Richard Pérez-Peña uses Carolyn Donham’s confession 60 years in the making to shed light on the horrible Jim Crow laws and racism alive in the 50’s. Emmett Till was 14 year old black boys accused by Donham of sexual misconduct. The accusation sparked a chain of events that caused uproar in the black communities in America. Two white men were responsible for the death by lynching of Till. The two white men were put in trial before and all-white, all-male jury. This jury acquitted the two men. At Till’s open coffin funeral Till’s “gruesomely mutilated body” (Pérez-Peña) was photographed by Jet Magazine. This publishment of the article in Jet Magazine, some say, helped spark the civil rights movement.
“Wheeler Parker, 77, a cousin of Emmett’s
“Wheeler Parker, 77, a cousin of Emmett’s