Timothy thyssen, also known as, tim tyson, tim is the Senior Research scholar at the center for documentary studies at duke, visiting professor of american christianity in southern culture at the Duke Divinity School and an adjunct professor of american studies at unc chapel hill. So you can tell it is a very inclusive guy. He has an appointment at duke and you and see. Were not, talk basketball tonight. He is the author of which is a finalist for the National Book award. In a book called radio free dick see. Tim also serves on the executive board of the North Carolina naacp. Tim can tell you more about this book than i can. I just want to say that he does a marvelous job of putting emmett tills murder and lynching into a context of American History. His earlier books and is about a similar incident that happened 15 years later North Carolina law 25 miles from here. I learned a few years ago about another similar incident that happened three blocks from here. At the intersection of club boulevard and ninth street. Wear black during the war 1944, black soldier in uniform he was from philadelphia. He would not move to the back of a bus. When he got off the bus the bus driver got off and shot and killed him. And as is usual in these cases, an allwhite jury found the people that clearly committed these crimes, not guilty. So there is quite a very sad tradition here. One last thing i want to say, and working in on publicity in this book i went on Google Images looking for a picture of emmett till. There are two important pictures of emmett till, one of him as a marvelous, handsome, full of life 14yearold and thenyearold and then the picture of him and his open casket which his mother insisted on well there are not words for what that image shows. There just are not. After all these years it just moves you to tears. It is astounding. So i would like to turn this over to tim. He will say it is in my great pleasure and honor to be a friend of tim and have him be a long time customer of this bookstore and were thrilled to have him back for this marvelous book. Tim tyson. [applause] well, happy birthday to the sit in movement. At 57 years ago i think. [applause] is swept out of North Carolina and spread across nine states and 300 cities or so. It turned the Civil Rights Movement into a Mass Movement rooted in nonviolent direct action and driven by youth. It is one of the most important moments in the Civil Rights Movement and im always proud of North Carolina. I want to say about the word about the young people one is that some have grown up in the south pot that was a good idea . I exaggerate by like two people. Like Martin Luther king did not think it was a good idea, but the young people went ahead. They had one thing in common many of them called themselves the emmett till generation. They were 15, there 14, there 60 when they saw that picture that tom referred to. And a great many of them, john lewis and a great many of them mark that day is the day that pointed there footsteps toward joining this movement that would transform the nation. It it is one of the most important things is the most important thing about this story really its not the horrifying tragedy of it, as horrifying as it is. And we cant belittle that. We cant ever forget that. They broke his femur which is the strongest bone in your body it youre able to jump up and down on it to do that. They were in an equipment shed, i think there is plenty to choose from. They clipped his ear off. They shattered his skull into many pieces. They popped his eye out some kind of metal instrument. All of this, every below driven by White Supremacy. This countrys birthplace birthplace is not Constitution Hall in philadelphia, its not a big house on monticello where Thomas Jefferson wrote the declaration of independence perhaps by the light of the lamp brought to him by a person to whom he held the deed of ownership. And yet yet was the mother of his children. You think the country is crazy, that is one place you could start looking but the country is really born in the bottom of the atlantic ocean, literally in the abyss where the bones of millions of dead africans settle into the stand in the enormous stuff machine that built world capitalism that started this country and undergirded its economic system, that is where the country began with 6,000,000, 7,000,000, 8,000,000, were not, 8 million, were not sure, we know a lot of data we know a lot more because it was big business. You needed insurance. They wrote it down. They kept record. We have computers. So now with the database you can study that ncb can forget these were all, everyone, human beings. Millions they called many thousands gone, some are inception men what has divided us has been what they called the changing of race in america. Of the allimportant question i was at the heart of this countrys birth and that goes through like a blood he red thread to this very day. That is what will be the role of the sons and daughters of africa. What will be their place in the democracy, in the universal vision of the worlds greatest democracy. I use the word ironically because it meant nothing whatsoever. Those were into words indeed before those young people took the seat in the drugstore in greensboro. Before the nonviolent armies of love had marched through the streets of the south before the passage of the civil rights act, the Voting Rights act and the fair housing act, those were just words on paper. Something somebody fancied. Saying so doesnt make it so. Indeed, were still wrestling with that. Im 57 years old. I did not expect to be fighting for brown versus board of education and the damn Voting Rights act. Ive had another thing or two in mind that i will spare you. We are in a democracy at this very moment that has its root in the politics of race, and the discomfort, and the fear, and the resentment, in the range of much of White America about the changing role of the sons and daughters of africa, embodied in the first africanamerican president of the United States. But, but, goes far beyond him. His assemble of a change. He is not the change. And theres much changing to be done and people know that. Some people feel that with joy, some people feel that with vision, some people feel that with fear, some people feel that with hatred. We have an imitation George Wallace carnival barker who first brought himself to Public Notice by taking on fullpage ad in the New York Times saying that the five young africanamerican men who were accused of raping a white woman in a white woman in central part in new york were guilty and that they ought to be put to death. They went to prison after the dna evidence proved they had nothing to do with that crime, after the dna evidence led lawenforcement to the person who had committed the crime, donald trump said they were still guilty. He was the centerpiece of the birth or movement. Said that our president , our president was illegitimate, not us is a trend not a citizen, not the president said that africanamericans political power the citizenship itself is inherently legitimate and is at the heart of the Political Movement of White Supremacy at the very beginning of things. Thats what toppled the reconstruction in a river of blood thats what overthrew the government of North Carolina, the democratically elected interracial Fusion Movement, not perfect, far from it but an important experiment in the politics of the multiracial policy which was overthrown by force, by murder in the streets, by theft and armed men guarding the ballot boxes. There are counties in North Carolina which had a black majority and went 90 in favor of its new constitutional amendment to disfranchisement themselves. I suspect not. They overthrew the government they put in place the jim crow order of the south and a racial system, echoes of which are still living with to this day. But which began to shake and tremble in the 1950s in one of the largest tremors came from muddy mississippi where 14yearold boy was butchered like a hog because he had violated the racial etiquette shall we say, of the jim crow south. This place of race that we are in, it calls us to answer the question will the defendants of the enslaved ever get equal justice in the United States of america . That is a very serious question. Mass incarceration, the militarization of the police, Police Murder on film. Massive inequality, please violence is only the most visible issue of all, but it is connected to the landscape of inequality and injustice that still marks this country. Very proud to say that there are a lot of people, i have seen several in North Carolina, i have seen 50,000 thousand of them once or twice, on february the 11th. [applause] we will all see them. We will all see them. Down on east south street in downtown raleigh in front of Shaw University in the raleigh municipal tens of thousands of us will march to the state capital. I believe the governor has an office there. Oh yes, its its a new governor, isnt it. [applause] they dont like it they consume us to the North CarolinaSupreme Court where i dont think the dances are too good. No thanks to them. Weve got the resegregation of the Public Schools in this country, we have got the evisceration of the Voting Rights act and as soon as the Voting Rights act was gunned to death, then came the legislature for North Carolina full of right wing crack pots, im sorry for of i think i am okay. [laughter] we have some very good people who figured out where all the black people in North Carolina live. And then they draw the lines for the district. I think theres a lady crossing the street and the rocky mount and there drawn a line saying whoa trying to stack and pack africanamericans into a small number of districts so that interracial politics and no Fusion Movement could ever rise again to confront them and theyre all white, far right abuse of democracy and exploitation of the difference of human knee. In violation of the moral values that most of us hold their. I dont think any of their mamas , sometimes i think you got no mama . But but i dont think any of their mamas got down beside their bed, said their prayers and they said, you know phil if you ever get a chance, push the poor people off their healthcare, i hope you will. Ill be so proud of you if you can destroy the Public Schools, that would be a fine thing phil. No. No. They know full well what is that it is wrong what they are doing. They have some explanation but it cannot be made. Ask them. It they cannot explain it. They will not debate it. Anyway. Theyre ago again. But, emmett till, why jump so far ahead and talk about whats going on right now in our home state and across the country. Why talk about that when we have come to talk about a book about emmett till. For one thing, thats what this book is actually about. This book is about how, in the face of horrifying tragedy, brutal injustice, heartbreaking, heartbreaking violence, a courageous mother who is also politically astute leveraged black power accumulated in chicago over six or seven decades of long, slow buildings that brought us to chicagos defender. The largest africanamerican daily in the United States. The Johnson Publishing company. In about ten other National Publications the brotherhood of sleeping car porters, the black labor union, leveraged united packing house workers of america interracial union will become a civilrights union to to black leadership. Steelworkers union, the naacp, a militant naacp led by a labor union official. Oh, im im leaving out the main thing, the dawson machine in chicago which was the black political machine was the most powerful Political Organization on the planet earth. Illinois has a lot of electoral votes. You dont when illinois lets you in chicago. They talk call it the daley machine but the black political machine in chicago led by William Dawson is a mixed bag, like most politicians. He had dumped the previous mayor for racism and has neglected the black community and they installed a fellow named richard daley. Okay, the daley machine them. White folk get to name stuff, i guess. But nonetheless, were talking about the power of chicago that turns into a huge megaphone that pushes the movement that was the world know, turns us into an International News event. It turns an interNational Movement, the unions, the churches, the naacp. These are institutions that have national fingers. They leverage the power of these institutions and build the National Movement a protest of the mention of emmett till. The acquittal of his killers, the ones who were on trial, they missed five or so. But a National Movement. The thing we call the silver Rights Movement that is regional and local it was people who had been again long, slow, patient political organizing a local level for a long time apparel through their lives at the loss of many of their lives in the south. It turned those local movements into a National Movement by providing infrastructure that elevated Martin Luther king jr. To historical status in the United States of america that started in the abyss. In the abyss in the toolshed in mississippi. So, they call these things readings, so im going to redo not quite a page and then i would rather talk with you then at you, thats a lie but i thought i better say. [laughter] really come i would. The glorification of one race and the consequence debasement of another or others is, and always has been a recipe for murder. As James Baldwin wrote. It remains a recipe for toxic selfhatred, poisonous and sometimes equally lethal. The ancient lie remains lethal. It shoots first and dodges questions later. White supremacy leaves almost half of all africanamerican children growing up in poverty in a d industrialized urban wasteland. Pdf. All of us must develop the moral vision and political will bimbette both of the political program. [applause] and the concealed assumption. We have to come to grips with our own history. Not only genocide, of slavery, exploitation and systems of oppression but also the legacy of those resistant and fallback and still fight back we must find what dr. King called menus social movements with the racial chasm of American Life m. Baldwin go further instruct not everything that is changed and nothing can be changed until it is based. And to be in a fall in world of unpeople who inherit a tragically different with no guarantee of success. But we have got in spirit who still walks among us. We have the court room of historical memory to still stand and say there he is. Above balance of the moral landscape that is my 1919 Mamie Bradley would still shake the earth with her candor and courage. Bid to demand justice no and reminding us do remember emmett till. To say his name with those coalitions coming none of North Carolina and other similar crusades. Ricans still hear the marching feet of millions all of them belonging to those who killed emmett till. We can talk now. [laughter] we can do anything. They are out of the room. [laughter] a question or comment . I just heard over the weekend the woman who wrongly accused emmett till has come forward and i think i heard she wrote to book . Is that right it quite. No. But there are some important parts. The woman who falsely accused emmett till to bring about his lynching who has written a book and has finally knowledge in 1955 but the question is coming is that true . And in 2008 i got a phone call from a nice woman is in raleigh to wanted to tell me how much she liked me it wasnt a conversational wanted to have very long. By a was nice i was getting off the phone but she heard that in my voice. She said motherinlaw is coming next week and we would really like to sign it and give it to her for christmas we would like to have a cup of coffee. As i pretended she had not said that. [laughter] and continued to think her warmly and get off the phone. In she said you may have heard of my motherinlaw. Carolyn bryant . I am historian of the black Freedom Movement of the 20th century and historian of the south. Anybody of that description i knew carolyn brand has a set of words is 1955 most people could not find her she has been pursued by journalist dan scholars sometimes not knowing if she is alive or dead. So i said i might be able to find time in my schedule. [laughter] to talk to her. I was working on another book that i had been working on for a while i dont even remember what it is about. [laughter] my intention was to interview her and put the interview into the archives and some historian in the future would use my name but i had no intention of writing a book. I have already written a book about a brutal racial murder rooted with the pure white southern womanhood. I knew about that stuff. So this was familiar territory. So i went to the of library to do a Little Research just to prepare. What i found with the balance and the songs and the memoirs there was one book of history it was then and flimsy and very lightly research and 25 years old. And that surprised me a little bit. With all of the American History textbooks they usually give a paragraph and they go back to the men who killed emmett till. After they could no longer be tried again. The Largest Group forgave them several thousand dollars to tell their story everybody knew that they had killed emmett till anyway and they were scotfree so they told them and they told their story. Even historians figured that if they admitted to killing a 14 yearold boy that Everything Else must be true but Everything Else was a lie. Not a true sentence in that. They were covering up for relatives, family and friends. I will was surprised at that. High proceeded to do so and it was pretty interesting in she acknowledged the up part about the incident to reciprocate the lynching. She said of the of physical assaults to put the yen saw an, menacing and physical and sexual to say that part is not true. But just like you would, then what did happen . She said honestly i would like to tell you but i dont remember. Is more than 50 years ago. You tell the stories over and over until they seem true but that part is not true. Nothing batboy did could ever justify what was done to him. That is the interview. I still didnt plan to write a book. I interviewed her twice, three hours each time. From inside the family. Who were the people that killed emmett till . What were their lives like . How did they treat each other . And to learn a lot about that in the things that were not true. In division the book i say it is not true. She is not she is just one source. It is not her story. She has no connection whatsoever. Except that i interviewed her. But that night one of my students tell me in the afternoon d. L. Hughley and american comedian who has a radio show ripped me up one side and down the other to help her make millions of dollars over the murder of emmett till. That is pretty interesting. They did not even read the dust jacket. You could have approval to meet a couple of times and that would have worked out a of the role better maybe then there would have suspected. I have little upset about that today. A way that is more than you wanted to hear. [laughter] is a did not upset me you just got to where i could get to it laugh. But i will say that she has the unpublished autobiography. That is what i call it. It is very short. It is more like a Magazine Article link. Not buckling. That is why if i hired a ghostwriter he would publish as a Magazine Article. Then i put it into the archives just like the interview for where the future scholars can get to it. And i am sorry about the confusion. Is started me coz the media media, i didnt know so many red in vanity fair but with that we often focused on the overweight culpability. Fiftysix and the bus they had tutto with it with a cable so will live white people in comer rounder will though white woman do the right thing . That is the tension or the drum up. What do white people duplex i dont need to go one. Yet spam yes maam quick. You are looking at to what you are talking about and i see no digression. Into being in front of my grandfathers store but half of the time i sat out the seats of migrate with civil war was thought to with this who has say about plot of land to be and a cafe au of with the confederacy. But i could talk for hours laugh laugh. Wish you would. [applause] one thing i want to interject is but the oversight and i am not one of those. But to study history of playback to the classical in to message but i am so busy trying to survive. But to be put into this equation, we need to know that in my community for that vice supremacy under Ronald Reagan into South Central was a angeles with the air irancontra war. And century fuse into make that contribution of that intellect in that i forget because i get so emotional. But give him credit to in to make a living in the capitalist country if i had a falling and would not be allowed. [laughter] and. [applause] a couple of things that you touch john. The plot of land your ancestors fought at the dexter rail baptist church. After the murder and the acquittal dr. Martin luther king invited the man from mississippi to be with one of the grassroots activist and who provided all of the witnesses. The prosecution found no witnesses there were all found by the grassroots activist and the great political leader and there was a day woman in the conversation named rosa parks and would talk about of emmett till case ms. Parks was deeply moved and to say later i thought about emmett till and i could not breathe. But the National Movement of the acquittals raised a lot of money thats a Phillip Randolph eleanor roosevelt, nixon keen and i could go on and on to cover rally at Madison Square garden quiff the heroes of the south. That is called the fledgling busboy caught of montgomery. I was told they bought 10 station wagons with the money. And that was a very important piece of the boycott in so was the story of emmett till and that started the process of the of movement but to pay for the war in nicaragua he is not a conspiracy theorist so that is not to say with that broad growth be want but the young white people and the young black people with the same percentage you will be surprised but he is right about everything. Though it is six revs the arrest rate in the sentences that are given a lot of love this echoes with the same dynamic of killed emmett till. I have a question for you about timing. And just but 10 years ago but what she cess coming out no but then the of their pieces in their a statute of limitations or perjury . Susan negative something that should have come out to maybe his friends and family ask for validation. But now some of those people are going. The first thing that i have to remember the second. The first thing was nine years ago that i small negative but the book took me eight years and more to research and write but hundreds of publications but that was not the worst actually. But to have a lot of stamina and hardworking, i enjoy that going through the past and trying to figure out how does a foreign country work . But i like the process. That took a long time. Event and that is more than usual. [laughter] and finally and it is a brutal story. But you have to read imagine. And his main bad happens will as the eighth at and putting it into runs but you were not going down a loan. Auguste people in this room i told his self that was my first go for of whom put the peace why it is taken but honestly right now in the media moment, it seems like a big news story to be important from the past. And as a historian, i never thought she was telling the truth. She gave an interview. But she talked to her attorney the feminine but describing them a boy at was obnoxious but nobody put their new insulin anybody. So i knew that. Also, think about it. Met the most people know about. Bill will just be seemed by millions. I am sorry with mine middleaged brain. [laughter] that is what i wanted to mention in all of those accounts to set in the month of prayer from chicago. Bomb if the nature of the offense was talking to you think men like that put their heads on their even if 2 00 in the morning so lets not be on that issue. That is the thing. I cannot understand. And the same way but i understand now if that is happening white people are drawn to that. It is important for her to read met that but one it was not something of was thinking about as a historian. Plus that is all they wanted to talk about because in this moment that means to speak to us with hundreds of young activists chanting Michael Brown and a mitt till. Added is what i think. That is what matters about the story that they say his name janet is an emblem of Racial Injustice and the racial caste system in america and the White Supremacy that kills people in a church in charleston. That is what i think about. That is what i wanted to talk about. All they wanted to know was the. I cannot see in to her soul and i just i dont think but i do meyer said but a specially with those who are personally affected one. In aviation aho. We it makes me is itself. But in terms of the free area and pecked i think it is true that. That is what the pawed cast said. But not actually to be in the case. Right. The judge, i was shocked. He was judicious we did not even have a transcript until risley pet to be based on that transix wrote one but if i make you mad on wednesday and on saturday you come shoot me then and it is hard to cry justice. Right . Things dont happen that way so what happens from several days earlier how was that relevant to the murder charge . They ruled that not relevant so they finally agreed to let her testify again p. Other thing but the story told is an old familiar story and with uh defense but they use that in their summation and the word of last. It doesnt matter if the deceased was visible listed in by ms. Bryant in to stand at the top of their head to say there will not be the acquittal but to dismiss that rail prepared to poor what she had did. But none the less as i am looking at the story, i told it to but you began with uh brief description. Seventytwo ever know the truth but stop with a wave describe that trial i had watched with to much. [laughter] dial butcher the question but straighten me out non dahna but what really happened and his cousins were with him and she told the story. But what about the atmosphere . For example,. But then his mother Mamie Bradley said the fed to say eight he has words flung negative trouble getting his words out. But that is not true my opinion. But the necessity to say that is profound because Mamie Bradley knew of the sexual innuendo by her sudden even rudeness would have made it justifiable homicide. To have the speech and it says from our teacher. Sunday we will honor our teachers. [applause] someday. But with the young black period in to pick up the streets of america and how does she teased him met i dont know. I dont know. The mayor that was working with one for 12 years, our sons grew up of around one another and one day we were getting to know each other really. And she said i could not raise my voice the way you raise them. I will raise one place. I could have them Walking Around the streets like they own the place. I have to teach them a lot of things. That is only one the one of many moments of education. But tuesday i think i can. I think i can. She let me going through the worlds. But everybody wants that. But it is the perils of. Predecessor generation but the dangers of our men in it and and and and but this pushing and would you know, who you are and what you were doing and you know youre in the right place, to dismiss the danger she was in it and if you cannot live a in that way. But. Key was framed and no question. But the young africanamerican little boy is and how they should act but maybe to a the white mothers what is that say to your son . That is the burden to have a position and. [applause] but always to be in front of them as much as you but to meet the people who are part of making that change. If they grow up they can nix been but it is hell in did did he is. [inaudible]. White frankly i think that this ridiculous. Have worked every day with people grew give their all to provide the very best care and we have the best Health Care System in the world. Are their mistakes made . Of course. Does the need to be a commitment to constant improvement off there is the thing going on that anybody should worry about. Did think there are cases we saw in los angeles earlier this year. Co the station had resistant bacteria but their residential death because they are dying in the hospital bed to not cleaned properly. So i hope the discussion that we get to that we in medicine and a perfect then we have to get a lot better. The did you h. Joe estimated there will be 50 Million Deaths from resistant bacteria but literally three days later there was a discovery in maine and bacteria made it to attack the others and we thought we had them all. So they put that into the culture that would never grow and they identified a new bacteria in the killed every drugresistant strain. But though hard part is how to weave make sure and your Pharmaceutical Company . No ones did do a a drug for a couple hundred people per year . We need to fix the system and liggett hospitals to say we are aware and make it better. The best of the worst and how did we take care of them . With a local back to say what did we do right or may get better . Hospital is not a fun place place, they wake you up all night to be really need 3 00 in the morning Blood Pressure . No. Even though this the this important we wake them up anyway. We do need to redo the hospital because right now if you go to a Doctors Office they collect data and then call you a couple couple later with the results is not terry efficient but in the future you do it all at home then you had a discussion