A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till [Paperback]

Stephen J. Whitfield (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1991

In August 1955, the mutilated body of Emmett Till—a fourteen-year-old black Chicago youth—was pulled from Mississippi's Tallahatchie River. Abducted, severely beaten, and finally thrown into the river with a weight fastened around his neck with barbed wire, Till, an eighth-grader, was killed for allegedly whistling at a white woman. The nation was horrified by Till's death. When the all-white, all-male jury hastily acquitted the two white defendants, the outcry reached a frenzied pitch—spurring a fury that would prove critical in the mobilization of black resistance to white racism in the Deep South.

In this sensitive inquiry, historian Stephen J. Whitfield probes Till's death; its ideological roots; the potent myths concerning race, sexuality, and violence; and the incident's enduring effects on American national life. As he recreates the trial, its participants, and the social structure of the Delta, Whitfield examines how white rural Mississippians actually tried "two of their own." Though they were acquitted, these same defendants were soon being ostracized by their own neighbors, and within four months of Till's death, Southern blacks were staging the historic Montgomery bus boycott—the first major battle in the coming war against racial injustice that would lead to the passage of civil rights legislation a decade later.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Whitfield ( Jews in America's Life and Thought , etc.) here examines the national reaction to the grisly murder in 1955 of Emmett Till, a black teenager accused of whistling at a white woman, whose killers were acquitted by a white jury in Mississippi. The Brown v. Board of Education decision, Whitfield argues persuasively, had strengthened the miscegenation paranoia of Southern white supremicists that was based on their attitudes towards race and sexuality. He further asserts, however, that despite federal passivity in regard to the rights of blacks and the Mississippi state-supported Citizens Councils that intimidated and terrorized its large black minority, Till's sensational case, succinctly reported here, imparted a crucially vital impulse to the civil rights movement of the '60s. The author concludes that the feminist movement, its members' civil rights activities and sexual emancipation have helped to reduce racism.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Till, a young black man who was brutally murdered in 1954 in Mississippi, is the focus of this study. Till allegedly made sexually suggestive remarks to a white woman and was found murdered shortly thereafter. Whitfield does not linger long on the actual murder, or on the acquittal of the two whites charged (who later admitted to the murder). Rather he concentrates on the impact of the case on civil rights activists of later years. Among them, Malcolm X, Toni Morrison, and Rod Serling remembered the Till case as a crucial spur to their own growing commitment to attack racial injustice. Thus, the author concludes, the Till murder and the acquittal of his murderers "helped erode" a whole system of race relations. Although speculative in places, this well-written study is strongly recommended. Anthony O. Edmonds, Ball State Univ., Muncie, Ind.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (November 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080184326X
• ISBN-13: 978-0801843266
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #124,942 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Historical Perspective, January 14, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till (Paperback)

Not only did this book provide great in-depth details of the Till murder, but it also provided a great narrative on how the murder affected and possibly jump started the civil rights movement. I'll rate it 4 out of 5 stars...

1.0 out of 5 stars Horribly written. Writer is very knowledgeable but that seems to be part of his thesis statement---that he knows so much, November 29, 2011

By 

N. Jones "bookie" (Utah) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till (Paperback)

I use this book as a NON-example for my students when learning about argument and not straying from one's argument when writing. At one point the author takes the time (strays from his argument) to reference other biographies from other historians----not to continue building his argument---but only to let us know how "unacademic" they are.

This happens over and over, and it's really distracting from the monumental importance of the Emmit Till case. That's the shame of this book. Worth reading if you can get past the guy who wrote it.

5.0 out of 5 stars A DETAILED STUDY OF THE MURDER THAT SPARKED THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, January 21, 2011

By 

Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till (Hardcover)

Emmett Louis "Bobo" Till (July 25, 1941 - August 28, 1955) was an African-American boy who at 14 years old was murdered in Mississippi after reportedly flirting with a white woman. Stephen J. Whitfield is a professor at Brandeis University.

Whitfield writes in the Preface to this 1988 book, "A Death in the Delta is not a general history of lynching in microcosm, nor is it an examination of the rape complex, not is it intended as more than an illustration of the fatal operations of white supremacy. I have tried only to be faithful to the relevant facts of the case, to elicidate its impact, and then to consider its significance."

Here are some quotations from the book:

"A shaken Carolyn Bryant immediately told Juanita Milam about the incident. A black male who she had never seen before, physically larger than she was, and who was accompanied by black adolescents (most of them males), had grabbed her, held her, propositioned her, insulted her, and whistled at her. She had no way of knowing that the whole idea was probably a tasteless prank. Yet both Mrs. Bryant and her sister-in-law agreed to conceal the episode from their husbands." (Pg. 19)
"(The killers) claimed that to their amazement Till did not whimper or beg for mercy or show remorse. He may not have suspected how much danger he was in. To the contrary, they asserted, he continued to boast of white girls with whom he was intimate, and once again pulled out his wallet to prove his conquests." (Pg. 20-21)
"Governor White explicitly denied that Emmett Till had been the victim of a lynching: 'It is a straight-out murder.' The question was not only semantic. Categorized as an ordinary homicide, the case would discourage outside interest and intervention. A 'lynching, by contrast, might stimulate inquiries into race relations when national attitudes were growing less tolerant of 'the Southern way of life'..." (Pg. 24-25)
"But one scholar who interviewed several of the jurors seven years later learned that all the ballots had been for acquittal. The jurors had 'deliberated' so long because the sheriff-elect, Harry Dogan, sent word to wait a while, to make it 'look good.'" (Pg. 42)
"But in any event, the white accomplices of Bryant and Milam have remained anonymous. They, too, it seems, got away with murder." (Pg. 56)