmett Till. The article presents a discussion of the television films "A Town Has Turned to Dust," and "Noon on Doomsday," by Rod Serling, and their depiction of the historical lynching of Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi in 1955. The article discusses the production history of the television programs, noting both Serling's efforts to relate the story of the murder and the resistance met in various capacities to air it.
The Ballad of Emmett Till The Ballad of Emmett Till is an ensemble play for six actors, exploring of the final days in the life of Emmett Till, a Chicago teenager who takes a fateful trip to Mississippi in the summer of 1955.
"No Justice, No Peace": The Figure of Emmett Till in African American Literature An analysis of how Emmett Till has been woven into the fabric of African American literature.