emmett till argumentative essay

The Murder of Emmett Till

Written by: Stewart Burns, Union Institute & University

By the end of this section, you will:.

• Explain how and why the civil rights movements developed and expanded from 1945 to 1960

Suggested Sequencing

Use this narrative with the Jackie Robinson Narrative, the Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Montgomery Bus Boycott Narrative, The Little Rock Nine Narrative, and the Rosa Parks’s Account of the Montgomery Bus Boycott (Radio Interview), April 1956 Primary Source to discuss the rise of the African American civil rights movement pre-1960.

When 14-year-old Chicago resident Emmett Louis Till was brutally murdered by white supremacists on August 28, 1955, the lynching caught the attention of the national media and the story was broadcast all over the country. One resident of Sumner, as told to a reporter from the  Nation , “nodded his head in the direction of the Tallahatchie [and pointed out]: ‘That river’s full of niggers’.”

More than 4,000 African Americans, overwhelmingly men, were lynched in the South between 1890 and 1930. Almost all were murdered for crimes they did not commit, mostly on false accusations of accosting or assaulting white women. Ninety years after slavery’s abolition, Till’s slaying was an example of this barbaric custom intended to preserve white supremacy and violate the rule of law and fundamental rights.

Although white supremacists in charge of congressional committees blocked Congress from passing anti-lynching legislation for decades, lynchings decreased overall after the Great Depression. However, this was not true in Mississippi, which always had more lynchings than other southern states. Black Mississippians were victimized by violence and kept politically powerless. During the post – World War II era, only about 5 percent of eligible blacks were registered to vote in the state. Courageous black citizens – such as George Lee and Lamar Smith, who strove to enfranchise fellow African Americans – were sometimes lynched. For example, Lee and Smith were lynched shortly before Till’s murder. At least half a dozen others were killed in the next decade, notably farmer Herbert Lee, father of nine; Medgar Evers of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); and young James Chaney, who was killed along with Mickey Schwerner and Andy Goodman, both white volunteers, during Mississippi’s Freedom Summer of 1964.

Pictured is the missing-persons poster released by the FBI showing photographs of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner (left to right), who were murdered in 1964 while in Mississippi attempting to help African Americans register to vote.

In the preceding decades, hundreds of thousands of black families had fled north to midwestern cities during the Great Migration, to escape the misery of life in segregated Mississippi. Many went to Chicago, including Emmett Till’s grandmother and mother, who was still a child at the time. Yet for many African Americans, this move did not mean escape from racially motivated violence. Segregation was not legalized in Chicago, but systemic racism and residential segregation were entrenched. Whites rioted again and again during the Great Migration that started with World War I, burning and bombing blacks’ homes in formerly white areas.

Till and his family avoided the worst of Chicago racism. Emmett knew what dangers lurked and not to cross racial lines. Born in June 1941, he was an only child and was raised by his young, single mother Mamie Till, with whom he had a close relationship. Short and stocky, he had contracted polio when he was six years old, which left him with a stutter. Yet he seemed a born entertainer, charismatic and funny. He loved baseball and was a churchgoing young man. He rode the train alone for an hour every Sunday to attend the Pentecostal church his family had founded. Till loved adventure and was thrilled when his Uncle Moses Wright invited him and two cousins to visit the fertile Mississippi Delta for a vacation of farming, fishing, and play. He convinced his reluctant mother to let him go.

Emmett Till, pictured here in 1954 in an image taken by his mother, was 14 years old when he travelled to Mississippi with his uncle.

From Mississippi, Till wrote his mother that he was having a great time. But one afternoon, while he was buying chewing gum at a country store in the tiny town of Money, Mississippi, the young man offended the pretty 21-year-old shopkeeper, allegedly smiling at her or being suggestive while whistling at her when he left. As she got her husband’s pistol from her car, Till reportedly wolf-whistled at her. Though his antics challenged the racial order of the Deep South, “nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him,” the woman admitted many years later.

Three days later, after midnight, her husband and his brother kidnapped Till from his uncle’s home. With a few white neighbors, they tortured and beat him savagely, shot him in the head, and threw him in the Tallahatchie River with a weight wired to his neck to make him sink and hide the evidence. His body somehow floated to the surface, however, and the killers were caught and eventually put on trial. In the meantime, Mamie Till demanded that her son’s mutilated corpse be displayed at his Chicago funeral in an open casket. “Let the world see what I’ve seen,” she insisted. More than 50,000 people did see what she had seen. Millions more were shocked when they saw pictures of the murdered, mutilated, and grotesquely disfigured boy in Life , Jet , and other national magazines.

At the trial, Mamie Till delivered emotional testimony, but the all-white jury set the men free, as often happened. White juries rarely enforced the rule of law in the segregated South, and whites accused of heinous crimes were usually acquitted. So Till’s killers confessed to the crime but were never punished, and Look magazine paid them for their story. Television, too, was increasingly making Northern whites more aware of the gross injustices suffered by African Americans in the South, such as the violence in Birmingham a few years later.

Because of Mamie Till’s determined efforts, the lynching and trial drew unprecedented national and world outrage over the murder of an African American, soiling America’s image in the Cold War against Communism, especially in developing nations. It washed out the optimism black Americans had felt a year earlier when the Supreme Court’s Brown decision outlawed segregated schools. During the fall of 1955, several hundred thousand joined rallies protesting Till’s murder in Chicago and other large cities. The growing coalition of churches, labor unions, and black organizations that marched helped launch the emerging civil rights movement, in conjunction with the simultaneous Montgomery Bus Boycott. Indeed, Rosa Parks was inspired, in part, by the Till murder to act against injustice when she made history on a bus in Montgomery just three months after his death. And, in the early 1960s, the lunch-counter protesters and freedom riders called themselves the “Emmett Till generation.” A preacher in the Albany, Georgia, movement declared he could “hear the blood of Emmett Till as it calls from the ground.”

The tragedy of Emmett Till echoes even today, in a room at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, where a display including Till’s casket has drawn multitudes to learn about the lynching, its impact on American history, and its lessons for American democracy. African Americans demonstrated during the civil rights movement for suffrage and equality, and for their inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Review Questions

1. What was the main reason African Americans left Mississippi for northern cities during the post World War II years?

• To escape poverty by getting jobs in factories
• To establish homes for family members who would soon follow
• To attend integrated universities
• To purchase property, which was illegal for African Americans in Mississippi

2. Why did the state trial jury acquit Emmett Till’s killers?

• The defense testimony was persuasive
• Many blacks were present in the courtroom
• White witnesses gave dishonest testimony
• Till’s body was never found

3. Most African American men who were lynched in Mississippi were

• guilty of an unspecified crime
• innocent but murdered to preserve the existing social system
• fugitives from neighboring states

4. The main reason Congress failed to pass anti-lynching laws was that

• Democrats opposed the power of a strong central government
• the argument had been made that murder was already illegal
• southern Democrats controlled a majority of Congressional committees and refused to consider anti-lynching legislation
• Democratic senators would filibuster anti-lynching legislation until it was withdrawn from consideration

5. As a result of the trial of Emmett Till’s killers and Till’s funeral,

• the social advancement of African Americans slowed for the remainder of the 1950s
• integrated schools in Chicago became segregated again
• the nation began to have more sympathy for the African American community
• anti-lynching laws were passed

Free Response Questions

• Explain the reasons Emmett Till’s mother insisted on an open casket at his funeral.
• Analyze the reasons lynching was pervasive in the mid-twentieth-century South.

AP Practice Questions

“Twas down in Mississippi Not so long ago When a young boy from Chicago Town Walk in a southern door This boy’s fateful tragedy We should all remember well The color of his skin was black And his name was Emmett Till Some men they dragged him to a barn And there they beat him up They said they had a reason But I disremember what They tortured him and did some things Too evil to repeat There was screamin’ sounds inside the barn There was laughin’ sound out on the street They dragged his body to a gulch Amidst a bloodred rain And they threw him in the waters wide To cease his screaming pain The reason that they killed him there And I’m sure it ain’t no lie He was a blackskin boy So he was born to die”

Bob Dylan, “The Death of Emmett Till,” © 1963

1. These lyrics most directly reflect the

• desire of southerners to maintain a segregated society
• victimization of African Americans in the South
• police brutality in northern communities
• harsh living conditions of African Americans in America

2. An immediate outcome of the incident described in the provided lyrics was the

• passage of new civil rights legislation
• revival of the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi
• race riots breaking out in northern cities
• injustice of a famous court trial

3. The life of African Americans in the South during the 1950s was much the same as

• the antebellum experience of slaves
• the life of African Americans in the post-Reconstruction South
• the experience of indentured servants in early colonial days
• the life of free African Americans in the antebellum North

Primary Sources

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “The Lynching of Emmett Till”. Press release. September 1, 1955. https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/naacp/the-civil-rights-era.html#obj9

Suggested Resources

Oates, Stephen B. Let the Trumpet Sound . NY: New American Library/Mentor, 1982.

Till-Mobley, Mamie. Death of Innocence . NY: Random House, 2003.

Tyson, Timothy B. The Blood of Emmett Till . NY: Simon & Schuster, 2017.

Whitfield, Stephen J. A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till . Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.

Related Content

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

In our resource history is presented through a series of narratives, primary sources, and point-counterpoint debates that invites students to participate in the ongoing conversation about the American experiment.

• HISTORY & CULTURE

How Emmett Till’s murder catalyzed the U.S. civil rights movement

A new film, Till, documents the decades-long pursuit of justice for the 14-year-old, whose 1955 killing galvanized a generation of activists.

On August 31, 1955, the mutilated body of 14-year-old Emmett Till was found floating in the Tallahatchie River.

Beaten and murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman, the teen was one of many Black men, women, and children who were lynched without recourse in the century after the Civil War. Till’s story woke the nation up to the violent reality of being Black in America.

His legacy endures today—thanks in part to his mother, Mamie Elizabeth Till, who showed the world the brutality of her son’s murder and fought tirelessly for justice. Although Emmett’s killers were never convicted, his name and face are still evoked in the ongoing struggle for equality. Their story is told in the new film Till .

This is how Emmett Till’s murder, and his fearless mother, helped ignite the American civil rights movement.

Who was Emmett Till and what happened to him?

Emmett “Bobo” Louis Till was just 14 years old when he was murdered. Family remember him as a fun loving, gentle person who loved practical jokes and making others laugh.

But Till grew up in a time when most public spaces were segregated and marriage between races was illegal. Black people were taught to speak to white people with their eyes turned to the ground and to address them with honorifics. Violations were often answered with beatings and other uses of force.

Raised in Chicago, Till was visiting relatives in the Mississippi Delta in the summer of 1955. On the evening of August 24, Till went with some cousins to the Bryant Grocery and Meat Market in Money, Mississippi.

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Carolyn Bryant Donham, the store owner’s wife, was tending the store that evening. Despite Bryant Donham’s later claims that Till repeatedly grabbed and harassed her in the store, court documents show Till paid two cents for bubble gum and left without incident. When Bryant Donham left the store, Till whistled— his cousins say it wasn’t directed at her, but knew this would cause trouble and drove away.

Over the next three days , Bryant Donham’s husband Roy terrorized two other Black teenagers mistaken for Till: one in the Bryant store, and another walking in the road, who was thrown in the back of Bryant’s van before he was released.

On August 28 at 2:30 a.m., Bryant, his brother J.W. Milam, and at least one other person went to the Wright home looking for the boy who had “done the talking” at the grocery store. They woke Till up and ordered him to get dressed, threatening his relatives and refusing their offer of payment in exchange for letting Till go.

( A new trail marks some of the most significant landmarks of the civil rights movement .)

The next day, Leflore County Sheriff’s Department arrested both Bryant and Milam and charged them with kidnapping. They admitted to taking Till but claimed they released him.

Two days later, Till’s naked body was found floating in the Tallahatchie River with a 75-pound cotton gin fan tied to his neck with barbed wire. His face was disfigured nearly beyond recognition.  

Bryant and Milam were indicted on charges of murder.

What happened to Emmett Till’s killers?

In September 1955, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant were tried for murder before a jury of all white men in a Tallahatchie County court. A Black teen named Willy Reed risked his life to testify that he saw the men drive Till to a farm where Reed heard them beat Till mercilessly in the barn.

The jury acquitted Milam and Bryant after deliberating for only 67 minutes. One juror told a reporter they wouldn’t have taken so long if they hadn’t “stopped to drink pop.” In November, the brothers also escaped kidnapping charges.

The men later confessed in a story they sold to Look magazine that they took Till to the Tallahatchie River, where they shot him in the head and pushed his body into the water.

No one else was ever indicted or prosecuted for involvement in Till’s kidnapping or murder.  

How did Emmett Till’s murder catalyze the civil rights movement?

When Mamie Till learned her son was kidnapped, she gathered her family and called up newspapers the same day. By the next morning, she had gotten the NAACP and local and state politicians involved. This early publicity proved critical.

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Her son’s casket arrived in Chicago locked with the seal of the state of Mississippi, but Mamie Till fought for the undertaker to open it. Once she saw her son, she made a monumental decision to have an open casket funeral. She famously told the funeral director: “Let the people see what I’ve seen.”

( Who was Medgar Evers ?)

Tens of thousands of people came to see Emmett Till’s body. Jet magazine photographer David Jackson was among them, taking the photo of Till in his coffin that brought America face-to-face with the murder. Jackson, along with journalists Simeon Booker from Jet and Moses Newson of the Tri-State Defender , made the case national news.

Till’s horrific murder inspired what was later dubbed the “Emmett Till Generation” of Southern Black youth who joined meetings, sit-ins, and marches to demand their equal treatment under the law.

It also inspired the leaders of the movement. One hundred days after Till’s murder, Rosa Parks sat in the front of a Montgomery bus and refused to get up as it filled with white passengers, violating Alabama’s bus segregation laws. Reverend Jesse Jackson said in 1988 that Rosa “thought about going to the back of the bus. But then she thought about Emmett Till and she couldn’t do it.”

( How Martin Luther King, Jr.’s view on human rights inspires us today .)

Martin Luther King, Jr. , one of the most prominent leaders of the civil rights movement, also invoked Till’s case in several speeches. He delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech on the anniversary of Till’s murder at the 1963 March on Washington.

What is Till’s legacy today?

David Jackson’s powerful photograph of Emmett Till’s disfigured body continues to resonate: It has been linked with videos of Rodney King’s beating in 1991, Philando Castile’s fatal shooting at a traffic stop in 2016, George Floyd ’s murder in 2020, and countless other racial injustices that have occurred in the decades since Till’s murder.

The racism that led to Till’s killing is still very much alive today, as hate groups have more than doubled in the last two decades.The memorial sign that marks where Till’s body was pulled from the river was riddled with bullet holes and had to be replaced with one covered in bullet proof glass.

( The struggle for voting rights continue decades after the March on Washington .)

Today, there’s still a push to bring charges against Carolyn Bryant Donham, one of the last living people connected to the case. In 2017, Duke University historian Timothy B. Tyson released a book in which Bryant Donham allegedly admitted lying about her interaction in the store with Till. But in December 2021, the Department of Justice announced   it closed its investigation after it was unable to confirm that she had recanted her statement. In August 2022, a Mississippi grand jury also declined to indict Bryant Donham, now in her 80s.

Despite Mamie Till’s best efforts, justice for Emmett Till remains elusive.

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Emmett Till’s Enduring Legacy

Here is a look at who he was, the outrage at his murder and the acquittal of his killers, and how he has shaped the civil rights movement in America.

By Adeel Hassan

In late summer 1955, Mamie Till chose to lay the body of her only child, Emmett, in an open coffin, believing that “the whole nation had to bear witness to this” — this Black child of Chicago who had been murdered and mutilated by white men in Mississippi.

“They had to see what I had seen,” she wrote in her memoir.

Hundreds of thousands of mourners lined up to witness for themselves the horror wrought on the 14-year-old victim , and many, many more saw it when photographs of his body were published in Jet magazine.

From that moment until today, Emmett Till has shaped the civil rights movement in America. Here is a look at who he was, the outrage at his murder and the acquittal of his killers, and his enduring legacy.

What was Emmett’s childhood like?

Emmett Louis Till was born on July 25, 1941, in Chicago. While Emmett, who was nicknamed Bobo, was an only child, he lived with his mother, grandparents and cousins in a middle-class Black neighborhood on the South Side. A younger cousin, Ollie Gordon, said Emmett “was a jokester” and “loved to make people laugh.”

As a child he contracted polio, which led to a speech impediment. His mother taught him how to whistle, to help him overcome his stutter.

Emmett’s mother was a 2-year-old in 1924 when she and her family moved from Mississippi to the Chicago area as part of the Great Migration.

Emmett never knew his father, Louis Till, who joined the Army and was accused of raping two women and killing another in Italy in World War II. He was executed in 1945 at age 23, and his military record was leaked before the trial of Emmett’s killers.

How did Emmett die?

In late August 1955, Emmett left his home to visit relatives in the Mississippi Delta.

On the evening of Aug. 24, after picking cotton with his cousins, Emmett went to a store in Money, Miss., that was run by a white couple in their 20s, Roy and Carolyn Bryant. When Emmett went inside to buy bubble gum, Ms. Bryant was working alone.

Emmett’s cousin Simeon Wright, 13, and Ruthie Mae Crawford, another Black teenager, said Emmett passed the money for the bubble gum into Ms. Bryant’s hand, instead of leaving it on the counter, as white Mississippians generally expected African Americans to do. Ms. Bryant stormed out to get a pistol from her car, she later testified. Simeon said that Emmett then whistled at Ms. Bryant, and that their group became afraid and left quickly.

Four days later, Mr. Bryant and his half brother, J.W. Milam, both Army veterans, abducted Emmett at gunpoint from the Wright family home. The men took him to a barn about a 45-minute drive away and tortured him.

The men shot Emmett in the head, tied a 75-pound cotton-gin fan to his neck with barbed wire, and tossed his body into the Tallahatchie River. His mutilated corpse was fished out of the water on Aug. 31.

The remains could be identified only by the silver ring on one finger. Emmett had been pistol-whipped; both his wrists were broken; the back of his skull was crushed; other parts of the skull were crumbled; and one eye was gouged out, while the other hung from its optic nerve. The sheriff sought to bury him immediately.

What happened at his funeral?

As soon as Mamie Till heard that her son had been kidnapped, she began harnessing the political and cultural power of Black Chicago. A large crowd was on hand when the train carrying Emmett’s body arrived.

“You didn’t die for nothing,” she said as the body was transferred to a hearse.

The Chicago Defender estimated that 250,000 people attended during the four days of public viewings.

The close-up photographs of Emmett’s face and body, and the television coverage of his funeral, turned a local murder into a global symbol of American injustice.

A few weeks after Emmett’s funeral, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Alabama, saying that she found herself unable to move because she was thinking about Emmett.

Emmett’s mother became a teacher and a civil rights activist. “She cried from the day of Emmett’s murder to the day she died,” Ms. Gordon said.

Emmett and his mother, who died in 2003 , are buried in Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., a Chicago suburb.

What happened at the trial?

Historians believe that several white men were involved in the torture and murder of Emmett, though only Mr. Bryant and Mr. Milam were put on trial. The defense’s argument, by the end, was that Emmett was still alive and hiding out in Chicago or elsewhere, and that the N.A.A.C.P. had put a different body in the river.

Each Black witness for the prosecution, including Emmett’s mother, took great risks to testify. Two Black witnesses were jailed in another county to keep them from appearing at the trial.

Ms. Bryant testified that Emmett accosted her and made crude remarks ( claims that she would recant more than 50 years later). After five days and an hour of jury deliberation, the two men were acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury; the acquittal meant they could not be retried, even after they later admitted in a Look magazine interview that they had committed the murder. After the trial, a grand jury chose not to indict them on kidnapping charges, even though they had initially told the authorities that they kidnapped and released Emmett.

Tallahatchie County issued a formal apology in 2007 for the 1955 acquittals. “The Emmett Till case was a terrible miscarriage of justice,” it said in part. “We state candidly and with deep regret the failure to effectively pursue justice.”​

What was the Emmett Till generation?

The Black Americans who grew up in the 1950s organized nearly all of the mass meetings, sit-ins and marches that accelerated the civil rights movement, calling themselves “the Emmett Till generation.”

“I realized that this could just as easily have been a story about me or my brother,” Muhammad Ali said.

Representative John Lewis of Georgia wrote that he had been “shaken to the core” by Emmett’s death. As was Representative Bobby L. Rush of Illinois, who was 9 years old and living in the Deep South at the time of the killing.

“When the photograph from Emmett Till’s funeral ran in Jet magazine, I will never forget how my mother gathered us around the living room coffee table, put the magazine in the middle, pointed to it, and said, ‘This is why I brought my boys up out of Albany, Ga.,’” he said in an interview. “That photograph shaped my consciousness as a Black man in America. The course of my life would not have been the same had I not been exposed, as a child, to the horror of the photograph.”

Were his killers ever held accountable?

No. In May 2004, the F.B.I. opened an investigation to see if others were involved, and Emmett’s body was later exhumed for an autopsy, which had not previously been performed. In 2007, a state grand jury in Mississippi declined to indict anyone else.

Mr. Bryant, who spent time in prison for food stamp fraud, died in 1994. Mr. Milam also spent time in jail, for using a stolen credit card and, in a separate case, for assault and battery. He died in 1980.

What about Carolyn Bryant?

The local authorities initially issued a warrant for Ms. Bryant’s arrest on kidnapping charges, but it was never served. A grand jury in Greenwood, Miss., declined to indict her in 2007.

The Justice Department announced in December 2021 that it had closed an investigation into Ms. Bryant, who was quoted in a 2017 book, “The Blood of Emmett Till,” as saying that she had lied when she claimed that Emmett had physically accosted her and had made sexual advances.

The author, who told The New York Times he had “documented her words carefully,” provided one recording to the F.B.I. that did not include a recantation, officials said. The department said it could not pursue perjury charges without corroborating the book’s claim; Ms. Bryant’s daughter-in-law said she never changed her story.

Ms. Bryant, more recently known as Carolyn Bryant Donham, died at 88 on Tuesday. Her death was confirmed on Thursday by Megan LeBoeuf, the chief investigator for the Calcasieu Parish coroner’s office in Louisiana.

What has Emmett’s family been doing?

Some of his relatives are trying to keep pressure on law enforcement officials to charge Ms. Bryant . “We hope that they’re not waiting for her to pass on,” said Emmett’s cousin Deborah Watts, who leads the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation , which supports other families whose civil rights have been violated.

Another cousin, the Rev. Wheeler Parker, the only remaining witness to the kidnapping, is helping lead an effort to preserve related sites in Chicago and Mississippi , like the church that held Emmett’s funeral, the barn where he was tortured and the courthouse, so that they might form a national park or monument.

What is his legacy today?

The photographs and TV coverage of Emmett’s body were a precursor to the 1960s’ scenes of officers turning dogs and water cannons on peaceful civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham and Selma, Ala., the police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1991, and the smartphone video of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis in 2020.

Emmett’s name has in some ways become a byword for African American boys and men who are killed by people in positions of authority, such that victims are sometimes referred to as “the new Emmett Till.”

After learning that there would be no state indictment of the police officer who fatally shot a Black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014, a crowd gathered in front of the White House, chanting: “How many Black kids will you kill? Michael Brown , Emmett Till!”

And Mr. Rush introduced a bill, called the Emmett Till Antilynching Act , that would make lynching a federal hate crime.

“The metaphorical lynching rope that killed Emmett Till also killed George Floyd and countless others,” Mr. Rush said. “It extends throughout the history of Black people in America, and it has strangled our nation, preventing America from realizing the promise of its potential.”

Adeel Hassan is a reporter and editor on the National Desk. He is a founding member of Race/Related , and much of his work focuses on identity and discrimination. He started the Morning Briefing for NYT Now and was its inaugural writer. He also served as an editor on the International Desk.  More about Adeel Hassan

The Trial of the Murderers of Emmett Till

Ceiling fans stirred the sweltering air deep in the Delta on Friday, September 23, 1955. Twelve white men exited the jury room in the Tallahatchie County courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi.  During the last several days, this all-white jury had heard testimony in a murder trial. Two white men, J.W. Milam and his half-brother Roy Bryant, were charged with the murder of Emmett Till, age fourteen, an African American who had come South from Chicago to visit family. The courtroom was jammed, as it had been all week, with more than 200 hundred observers, the majority white, attending. Dozens of reporters were also present, filing stories with both regional and national newspapers. The sheriff segregated the black reporters, requiring them to cram around a folding table in a corner while the white press was seated close to the judge and jury.

The courtroom crowd indicated there was something unique about the proceeding. It was the fact it was being held at all. The state of Mississippi rarely investigated, let alone prosecuted, the murder of blacks by whites. Between 1882 and 1951, white mobs lynched 534 African Americans in Mississippi without fearing arrest, trial, or conviction. “That river’s full of [blacks],” a white man matter-of-factly told a reporter for The Nation , referring to the Tallahatchie River, where Emmett Till’s bloated, mutilated body had been found.

The arrest and trial of Milam and Bryant was an exceptional occurrence. It also appeared to be a fair proceeding. Reporters praised Judge Curtis L. Swango for his even-handed oversight. The prosecutor Gerald Chatham had put together a rock-solid case, producing several witnesses who saw the accused kidnap Till and heard the merciless beating the boy endured before he was shot in the head. In his summation, Chatham reminded the jurors that the defendants had freely admitted to seizing Till from his uncle’s home, where he was staying. “They murdered that boy, and to hide that dastardly, cowardly act, they tied barbed wire to his neck and to a heavy [cotton] gin fan and dumped him in the river for the turtles and the fish.” But would an impartial judge and overwhelming evidence of guilt matter?

“Gentlemen of the jury, do you have a verdict?” Judge Swango asked. “We have,” the foreman answered, and then delivered the verdict.

Emmett Till was a baseball-loving teenager with lots of friends. He liked to tell jokes. Polio, which had afflicted him at age six, left him with a stutter and weak ankles, but otherwise he had recovered fully. His mother, Mamie Bradley, initially resisted letting her only child, nicknamed Bobo, travel to Mississippi with two cousins who also lived in Chicago. She had been born in Tallahatchie County. Her family moved to Argo, Illinois, just south of Chicago, in the 1920s. They were part of an ongoing migration that brought approximately six million black southerners to destinations in the North and West between 1910 and 1970. Chicago became known as a promised land, but the title belied the realities of northern racial discrimination. Chicago was one of the nation’s most racially segregated cities, the separation enforced not just by realty, banking, and municipal practices, but also by violence. “Bombings are a nightly occurrence” whenever blacks move into all-white neighborhoods, a city agency reported in 1954. In one incident, 2,000 whites mobbed an apartment building after a black couple bought it.

As a result of residential segregation, Emmett attended an all-black public school. After his murder, some commentators suggested that because he had grown up in the North, he wasn’t familiar with the customs of white supremacy, leading to the seemingly innocuous action that led to his violent death. Yet as historian Timothy B. Tyson notes, coming from “one of the toughest and most segregated cities in America,” the young man “did not have to go to Mississippi to learn that white folks could take offense even at the presence of a black child, let alone one who violated local customs.”

Emmett’s “violation” of local custom occurred on August 24, 1955. A carload of teens, including his two cousins, drove to a small store in the town of Money. Roy Bryant owned the store. That day, his twenty-one-year-old wife Carolyn was minding the register. The store catered to black customers, some of whom were socializing outside when the car arrived.

Emmett and one of his cousins went in to buy candy. What transpired next, in a mere moment, set in motion the events leading to his horrific murder. Emmett may have brushed Carolyn Bryant’s hand when he gave her money for his purchase. He may have addressed her familiarly, may even have asked if she would go on a date. After decades of silence about the incident, Bryant admitted she couldn’t remember exactly what happened. But she did remember, with certainty, what had not happened in the store. Emmett had not seized her hand. He had not chased her down the counter. He had not grabbed her around the waist with both hands. And he had never said “You needn’t be afraid of me. [I’ve], well —- with white women before.” A black witness who watched the interaction between Emmett and Carolyn through the store’s window confirmed that none of this happened.

At trial, however, Bryant claimed Emmett had chased and grabbed her and spoken coarsely. Although Judge Swango dismissed the jury during her testimony, her husband and brother-in-law’s defense attorneys were able to present these lies to observers and the press, knowing that word would reach the jurors. A black man had violated an ironclad rule of white supremacy—he had (allegedly) propositioned a white woman.

Word of the incident at the store spread, reaching Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam. Early on the morning of Sunday, August 28, the two men, armed with .45 automatic pistols, pounded on the door of Emmett’s uncle, Moses Wright, a preacher and sharecropper. They demanded to see the “boy from Chicago” who “did the smart talking up at Money.” Despite Wright’s efforts to placate the angry white men, they took Emmett to their truck and drove away. At the trial, Wright took the witness stand and identified both Bryant and Milam as the kidnappers, calmly stating “There he is” when the prosecutor asked him to point out Milam. The tension in the courtroom was palpable: a black man testifying against a white man in a murder case risked being killed. When asked how he found the courage to do that, Wright replied, “Some things are worse than death. If a man lives, he must still live with himself.”

Had H.C. Strider, the sheriff of Tallahatchie County, had his way, Wright would never have taken the stand, for there would have been no trial. When Emmett’s body was found in the Tallahatchie River on August 31, Strider demanded the body be buried that day even as he was claiming the authority to investigate the murder itself. The courage, fortitude, and foresight of Mamie Bradley stymied the sheriff’s blatant attempt to cover up the crime. Though she had been consumed with fear and dread for three days at the news her son had not been seen since two white men kidnapped him, and she had just learned her dead son had been found, she insisted the body be sent to Chicago for burial. She had already notified Chicago police and press about Emmett’s disappearance. The arrival of her son’s sealed casket in Chicago on September 2 thus brought a huge crowd, including reporters, to the station. As Bradley explained decades later, despite being in mourning for her son, she “took the privacy of my own grief and turned it into a public issue, a political issue, one which set in motion the dynamic force that ultimately led to a generation of social and legal progress for this country.” Then she overcame the strenuous objections of the undertaker and demanded he open the casket so that she and the world could see what had been done to her son. Photographs of Emmett’s swollen, shattered head and body, which the undertakers couldn’t repair, received national and international attention. Over several days, an estimated 250,000 people viewed the casket (topped with an airtight glass lid) at the funeral home. Had Mamie Bradly not fatefully decided to gain custody of her son’s body and present the shocking evidence of how he died, the murderers would never have ended up in court.

“Not guilty!” the jury foreman announced to Judge Swango and the courtroom. Confident of their acquittal, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam had lit cigars before the jury returned. They posed for photographs outside with their families, smiling and accepting congratulations.

Mamie Bradley, Moses Wright and their families and supporters were not surprised by the verdict, either. Incontrovertible evidence and an impartial judge weren’t enough to override allegiance to white supremacy in the Delta. The jurors never intended to let the evidence dictate their vote. That their “deliberation” took just over an hour was a pretense—the sheriff had told them to make it “look good.” But Bradley, among many others, resolved that her son’s murder should be a catalyst for civil rights. Black congressman Charles C. Diggs (D-Mich.), who went to Mississippi to observe the trial, organized a protest in Detroit two days after the verdict that drew 4,000 participants. The event raised more than $14,000 for the NAACP. Bradley addressed a crowd of 10,000 in Chicago, then traveled to New York to speak with NAACP leader Roy Wilkins and the venerable civil rights activist and labor leader A. Philip Randolph. Across the North and South, a coalition was cohering, bringing together labor unions, clergy and their congregations, politicians, and young activists, to make sure Mississippi did not, once again, get away with the murder of a black man for violating the customs of white supremacy. 

And not just Mississippi. To believe that Till’s murder was the unfortunate result of the peculiar, violent ways of a particular area meant overlooking the undeniable existence of racial discrimination and violence across America. Although the modern civil rights movement was well underway before Emmett Till’s murder, Mamie Bradley’s refusal to let that crime be covered up brought renewed urgency and resolution to the movement. With Mamie Bradley by his side, Randolph proposed a march on Washington to demand action from the federal government to protect black citizens from the kind of violence that had taken Till’s life. Such a march did take place, as did several others, eventually culminating in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Passage of the Civil Rights Act soon followed.

The United States has made notable progress in fulfilling the “social and political progress” Mamie Bradley hoped her son’s murder would be a catalyst for. Yet crimes motivated by racial bias still occur frequently, as evidenced by the FBI’s just-released report Hate Crime Statistics , 2020 , with African Americans being more likely to be targeted because of their race than any other group.

Bibliography:

Equal Justice Initiative, “FBI Reports Hate Crimes at Highest Level in 12 Years,” September 9, 2021.https://eji.org/news/fbi-reports-hate-crimes-at-highest-level-in-12-years/

Mabie Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson, Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime

That Changed America (New York: Random House, 2003)

Timothy B. Tyson, The Blood of Emmett Till (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017)

Stephen J. Whitfield, A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till (New York: Free Press,

1988; reprint, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991)

Silence in the Storm: The New York Times' Coverage of the Holocaust During WWII

The elaine race massacre, join your fellow teachers in exploring america’s history..

• Civil Rights

Emmett Till’s Death Could Easily Have Been Forgotten. Here’s How It Became a Civil Rights Turning Point Instead

T here are many startling things about the Emmett Till case . But, 63 years after his death, perhaps the most startling of all is the fact that Americans know his name, even recognize his face.

Back in the summer of 1955, when J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant savagely beat the 14-year-old Chicago kid, shot him in the head, weighted his body down and dumped it in the Tallahatchie River, they thought that was the end of it.

Till had whistled at Bryant’s wife Carolyn, or spoken suggestively to her, or laid hands on her — the story kept changing. It was the classic Southern tale of a black male accused of violating the region’s taboo against interracial intimacy. Literally thousands of African American men were lynched under such accusations.

The civil rights leader Aaron Henry once remarked that the most surprising thing about the Till story was not its horror but the fact that white people even noticed. After all, black boys had been lynched for decades with impunity. African American bodies were not supposed to reemerge, and they certainly were not supposed to stir national and even international outrage.

But this one did. Killing Till and dumping his body did not end the story, quite the contrary. Thirty-eight articles in TIME magazine have discussed Emmett Till since 1955. Daily newspaper databases reveal even more extensive coverage. In the New York Times alone Till appears in 600 articles.

Most of the Till coverage came in the first six months: The discovery of the body; the deeply emotional funeral in Chicago (to which 100,000 South Siders came to pay their last respects); the indictments and trial, when nationally famous reporters swarmed tiny Sumner, Miss., and television cameras caught the scene outside the courthouse. Day after day, Till was headline news.

But then the story disappeared. There were few articles in the press commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Till slaying, even fewer on the 25th. Early histories of the Civil Rights Movement barely mentioned him.

More accurately, the Till story became segregated, living on among African Americans, not whites.

Young black activists, who sometimes referred to themselves as “the Emmett Till Generation,” carried his memory into their struggles of the ’60s. John Lewis, Anne Moody and Muhammad Ali all recalled their shock at seeing Till’s funeral photos in Jet magazine, Emmett in his coffin, his face a grizzly ruin. They recalled too how the story gave them grim determination to change things. The photos became part of “Jim Crow wisdom,” visual lessons parents gave children about growing up African American.

Seared though they were into the memory of the Till Generation, very few whites saw those pictures. No mainstream newspapers or magazines published them in 1955, or for three decades thereafter.

That changed in 1987 when the photos reemerged, most prominently in the popular documentary Eyes on the Prize , which began its history of the Civil Rights Movement with Emmett Till. Rather than avoid Till’s face, Eyes on the Prize lingered on it. Only then did the truism that Emmett Till’s martyrdom launched the Freedom Struggle start to take hold among whites.

What about the Till story today? Look more closely at those 600 Times articles focused on Emmett Till. One-third of them appeared in the last five years, and it is roughly the same for other newspapers and magazines. Histories, novels, television reports, news stories, websites, on-line publications, historical markers, scholarly essays, documentaries—all have come with growing frequency this century.

Current events brought Emmett Till’s name back. Oprah Winfrey called the Till memorial in Washington’s new African American History Museum “profound,” and added that Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Laquan MacDonald gave us “a new Emmett Till every week.” A few months later, LeBron James held a press conference when someone painted an ethnic slur on his front gate. The first thing James talked about was Mamie Till Bradley’s refusal to be silent in the face of her son’s murder. Then late last year, Dave Chappelle ended his comedy special by discussing Carolyn Bryant’s confession that Emmett Till did nothing to deserve his fate.

This year alone, Emmett Till was in the headlines again when someone shot up the historical marker where his body was dumped, then again when Carolyn Bryant recanted her recantation that she lied about Till back in 1955, and again when the FBI announced it would reopen the case.

Why so much attention to a story once mostly forgotten? Because it speaks to our growing awareness that racism is on the rise, that it did not disappear with slavery or Jim Crow, that we never became a “post-racial” society.

Till’s is a story we can grasp, not of unnamed millions but of a single knowable martyr to racial hatred. The sadism of his killers, the horrific beating they inflicted on the boy still shock us today. The Till case also reminds us of our long history of racism in criminal justice, from policing all the way through trial and incarceration. His fate reminds us too that white supremacy was never just a set of ideas and opinions, but a charter for violence inflicted on living bodies.

Above all, the face of Emmett Till embodies America’s tragic racial history, the good-looking lad smiling on Christmas Day, that same innocent face smashed to a hideous death mask on the long lonely Mississippi night of his murder.

Racism is the shape-shifting demon that America wrestles once again. Lies proliferate about minorities, the kind that got young Emmett Till lynched. So we continue to retell his story, to probe its meanings, to expose and explain what happened. Just as Anne Frank became the young martyr whose story helps us grasp Nazi horror, so Emmett Till’s is the face that reveals white supremacist depravity. His ghost haunts us because his murder exposes racism’s bloodthirsty heart.

And so, 63 years later, we know his face, we know his name. In his lynching lies shame, in remembering it lies hope.

Elliott Gorn is Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago. He is author of Let the People See: The Story of Emmett Till available now from Oxford University Press.

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Eng 101 - Argumentative Essay - the Murder Trial of Emmett Till

Corneisha Carter

Mrs. Walters- Union Parish High School

English 101

December 8, 2015

The Murder Trial of Emmett Till

        The death of fourteen year old Emmett Till triggered the American civil rights movement and led to a worldwide discussion. In the article, “The Emmett Till Murder Trial,” the author Douglas Linder states Emmett Till went to town with family members; he then asked a female Caucasian worker named Carolyn for some candy that was inside the counter. It is recorded that Till grabbed Carolyn’s hand and told her, “It’s okay; I’ve dated white women before.” Feeling offended, Carolyn went home and told her husband about the incident that occurred in the store. Her husband Roy Bryant and brother in law J.W. Milam decided to kidnap Emmett and teach him a lesson. Instead of just teaching him a harmless lesson, these two men kidnapped, beat, murdered, and dumped his lifeless body into the Tallahatchie River. His body was seen, feet sticking out of the water by a young man who was fishing. The body was identified as fourteen year old Emmett Till. His mother insisted on having an open casket funeral to show what the two men had done to her son. Over 50,000 people came to view the body of Till and were shocked and furious at what they seen. The trial for the murder of Emmett Till was invalid and his family did not get their justice due to the segregations of the court and the jury, the men who beat and murdered Emmett Till deserved to go to jail or face the death penalty for their actions.

        With all the evidence pointing at the two brothers, their trial was underway. There was no doubt that Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam murdered Emmett Till. There was enough evidence given by witnesses and physical evidence to send both men to jail for the rest of their lives. There was one thing though; there was an all Caucasian jury. At the time African Americans were not registered voters and could not serve as a juror. Each of the jurors already had a “fixed opinion” on the case.  During the jury selection, the county sheriff assisted the defense team, advising lawyers as to which the jurors would agree with the defense and also seem safe. The jury had already made their decision before the trial even started. One of the defense attorneys said, “After the jury was chosen, and first-year law student could have won this case” (Linder). The defense team attorney basically was saying after seeing this jury anybody could have won this case if they were white. No matter how much evidence was presented the two men would get away with murder.  The mother of Emmett Till would not get the justice her and her family deserved or get to see her sons murderers put away.

        During the trial, both Bryant and Milam admitted to taking Emmett from his uncles house, but claimed they let him go in Money, Mississippi. There was a surprise witness that places Bryant’s vehicle at the barn. Wille Reed testified that around 6:00 a.m., he had seen Bryant’s truck with four white men riding in the cab and three black men riding in the back of the truck. He told the courtroom, he seen an eighth person, a black boy (presumably Emmett) seated in the bed of the truck. He stated that minutes later he heard “hollering” and “whipping” coming from the barn. In the article “The trial of Roy Bryant and J.W. Wilam” by the American Express newsletter,   He also said J. W. Milam had come out of the shed, donning a .45 pistol on his hip, and asked Reed whether he had heard anything. Reed told him no. In later interviews, Willis Reed identified the four men he saw entering the barn were Bryant, Milam, and two black men, including Levi “Too Tight” Collins. Even with this information given to the officers, nothing was done to get to the bottom of what really happened to Emmett.  The testimony of Willis Reed was enough to charge Bryant and Milam with kidnapping charges. Milam and Bryant described Emmett as defiant, even during his pistol whipping in the barn. Another piece of evidence presenting during the case was according to the article, “The Emmett Till murder trial” by Douglas Linder, J.W. gave a confession to murdering Emmett Till. Milam clearly stated, “When a nigger gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he is tired of living. I’m likely to kill him. I stood there in that shed and listened to that nigger throw his poison at me, and I just made up my mind (Linder). This statement was another piece of evidence that proves Bryant and Milam murdered Till. The question that is still unanswered is why these men weren’t sentenced to death.

        Another piece of evidence provided during the case, was from an FBI report given by a witness who saw Bryant and Milam at Milam’s store shortly after they murdered Emmett Till. As the witness noticed the blood dripping from the truck and pointed it out to J.W., he said he killed a deer. After being told it wasn’t deer season, the body was unveiled and Milam stated, “This Is what happens to smart niggers” (Linder).

        In the article by Douglas Linder, the author states Sherriff Strider was a big friend to the defendants, he tried to help Bryant and Milam get out of jail by giving his own statement in the case. That he doubted the body pulled from the Tallahatchie River was that of Emmett Till.  Strider told reporters "the body looked more like that of a grown man instead of a young boy" and had probably been in the river "four or five days"--too long to have been the body of Till, abducted just three days earlier.  Strider expressed his opinion that Till "is still alive."  The theory for a murder defense, with the now obvious support of the County's sheriff, had been laid (Linder).

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Emmett Till — A Notorious Hate Crime in American History: “The Blood of Emmett Till”

A Notorious Hate Crime in American History: "The Blood of Emmett Till"

• Categories: American History Crime and Punishment Emmett Till

About this sample

Words: 830 |

Published: Sep 1, 2020

Words: 830 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

A Fresh Perspective on a Historic Tragedy

References:.

• Tyson, T. B. (2017). The blood of Emmett Till. Simon & Schuster.
• Whitfield, S. J. (1991). A death in the Delta: The story of Emmett Till. JHU Press.
• Beito, D. T., Beito, L., & Royster, L. (2009). Goldwater, the John Birch Society, and Me. The Independent Review, 14(4), 497-525.
• Branch, T. (1988). Parting the waters: America in the King years, 1954-63. Simon & Schuster.
• Houck, D. W., & Dixon, D. E. (2008). Rhetoric as currency: Hoover, Thurman, and the 1957 civil rights bill. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 11(3), 349-377.

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The Blood of Emmett Till

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Summary and Study Guide

The Blood of Emmett Till is a 2017 nonfiction book by Timothy B. Tyson . The text provides an account of the 1955 murder of a young African American boy named Emmet Till. Till was visiting Mississippi from Chicago, where his parents had emigrated during the Great Migration of the 1920s. They sought employment in the North, but they also sought to escape from the terror exercised by whites on blacks in the South.

The Civil War ended slavery, but it did not end white racism or the idea common among Southern whites that blacks should submit to white rule. During Reconstruction (1865 to 1877), Northern whites sought to change the South’s racial caste system by making free blacks more self-sufficient and independent of whites. They also made it possible for blacks to participate in government for the first time and to vote. Southern whites fought back, and after Reconstruction, they instituted rules collectively known as Jim Crow Laws that made black Americans into second-class citizens who were deprived of their rights and forced to live in menial circumstances. The doctrine of white supremacy was used to justify this continuation of slavery; according to its assumptions, blacks had to defer to whites or be treated with violence. Systematic lynching was used to keep blacks in line.

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During the New Deal of the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt made blacks part of his political coalition. They also served during World War II. A new sense of power and dignity led many blacks to advocate for change in the South after the war. They began to demand political and civil rights, including the right to vote. They were prevented from doing so by poll taxes, which many blacks could not afford, as well as by overt terrorism. A system of 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. The decision alerted the South that change was coming but it also provoked a reaction. Southerners formed Citizens’ Councils to resist black attempts to bring about change in Southern culture. Tyson describes the culture of racism in the South and argues that the legacy of racism partly accounts for the murder of Emmett Till .

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While visiting Mississippi, Till made the mistake of ignoring Southern customs regarding the proper behavior of blacks toward whites. He touched the hand of a white woman while handing her money for a purchase, and he apparently spoke to her in a flirtatious manner. She took offense and told her husband, who, with the help of friends, kidnapped Till, beat him, and murdered him. They disposed of the body in a river, but the body reappeared several days later; the murderers were arrested and put on trial. A jury of all white men acquitted them of the crime, even though the evidence against them was compelling. In the South at the time, it was taken for granted that a white jury would never convict white men for killing a black person.

Till’s mother turned the murder into a tool for organizing blacks to oppose white racism in the South. She decided that Till’s coffin would be open so that a global audience could see his terrible wounds. Tyson argues that Emmett Till’s death had a profound effect on the civil rights movement. It galvanized support and convinced many that racism in the South had to end.

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Set against the backdrop of Mo’orea and New York City, two teenagers—Pia, uprooted from her island home, and Athyna, struggling with the weight of responsibility—navigate privilege, isolation, and societal inequalities, culminating in an insightful exploration of nation, race, and family.

Omotara James (GSAS ’19), Song of My Softening (‎Alice James Books)

This anthology delves into themes of tenderness, vulnerability, and honesty. Through James’ lens, readers are offered a raw portrayal of perseverance, unadorned and unapologetic—a reflection for those navigating cultures beyond their own. Within these poems, echoes of resilience resound, painting a vivid picture of multifaceted survival.

Toby Lloyd (GSAS ’15), Fervor (‎Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster)

An eerie and unforgettable tale unfolds as a tightly-knit Jewish family in London finds themselves on the edge of despair when they harbor suspicions that their daughter possesses witch-like abilities.

January Gill O'Neil (GSAS ’97), Glitter Road (‎CavanKerry Press)

In Glitter Road, the narrative reflects on the dissolution of a marriage, experiences of loss, and the emergence of a new relationship amidst the changing seasons of Mississippi. Delving into the intertwined histories of Emmett Till and the narrator, the book illuminates how their stories intersect and the profound impact of race that connects us all.

Gregory Pardlo (GSAS ’01), Spectral Evidence (‎Knopf)

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gregory Pardlo explores race, faith, and the complexities of the law, blending profound reflections on historical figures with contemporary social issues, inviting readers into a deeply personal and thought-provoking journey through poetry.

Morgan Parker (TSOA ’22), You Get What You Pay For (One World)

Acclaimed poet and writer Morgan Parker candidly explores her personal struggles with loneliness, depression, and the pervasive effects of racism in America. Through a collection of essays, she examines America’s cultural history and relationship to Black Americans through different time periods.

Sara Shepard (CAS ’99), Nowhere Like Home (‎Dutton)

In Sara Shepard’s Nowhere Like Home , the main character Lenna is drawn into a mysterious community in the desert by her long-lost friend Rhiannon, and uncovers unsettling secrets and confronts her own past. This novel explores friendship, trauma, and unexpected twists.

Take A Day Trip (Denzel Baptiste TSOA ’14 and David Biral TSOA ’15), Producers, “ Human Made” by Kid Cudi

This dynamic NYU alumni duo produced “Human Made” on hip-hop icon Kid Cudi’s latest album Insano .

Fletcher (TSOA ’16),  In Search Of The Antidote

FLETCHER’s sophomore album, In Search of the Antidote , released in March chronicles her journey towards self-love and healing from past experiences.

Johanna (Hanna) Herbst (STERN ’09), Reach Your Goals

Each week, Johanna engages in enlightening conversations with inspiring figures, delving into a wide array of career and business-related subjects to provide you with the wisdom necessary to progress toward a more fulfilling professional journey. 

Karina Longworth (GSAS ’05), You Must Remember This

Created and narrated by alum Karina Longworth, You Must Remember This explores the secret and forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century, featuring guest stars from various fields and delivering researched creative nonfiction stories that navigate the behind-the-scenes of the entertainment industry.

June Diane Raphael (TSOA ’02) and Paul Scheer (STEINHARDT ’98), How Did This Get Made?

Hosts Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas welcome guest creatives to engage in lively, candid, and heated discussions about some of cinema’s most notorious worst films.

Maggie Rogers (TSOA ’16), “ So Sick Of Dreaming ” 

“So Sick Of Dreaming,” a song exploring the complexities of relationships, is part of Maggie Rogers' highly anticipated third studio album, Don't Forget Me .

Rob Silverstone (STERN ’89), Rob Silverstone Show

Host Rob Silverstone draws from his experiences in finance and media to impart invaluable lessons, empowering you to excel in your professional endeavors. Explore insights on management, leadership, personal finance, goal achievement, and effective networking.

Anna Van Valin (TOSA ’04), Every Day is a Food Day

Discover the unexpected stories behind your favorite snacks. Co-hosts Lia Ballentine and Anna Van Valin get into the fascinating world of food, uncovering tales of lawsuits, corporate intrigue, and more. 

Lindsey Weber (CAS ’08),  Who? Weekly

If you’ve ever felt lost in the midst of social media chatter, hosts Lindsey Weber and Bobby Finger will bring you up to speed. They dish out the latest scoop on all the who's who, what they're up to, and why it matters.

Nicole Zuraitis (STEINHARDT ’07),  How Love Begins

How Love Begins , the Grammy-winning jazz vocal album captivates with its original compositions, drawing inspiration from the environment around us.

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