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The State of Things

Talk

Taking a Lesson from Emmett Till

WUNC | By Frank Stasio,

Shawn Wen

Published March 23, 2012 at 10:39 AM EDT

More than a half century before 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was killed by a neighborhood watch captain in Florida, another black teenager named Emmett Till was murdered in Mississippi. “Dar He: The Lynching of Emmett Till” tells his story, with actor Mike Wiley playing all 36 roles in film. Wiley and filmmaker Rob Underhill join host Frank Stasio to talk about collaborating on their new movie and what Till’s murder in 1955 can teach us about race relations in America today.

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Frank Stasio

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.

See stories by Frank Stasio

Shawn Wen

Shawn Wen joined the staff of The State of Things in March 2012 and served as associate producer until February 2014.

See stories by Shawn Wen

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Arts & Culture

'Till' forgotten at Oscars, but not in Mound Bayou, Mississippi

Leoneda Inge

Leoneda Inge speaks with the director of the Mound Bayou Museum in the Mississippi Delta and how it features articles and props from the "Women of the Movement" miniseries about the lynching of Black teenager, Emmett Till.
News

Grand jury declines to indict woman in Emmett Till killing

Associated Press

A Mississippi grand jury has declined to indict the white woman whose accusation set off the lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till nearly 70 years ago, most likely closing the case that shocked a nation and galvanized the modern civil rights movement.
News

Emmett Till and the 1955 warrant for Carolyn Bryant Donham's arrest

Leoneda Inge

In August 1955, Chicago teenager Emmett Till died a gruesome death. The Black boy was lynched, while visiting family in Mississippi. No one has ever been convicted of the crime, but an unserved warrant was recently discovered for Carolyn Bryant Donham.
News

Emmett Till accuser, in memoir, denies wanting teen killed

Associated Press

The white woman who was at the center of the 1955 lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till in Mississippi denies wanting him killed. The claim comes in a memoir by Carolyn Bryant Donham that was obtained by The Associated Press.
Arts & Culture

'Dar He!' The artistic advocacy of Mike Wiley

Leoneda Inge

The North Carolina-based playwright and actor Mike Wiley has spent the past 15 years performing his one-man show "Dar He," educating audiences about the 1955 murder and lynching of Emmett Till.