Simeon's Story: An Eyewitness Account of the Kidnapping of Emmett Till
Units on the civil rights movement would be remiss not to include this powerful firsthand account. Wright was there when his cousin Till whistled at white cashier Carolyn Bryant; he shared the same bed as Till when two white men burst into the house to drag him away; and he was witness to the decades of scrutiny the case has wrought. Wright focuses on the crime with clarity and passion. His memoir is short and focused, with just enough context about living in Jim Crow Mississippi and, later, about how the incident colored his reactions to Dr. King and Malcolm X. His ground-level insights into the character of 14-year-old Bobo (We didn’t know that Bobo’s first name was Emmett until after he was killed) are invaluable. In many ways, this is a book about the value of primary sources; Wright (along with coauthor Boyd) spends many pages sifting through erroneous stories. The 2005 exhumation, the 2005 documentary The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till, and the 2008 Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act are also given consideration. Grades 6-10. --Daniel Kraus--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.