Though the murder of Emmett Till shocked 1950's America into turning attention to the racial crimes of the South, it was far from the first time racism had erupted into violence. High schoolers examine the killing in context with the history of lynching in the United States, and how the backlash fueled a resistance that eventually led to the Civil Rights Movement.

Concepts

emmett till, lynching, discrimination, racism, the civil rights movement

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Additional Tags

social studies

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Instructional Ideas

• Use Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" to introduce the topic

Classroom Considerations

• Lesson takes two class periods to complete
• The third part of a four-lesson unit
• Images in the lesson are violent; follow the resource's advisory to provide time for learners to process the images they are seeing

Pros

• Provides the context of racism and hate crimes in America to one of the more prominent murder cases of the 20th century

Cons

• None