Events

Coming Up:

Tragedy on Trial: The Story of the Infamous Emmett Till Murder Trial is the new book by Ronald Collins. The book examines the sham trial of two men acquitted in the murder of Emmett Till, a Black teenager from Chicago who was visiting relatives in Money, Miss., in the summer of 1955. Till was abducted, lynched and his body mutilated. The two white defendants were found not guilty by an all-white, all-male jury. They later sold their story to Look magazine, admitting that they had tortured and murdered Till but knowing they were free of further charges because of the constitutional protection of double jeopardy. The book was described as “groundbreaking” by Janai Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Collins is the Lewes (Del.) Public Library’s distinguished lecturer and a retired law professor. He last taught at the University of Washington School of Law where he was the Harold S. Sheffelman scholar in constitutional law. He is the author of 13 books. His scholarly publications have appeared in over 50 academic journals including the law reviews at Harvard and Stanford. He served as a judicial fellow under U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger and later as senior scholar of the Newseum’s First Amendment Center in Washington, D.C.

The session will be moderated by Otis Sanford, professor emeritus in Journalism and Strategic Media at the University of Memphis. He is the author of From Boss Crump to King Willie: How Race Changed Memphis Politics and serves as political analyst and commentator for WATN-TV ABC24 News, a columnist for The Daily Memphian and political analyst for WKNO-FM, the NPR affiliate in Memphis.