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Linda Williams Jackson

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http://lindajacksonwrites.blogspot.com/

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Jigsawing the Novel

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Jigsawing the Background Research

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* Students will analyze one chapter of their summer reading book and share their learning with their peers.
* Students will learn to use new online tools.
* Students will review the following thinking strategies: "Surprising-Interesting-Troubling," "Color-Symbol-Image," and "I Used to Think. . .."

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Don't forget that you can find examples of how you used this strategy in your journals from last semester!

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Don't forget that you can find examples of how you used this strategy in your journals from last semester!

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Stillwater, Mississippi
1955

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The Murder of Emmett Till | Article

Who was Emmett Till?

From the Collection: Civil Rights

Emmett Louis Till was born in Chicago on July 25, 1941. Emmett was the only child of Louis and Mamie Till. He never knew his father, a soldier, who died during World War II.

Early Life
At the age of five, Emmett was stricken with polio. He recovered but was left with a slight stutter. Despite his childhood illness, he grew up a happy boy. Emmett pitched in with the chores. His mother recalled he once told her, "If you can go out and make the money, I can take care of the house." This was welcome news for a woman raising a child alone. "It was just like I was carrying a load and I laid it down," she said.

Emmett with his mother Mamie, Courtesy: Mamie Till Mobley

Thriving Black Neighborhood
Emmett, nicknamed Bobo, was surrounded by relatives and grandparents. He attended the all-black McCosh Elementary School not far from his home. The solidly middle class neighborhood on Chicago's South Side where he grew up was a Mecca in which black-owned establishments thrived. Although blacks and whites were segregated, it was a fertile time for black businesses. There were black-owned and operated insurance companies, tailors, pharmacists, barbers, beauty salons and nightclubs that regularly hosted performers like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughn.

Outgoing and Funny
Young Emmett's personality was infectious. "He loved to tell jokes," said his cousin, Wheeler Parker. "He would pay people to tell him jokes."

In the summer of 1955, Emmett had just turned 14. He and his friends were enjoying the summer and dancing to a new music called rock and roll.

Young Emmett Till, Courtesy: Mamie Till Mobley

"The boys wore crepe-soled shoes, polyester pants and the girls wore skirts with the crinoline underneath. You must have the crinoline," said Cooksie Magnolia, who grew up with Emmett on the same street. "Young girls wore flared skirts so when their male partners spun them around, their skirts would have that extra flare."

"That was a good time because where we grew up, a lot of guys listened to the Moonglows, the Coasters, the Flamingos and the Spaniels," said Richard Heard, one of Emmett's classmates. "We'd try to imitate them in our little singing groups. It was a lot of fun."

One afternoon, Heard was invited to Emmett's house for bologna sandwiches and Kool-Aid. They were all looking forward to returning to school together in the fall where they would complete eighth grade and move on to high school. Heard never knew that would be the last time he would see his friend alive.

Emmett's class photo, November 1954 Courtesy: Mamie Till Mobley

"Emmett was a funny guy all the time. He had a suitcase of jokes that he liked to tell," said Heard. "He loved to make people laugh. He was a chubby kid; most of the guys were skinny, but he didn't let that stand in his way. He made a lot of friends at McCosh Grammar School where we went to school."

Mississippi Trip
In August 1955, Emmett's great uncle Moses Wright came up from Mississippi and paid the family a visit. On his way back, he was taking Emmett's cousin Wheeler Parker with him to spend time with relatives down South. When Emmett heard that, he wanted to go.

But Emmett's mother had other plans. She wanted to take a vacation and drive to Omaha, Nebraska. Mamie hoped that by coaxing Emmett with an opportunity to learn to drive on the open road, he would opt to go with her instead. But for Emmett, news that his cousins would be spending the summer together in Mississippi was an opportunity he didn't want to pass up.

The day before Emmett left, Mamie gave her son Louis Till's signet ring, one of the few possessions she had from her former husband. The next day, Mamie raced her son to the train station. Their kiss goodbye would be the last time she would see her son alive.

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Who was Emmett Till? | American Experience | PBS

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The Murder of Emmett Till | Article From the Collection: Civil Rights Emmett Louis Till was born in Chicago on July 25, 1941. Emmett was the only child of Louis and Mamie Till. He never knew his father, a soldier, who died during World War II.

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The Murder of Emmett Till | Clip

Emmett Till's Mother Speaks

No one ever served prison time for the killing of Emmett Till, a fourteen year old black boy from Chicago. But his murder, and the trial and acquittal of his killers, sent a powerful message, and his tragic murder spurred the Civil Rights Movement. His mother, Mamie Till Mobley, explains, "When people saw what happened to my son, men stood up who had never stood up before. People became vocal who had never vocalized before."

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Emmett Till's Mother Speaks | American Experience | PBS

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The Murder of Emmett Till | Clip No one ever served prison time for the killing of Emmett Till, a fourteen year old black boy from Chicago. But his murder, and the trial and acquittal of his killers, sent a powerful message, and his tragic murder spurred the Civil Rights Movement.

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It was the lynching that outraged African Americans, spurred the civil rights movement and etched the victim's name in history: Emmett Till.

The 14-year-old Chicagoan was visiting relatives in the cotton country of the Mississippi delta on 24 August 1955 when he allegedly wolf-whistled at a white woman.

Three days later his body was found in the Tallahatchie river. Till had a bullet hole in the head, an eye gouged out and other wounds. The murderers had wrapped barbed wire around his neck and weighted him down with a cotton gin fan.

It was a ghastly crime that changed the United States but the woman at the center of it, Carolyn Bryant, long remained an enigma.

A few weeks after the murder, the then 21-year-old testified in court that Till had grabbed and verbally harassed her in a grocery store. "I was just scared to death," she said.

The all-white jury cleared her husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother JW Milam of the crime. They later publicly admitted their guilt, saying they wanted to warn other blacks. Carolyn Bryant disappeared from public view.

Now, 62 years later, it has emerged that she fabricated her testimony about Till making physical and verbal advances.

"That part's not true," Bryant told Timothy Tyson, the author of a new book, The Blood of Emmet Till.

That four-word confession, of sorts, has provided an unexpected coda to a story whose victim is commemorated annually.

Bryant spoke to Tyson, a Duke University senior research scholar, in 2007, when she was 72. The admission was not made public until now.

Bryant, who is still alive at an undisclosed location, told the author she could not remember other details about the fleeting encounter with Till, who went into the store to buy gum.

She did, however, express regret. "Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him." She said she "felt tender sorrow" for Till's mother, Mamie Till-Mobley.

Mamie Till Mobley weeps at her son's funeral in Chicago in 1955. Photograph: AP

Bryant's comments still leave questions over what precisely transpired in the grocery store but they do suggest its bloody and controversial aftermath marked her.

"That case went a long way toward ruining her life," Tyson told Vanity Fair. The author did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

Till's mother insisted on an open-casket funeral in Chicago and Jet magazine published photos of his corpse, sparking revulsion and galvanising the civil rights movement.

Rosa Parks said Till was on her mind in December 1955 when she refused give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, kickstarting nationwide protests.

The killing has been the subject of a play by the Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, a poem by the Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes, and a song by Bob Dylan.

Once acquitted of murder (the jury deliberated for barely an hour), Bryant's husband and Milam were protected against further prosecution by the double jeopardy rule and so admitted the crime to Look magazine.

"I'm no bully," Milam said. "I never hurt a nigger in my life. But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice ... 'Chicago boy,' I said, 'I'm tired of them sending your kind down here to stir up trouble, I'm going to make an example of you, just so everybody can know how me and my folks stand.'"

The case was reopened by the FBI in 2004 to see if any accomplices could be brought to justice. But in 2007, a grand jury decided there was insufficient evidence to bring charges.

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Woman at center of Emmett Till case tells author she fabricated testimony

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Carolyn Bryant disappeared from public view after alleging Till harassed her in a grocery store. Sixty-two years later, it has emerged her story was not true

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Mia Cortez

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KaNiya White

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Graci Workman

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JT Manes

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Collin Tobin

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Saturday, July 23

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Nailah Woods

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Monday, July 25
Kathya Morales

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Taylor Childress

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Theodore Miller

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luke

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Sam Coady

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Michael Enright

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Wynn Thompson

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Mary Mac Gilland

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Mae

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Ann Hayes Bubrig

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Anna Brady

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Avery Jones

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Ashlee Peden

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Sam Aaron

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Emma Mungle

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James Johnson

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Meryl Cochran

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Victoria González

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Lillian Brent

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Project by Stephen Brezinski. Block F.

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Annalissa Browning

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Buck Chancellor

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Ellie Ashley

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Sam Kitsinger

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Scarlett Seymour

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Lailah Owens

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Angelina Tran

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Julieanna Palazola

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Jake Floyd

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Ansley Mclure

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Leah Ferrari

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Will Seelig

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Parrish Smith

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Jack Lamanna