Getting Away with Murder

Throughout the 1960s much of America—especially the South—conducted itself under the cloud of segregation enforced by “Jim Crow” laws. Whites and blacks were separate, and in most cases, certainly not equal. Against this backdrop, the story of 14-year-old Emmett Till is set. Emmett was a young boy from Chicago visiting his family in Mississippi when he allegedly made some “ugly remarks” to a white woman. Following this, the woman’s husband and a group of other men kidnapped and murdered Emmett. Acquitted of the crime, these men would go free only to later admit their guilt to a national audience in Look Magazine. Setting off a firestorm of revolt, this touchstone event helped spark the Civil Rights Movement that would grip the nation through the ’60s and ’70s. Acclaimed author Chris Crowe sheds new light on this often under-reported or overshadowed tragedy of American history. With a compassionate tone, narrator Peter Jay Fernandez adds immediacy to Crowe’s moving prose. “This book is a mandatory addition to all libraries because of the impact and importance this crime had on our history.”—School Library Journal