About this item
Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement offers the first truly comprehensive account of the 1955 murder and its aftermath. It tells the story of Emmett Till, the fourteen-year-old African American boy from Chicago brutally lynched for a harmless flirtation at a country store in the Mississippi Delta. His death and the acquittal of his killers by an all-white jury set off a firestorm of protests that reverberated all over the world and spurred on the civil rights movement. Like no other event in modern history, the death of Emmett Till provoked people all over the United States to seek social change.For six decades the Till story has continued to haunt the South as the lingering injustice of Till's murder and the aftermath altered many lives.
About the Author
Devery S. Anderson is an editor at Signature Books, a scholarly press in Salt Lake City, Utah. He has published several books and articles on Mormon history and has a passion for the American civil rights movement. His book, Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement, was released by the University Press of Mississippi in August 2015 to high acclaim. It has been optioned by Hollywood and will be the basis of a six-part HBO miniseries produced by Will Smith, Jay Z, Casey Affleck, and Aaron Kaplan. Look for it in 2018.
He is passionate about his research and writing, is a stickler for accuracy, and has been known to drive across the state to locate a footnote he recorded only partially. He is funny, passionate, and driven. He is currently working on a book on Mississippi Freedom Summer, 1964, and is wrapping up work on the life of Willard Richards, an early Mormon apostle.
He lives in Salt Lake City and is the father of three children.
