Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case

This book was very difficult for me to get through.  It truly brought that portion of the nation's history, horrific as it may be, to life.  As a person who grew up in this country after the Civil Rights Movement, it is difficult for me to fathom this horrific event occurring.  

I have never known a segregated society...I have never known what it is like to be anything but free to go about my life and do as I please...I have always had friends from multiple races and ethnicity.  

Reading this book was almost surreal for me as I tried to imagine that this event took place only 53 years ago in my own country.  This book helped me see just how far we have come and yet, I realized just how far we have to go to overcome ideals of inequality in our country.  Who are we to judge in this manner?

This is a book that I would only use in a high school setting with students mature enough to truly understand and handle the content.  The subject matter is so very important for students to understand that it deserves the utmost respect.  For so many of our students, the Civil Rights Movement began with Rosa Parks' bold stand on that bus in Montgomery, Alabama, but the truth is that the roots go far deeper than a seat on a bus.  As a nation, we tend to gloss over that part of history.  We would like to be able to forget that dark side of our past; yet it is always there.  

I would probably use this book in a unit about the Civil Rights Movement, where it most definitely has a rightful place.   I might also consider using it in an English class on non-fiction.  This book, unlike other history books, told a story instead of reading in a very clinical way with just the facts.  Crowe helped paint a picture for us as readers of a Deep South we have only heard rumored.  I really liked that he set the stage for the time and did not just give the facts.  A story like this is difficult to imagine in the times we live where we like to think that justice is done. In many cases, the reader needs more information about the social and political climate of the times in order to understand the significance of this terrible event.  He helped me understand a time in our history that I have previously only been able to picture from an extremely clinical perspective.