Excerpt from The Barn by Wright Thompson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

We agreed to start in Money.

Money, Mississippi, was once home to the Money Planting Company, owned by Charles Merrill of Merrill Lynch, whose grandsons now donate to Weems's ETIC, perhaps in hopes of settling some cosmic debt. Follow Grand Boulevard in Greenwood past all the cotton mansions, and cross over the Yalobusha River bridge, and the boulevard name changes to Money Road. That's where Emmett Till whistled at Carolyn Bryant and three days later got kidnapped and murdered by her husband and his brothers.

"I just can't imagine the dark of night being in the back of that truck," Weems says quietly. "He just turned fourteen."

Till's murder gave powerful fuel to the civil rights movement, and his symbolic importance has only grown in power. When Americans gather to protest racial violence, someone almost certainly will be carrying his picture, held high like a cross, no name needed. His innocent, hopeful face delivers the message. But the way Till exists in the firmament of American history stands in startling opposition to the gaps in what we know about his killing. No one knows how many people were involved. Most historians think at least six were present. There's a small orbit of researchers who have made this murder their life's work, filmmakers like Keith Beauchamp and Fatima Curry, authors like Devery Anderson and Chris Benson, retired law enforcement officers like Dale Killinger, journalists like Jerry Mitchell, academics like Dave Tell at Kansas and Davis Houck at Florida State. These folks mostly agree on all the details but argue over how many people were present at the barn. After four years of reporting, I think the number is probably eight.

Excerpted from The Barn by Wright Thompson. Copyright © 2024 by Wright Thompson. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.