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The Blood of Emmett Till. By Timothy B. Tyson. (New York and other cities: Simon and Schuster, 2017. Pp. x, 291. Paper, $17.00, ISBN 978-1-47671485-1; cloth, $31.99, ISBN 978-1-4767-1484-4.)
Prior to the lynching of Emmett Till in August 1955, African American activists pursued a multitude of paths to equality and justice during the longterm struggle for legal citizenship. The landmark Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision was both the culmination and commencement of the legal portion of the modern civil rights movement. In response to Till' s murder and the acquittal of the perpetrators, activists across the country mobilized their discontent into a movement that upset the social and political order of the United States. As a catalyst for the modern civil rights movement, the lynching of Emmett Till is central to any understanding of the national movement for equal rights. In The Blood of Emmett Till, Timothy B. Tyson synthesizes...