Simeon Wright is Emmett Till's cousin. A major figure in the documentary The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till, he has been profiled in the Washington Post and has appeared on Tavis Smiley and Court TV. He lives in Countryside, Illinois. Herb Boyd has published 18 books, including We Shall Overcome: The History of the Civil Rights Movement as It Happened, and is managing editor of the Black World Today. He lives in New York City.
A modern tragedy, this story has had a great impact on race relations in America. Emmett Till's kidnapping and murder, a grotesque crime in a Southern backwater that became the catalyst for the civil rights movement, is explained in this dramatic narrative by the cousin who was present every step of the way. Simeon Wright saw and heard his cousin Emmett whistle at Caroline Bryant at a grocery store and slept in the same bed with him when her husband came in and took Emmett away; he was there during the aftermath of the murder, and at the trial, where his father testified. Thisgripping coming-of-age memoir may not bring closure to the Till case, whose perpetrators were left unpunished, but it will set the facts straight about that life-changing incident in 1955.
