Summary

Chapter 1, “Nothing That Boy Did,” begins in the present with author Timothy B. Tyson interviewing Carolyn Bryant, now 80 years old, about the murder of Emmett Till as she serves him coffee and a slice of pound cake. In 1955 fourteen-year-old Emmett arrived from Chicago to visit family in Money, Mississippi. Unfamiliar with Southern racial tension, Emmett reportedly flirted with Carolyn when buying candy at the store owned by her husband. He either touched or squeezed her hand, asked for a date, and said goodbye upon leaving the store. Legend has it that Emmett gave a kind of wolf whistle to her as she exited the store to retrieve a pistol from her car.

A few days later, Carolyn’s husband and brother-in-law, Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam kidnapped and killed Emmett and threw his body in the Tallahatchie River. A young fisherman found...