With the release of Till in 2022, the movie celebrating Mamie Till-Mobley’s role in the Civil Rights movement, many Americans learned about one of the most important stories in the history of the period. Accurately told, that story is as close to a battle between good and evil as one can find. An innocent Black youth violates an unwritten rule of racial control; he pays with his life, taken by two white men (almost certainly with the help of others), who commit unspeakable acts of cruelty. The injustice became even clearer when an all-white male jury acquitted two obviously guilty murderers. Those events captured the attention of many people who grew up in that era, helping to mobilize support for racial equality. History seldom provides such clear stories of heroes and villains.
One unfortunate offshoot of that narrative was the creation of a one-dimensional view of Mississippi as a place...