From Publishers Weekly
Whitfield ( Jews in America's Life and Thought , etc.) here examines the national reaction to the grisly murder in 1955 of Emmett Till, a black teenager accused of whistling at a white woman, whose killers were acquitted by a white jury in Mississippi. The Brown v. Board of Education decision, Whitfield argues persuasively, had strengthened the miscegenation paranoia of Southern white supremicists that was based on their attitudes towards race and sexuality. He further asserts, however, that despite federal passivity in regard to the rights of blacks and the Mississippi state-supported Citizens Councils that intimidated and terrorized its large black minority, Till's sensational case, succinctly reported here, imparted a crucially vital impulse to the civil rights movement of the '60s. The author concludes that the feminist movement, its members' civil rights activities and sexual emancipation have helped to reduce racism.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
From Library Journal
Till, a young black man who was brutally murdered in 1954 in Mississippi, is the focus of this study. Till allegedly made sexually suggestive remarks to a white woman and was found murdered shortly thereafter. Whitfield does not linger long on the actual murder, or on the acquittal of the two whites charged (who later admitted to the murder). Rather he concentrates on the impact of the case on civil rights activists of later years. Among them, Malcolm X, Toni Morrison, and Rod Serling remembered the Till case as a crucial spur to their own growing commitment to attack racial injustice. Thus, the author concludes, the Till murder and the acquittal of his murderers "helped erode" a whole system of race relations. Although speculative in places, this well-written study is strongly recommended. Anthony O. Edmonds, Ball State Univ., Muncie, Ind.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
