In his new book, Wright Thompson revisits the murder of Emmett Till

But Thompson had never heard of Till until he wanted to study out of state.

In his new book, “The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi,” Thompson says that's no coincidence: attempts continue to whitewash Till's story.

“There is a battle raging in America between memory and erasure,” he said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Thompson, a senior writer at ESPN, came up with the idea for his latest book at the start of the coronavirus pandemic while researching a story about the ancestors of the Los Angeles Lakers, who left the South as part of the Great Migration of the early 20th century . One of the players was related to Amanda Bradley, a witness to Till's murder.

With his curiosity piqued, Thompson called Patrick Weems, executive director of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, Mississippi.

“He said, 'We should go for a ride,'” Thompson remembers.

What he found was the barn where Till was tortured and killed. Amazingly, it is now owned by a local dentist who uses it to store Christmas lights and duck hunting equipment.

Thompson called the owner a “nice guy” who lacked curiosity about the gruesome history of his property.

“He's very welcoming to anyone who's interested, but he's not interested himself,” Thompson said.

“His grill is within sight of the barn,” Thompson said. “I mean, how do you grill hamburgers and drink Bud Lite while watching this?”

Thompson began to take a fresh look at the Till story, which centered around the barn.

“I started looking into the history of the land around the barn and under the barn,” he said. “I wanted to do an in-depth history of this place.”

What emerges is an intimate look at Till and his story, but also a panoramic meditation on the cultural and political forces that worked together to make the tragedy all but inevitable.

“The horror and the threat comes from how preordained it was,” Thompson said.

As a native son, Thompson also grapples with his own family's complicated history. His great-grandfather supported segregation, while his father continued to fight for civil rights.

He said that although Till's murder was nearly seven decades ago, the story is still disturbingly relevant. Take, for example, the role of heated political rhetoric.

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared public school segregation unconstitutional, helped fuel a five-way race for governor in Mississippi in which candidates have openly expressed their racist beliefs sentiments expressed, Thompson said.

Till was killed the day after the election.

Thompson said he also wanted to paint a picture of Till, the teenager who loved comic books and the music of Bo Diddley. Today there are only 10 or 12 people left who knew Till.

“For these people he was not a symbol. He was a friend and a son,” he said.

AUTHORS EVENTS

Wright Thompson Talks “The Barn: The Secret History of a Mississippi Murder”

7:00 p.m. Oct. 1. Thompson in conversation with Charles Davis, dean of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. $40, including a copy of the book. Morton Theater, 195 W. Washington St., Athens. grady.uga.edu/event/wright-thompson-lecture.

7:30 p.m. Oct. 2. Thompson speaks with journalist Condace Pressley at an event hosted by the Atlanta History Center and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. Atlanta History Center, McElreath Hall, 130 W. Paces Ferry Road, Atlanta. 404-814-4081, atlantahistorycenter.com/event/wright-thompson.