Getting Away with Murder by Chris Crowe

Wow, this book was incredible. I did not know that story. This was a very well written historical book. Emmet Till was a 13 year old black boy from Chicago who went to visit his cousins in Money, Mississippi. In not understanding the "Jim Crow" laws of the south, even though his Mother, Mamie Till Bradley warned him, he made a deathly mistake of talking to a white woman in a way that was just not done in those days and in that area. Mrs. Bryant, the woman he "molested"- in her words- decided to not tell her husband but the word got out among the community and when her husband got home he was outraged. He got his brother and went over to the home of Mose Wright, where Emmet was staying, and demanded to see him, kidnapped him, took him out to scare him and beat him, and killed him. After finding his body and identifying him, and his mother fighting for his body to be sent home to her, then came the accusations and the court procedings. As Chris Crowe says in the book, "Justice, racist style, was done". The men were let off scot-free from both kidnapping and murdering charges with a smile on their face. This case however enraged the nation black and white, especially after Millam and Bryant sold their story of how they tortured and kill the boy to a magazine. Emmet Till was a brave boy, raised by an amazingly strong woman, who knew who he was and stood for what he believed. He was childishly impulsive but was a child who should not have been killed. However his death made him the boy who started the civil rights movement and eventually gained freedom for black citizens of our country. A freedom that they should have had a long time before this. A freedom they were born with. This was a great book and a great story, one that should never, ever be forgotten. As a young adult book however, Im not sure how I would recommend it. I definatly think young adults should know this story, but I think that even though it is real life, it is a little graphic and disturbing. I think that it depends on the young adult, but I think that it would be a bit too much detail and imagery for some young people. Such an amazing story.

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