‘Framing Emmett Till’ Author Chris Benson On Honoring History to Understand Our Contemporary Moment

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Be sure to listen all the way through the podcast for a breakdown of the day's top local stories. But first, we talked about a new graphic novel that tells the story of Emmett Till. Till is of course the 14-year-old Chicago boy who was kidnapped, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955

Framing Emmett Till, exposing dark fear, is part historical fiction and part memoir. It aims to uncover why Till's story is difficult for our society to grapple with and recount today. Chris Benson is the author. He's an associate professor at Northwestern University and a journalist. In 2003, he co-authored the memoir, Death of Innocence, the story of the hate crime that changed America with Mamie Till-Mobley, Emmett's mom. Chris started by giving us a synopsis of his new book.

Chris Benson (1:25)

The title tells a lot about the story. Framing Emmett Till not only sets out the fact that this kid was wrongly accused and then basically lynched because of that, but it also talks about the story itself and how we frame the narrative, all the things that happened in the history, the atrocities that were committed against African Americans. The question is, how do you frame that narrative and who has the power to do that? Ultimately, the story of Emmett Till is about more than Emmett Till, about more than race, about more than racism, even more about racial violence. It's about power in America. All those things are elements of the establishment and maintenance of power.

Mariah Wolfle (2:09)

A lot to tackle in a graphic novel. And you write in the intro, the purpose is to show the many experiences that have, quote, served as impediments to the gathering and retelling of the compelling story of Emmett Till.

You know, name some of those top level impediments. You know, it's a big question. But if you could summarize, what are some of the impediments that stand before retelling the story of Emmett Till?

Chris Benson (2:34)

Well, you know, this story, well, it's historical.

It also has impact in this contemporary moment. And what we see now is an effort to control the narrative, to wipe out whole chunks of our American story, the American experience, which is harmful because we can't understand the challenges we face now in this contemporary moment unless we understand everything that brought us to this point. So this story stands as a representation of that. To say that, wait a minute, we have to honor our history in order to get some insight about the direction that we're about to take. I mean, think about it. We're at this moment on the cusp of a new demographic reality in this country. White, stop the presses, white is no longer going to be the majority.

We are not going to have an ethnic or racial majority in this country. And clearly some people are having some difficulty dealing with that. So we want to help people understand the challenges that we're facing now in becoming a truly multiracial, multicultural society. Emmett Till helps us understand that. We're now on a parallel track in this contemporary moment with what was going on in 1955 And we set that out in this book, I think, quite powerfully.

Mariah Wolfle (3:45)

What do we need to take from Emmett Till's story right now in this current day?

Chris Benson (3:51)

One, the denial of justice. Clearly nobody has ever been made to answer for the lynching of Emmett Till, the torture and death of this kid.

We need to understand what power looks like and how it's constructed in this country. People talk about our recent elections as a moment of reconstruction in this country. I think we need to talk about deconstruction because it all starts with how we establish identity in this place in order to justify the positions that people are placed in in this society, to justify holding them in those positions with violence. And so, we talk about the impediments here. The impediment is basically this movement to erase parts of our story, to tell a story that people find more acceptable, and to use that in order to justify all the things that are happening now and the things that are about to happen.

Mariah Wolfle (4:47)

In the author's note ahead of the book, you also write, We have included language here that is highly charged and may offend modern-day sensibilities to tell Emmett Till's story. You say, that is in order to keep a promise you made to his mother to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Can you talk about that decision?