Featured photo by Noah McLane
Story by Noah McLane
Ronald Collins spoke to MTSU students and interviewer Jennifer Woodard about his book, “Tragedy on Trial: The Story of the Infamous Emmett Till Murder Trial,” on Monday and what he learned from the trial’s transcripts.
The book includes transcripts from the trial of two men involved in Till’s murder. In his talk, Collins explained some ways the records show how prevalent the racism in that courtroom was.
“All of the African American witnesses, every one of them, was never called by their surname, unlike the whites,” said Collins. “They’re only called by a nickname or their first name.”
He also spoke on how his book also called out the White Press’s purposeful ignorance, specifically William Bradford Huie, whose flawed and one-sided reporting failed to mention several of the men involved in the murder and falsely claimed Till attacked a white woman.
Collins argued it was the Black Press’s work investigating the lynching and the trial that transformed the story into a national flashpoint that eventually became the Civil Rights Movement. They were able to show that, yes, the lynching of a 14-year-old boy in the Deep South is a truth that needs to be talked about, and people need to see that “unvarnished truth.”
“Representation matters, and what we do as journalists matters…we make a difference,” Woodard said. “What you do has the potential to be world-changing to be a voice for justice [and] is such an important part of what we do and what we teach.”
In his talk, Collins expressed his gratitude to the heroes of the trial and whose work made his book possible. These heroes included people like Jet Magazine photographer David Jackson, who took photos of and publicized Emmett’s beaten and bloated body, triggering national outrage in the wider African American community.
Collins thanked TRM Howard, a civil rights leader and entrepreneur, who helped safely house members of the Black Press at his home in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, and Medgar Evers, who helped document and publicize Till’s murder. Howard also housed Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till.
The author explained that “the dead live on the lips,” meaning that when a light is shined on the injustices some people try to keep in the dark, those stories of loss are given the power to create change and live on because of the change they make.
“Sometimes evil is so great that it takes years or decades or centuries before it ends…this story, you know, the evil persists,” Collins said, paraphrasing Simone de Weil, a noted French activist who died in 1943.
Lynchings still exist, but so does the drive to fight injustice—and it’s far from over.
“I wanted to let you guys know that it wasn’t until 2022 that President Biden signed into law the Emmett Till Anti Lynching, which defines lynching as a federal hate crime, increasing the maximum penalty for 30 years, and this was after more than 200 failed attempts over the years,” said Collins.
Noah McLane is the lead news reporter for MTSU Sidelines.
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