Simeon's story

the long version

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. This gripping 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.