美国国家公共电台 NPR Emmett Till's Father Was Also Hanged: A New Book Tells His Story

Emmett Till's Father Was Also Hanged: A New Book Tells His Story

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0006:39repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser¹ to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. SCOTT SIMON, HOST: 

Even a well-known story depends on where you begin to tell it. Emmett Till was a 14-year-old boy from Chicago visiting relatives in Mississippi in the summer of 1955 when he was lynched by white men who said he'd flirted² with a white woman. Emmett Till's body was returned home to Chicago where his mother insisted on an open casket. Photos were wired around the globe, and the world saw how a young African-American teenager had been murdered and mutilated by white men and would be free within a month.

John Edgar Wideman, the writer, had begun to look into the Emmett Till case for a novel when he discovered the case of his father, Louis Till, convicted of the rape³ and murder of two Italian women in 1945 during U.S. military occupation. The result is his book, "Writing To Save A Life: The Louis Till File." And John Edgar Wideman joins us from New York. Thanks so much for being with us.

JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN: I'm glad to be here.

SIMON: You were the same age as Emmett Till. What was it like to see those photos and grow up with that story?

WIDEMAN: It scared the crap out of me. I was transfixed by the photo of a kid my age whose face was almost beyond recognition. It just was horrific, the fact that he was an African-American kid of color like me. So I had many, many ways that I connected with that face, that boy's face.

SIMON: Let me try and set some of the bare facts in the Louis Till case out. Louis Till and a man named Fred McMurray were privates in the Transportation Corps⁴ in the - it must be said - segregated⁵ U.S. Army during World War II. They were found guilty of the rape of two Italian women and the murder of one during an air raid in 1944 by an Army court martial⁶, and both of them were hanged to death. What are some of the discrepancies⁷ or irregularities that you think you found in the trial record?

WIDEMAN: My conclusion was, after I did the research, is that Louis Till nor Fred McMurray ever had a chance. It was decided⁸ long before anybody even knew their names that some black soldier's going to take the fall for these crimes.

SIMON: What do you make - as I think a reader wonders as they read this - what do you make of Louis Till's silence?

WIDEMAN: It bothers me. Somebody needed to speak up. Somebody needed to contradict what the Army officers were saying or what the other allegedly guilty parties were saying. But it also - I recognized his silence. I recognized the silence of someone who knows better than to waste his breath or her breath addressing power.

SIMON: So you're postulating⁹, theorizing, that Louis Till believed he was being framed and thought it was senseless to offer any kind of objection or defense¹⁰ and therefore just stayed silent. I don't know what - maybe hoping for a break in the sentencing or something.

WIDEMAN: I think peasants in the Ukraine, peasants in China, peasants in Mississippi in various stages of history all had that internal sense that you speak very little to the master, who's ever in control, because anything you say will be held against you and can be held against you. And so it was dangerous to speak, and therefore that silence was part of the heritage. That was part of the legacy¹¹.

SIMON: At some point during the trial of the people who went free charged with Emmett Till's murders, the story of Emmett Till's father was leaked, wasn't it?

WIDEMAN: After that first trial, the federal government put pressure on the state of Mississippi and said, you've got to try these guys for something. Come on. You just can't let them go. The whole world's screaming. It's bad for Mississippi, bad for the South. So the state of Mississippi decided that kidnapping charges would be preferred against the two murders because during the course of this trial they had both admitted that in fact they did at gunpoint take Emmett Till in the middle of the night out of his great uncle's house. But at that point, the press was informed that Till's father had committed murder and rape in Italy and been executed. And so that just made it absolutely impossible to charge Milam and Bryant with kidnapping.

SIMON: I have to ask this, Mr. Wideman, because it's been in the news. You have a son who has a parole hearing coming up.

WIDEMAN: Yes.

SIMON: Can we explain the circumstances?

WIDEMAN: Prisons are awful, awful places. And believe it or not, to make public an inmate's good luck actually puts them in jeopardy¹², in jeopardy of the jealousy¹³ of other prisoners, the guards. He becomes a target. Let me, at the same time, say he is closer to release at this moment than he has been in over 30 years. And that is - that is all good news.

SIMON: We should explain he was convicted of the 1986 murder of a 16-year-old named named Eric Kane. Fathers and sons, sons and fathers, and now you're telling the story in a sense of Louis and Emmett Till. How do you think that works into your novels?

WIDEMAN: Well, I think I've been dealing¹⁴ with the same ideas for an awful long time. I had a vexed¹⁵ relationship with my father, mainly because he and my mother didn't get along all the time. And he had the same kinds of complicated forces in his life that Louis Till had. My search for the past is a subject of my novels and my fiction and continues to be. And so this book about Louis Till and Emmett Till is a natural continuation of all that research into who I am, where I come from, what it all means.

SIMON: John Edgar Wideman - his book, "Writing To Save A Life: The Louis Till File." Thanks so much for being with us.

WIDEMAN: Thank you for the chance to say hello and to have a talk.

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 flirted   

v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She flirted her fan. 她急速挥动着扇子。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• During his four months in Egypt he flirted with religious emotions. 在埃及逗留的这四个月期间，他又玩弄起宗教情绪来了。 来自辞典例句

3 rape   

n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸

参考例句：

• The rape of the countryside had a profound ravage on them.对乡村的掠夺给他们造成严重创伤。
• He was brought to court and charged with rape.他被带到法庭并被指控犯有强奸罪。

4 corps   

n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组

参考例句：

• The medical corps were cited for bravery in combat.医疗队由于在战场上的英勇表现而受嘉奖。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

5 segregated   

分开的； 被隔离的

参考例句：

• a culture in which women are segregated from men 妇女受到隔离歧视的文化
• The doctor segregated the child sick with scarlet fever. 大夫把患猩红热的孩子隔离起来。

6 martial   

adj.战争的，军事的，尚武的，威武的

参考例句：

• The sound of martial music is always inspiring.军乐声总是鼓舞人心的。
• The officer was convicted of desertion at a court martial.这名军官在军事法庭上被判犯了擅离职守罪。

7 discrepancies   

n.差异，不符合（之处），不一致（之处）( discrepancy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• wide discrepancies in prices quoted for the work 这项工作的报价出入很大
• When both versions of the story were collated,major discrepancies were found. 在将这个故事的两个版本对照后，找出了主要的不符之处。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

9 postulating   

v.假定，假设( postulate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

10 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

11 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

12 jeopardy   

n.危险；危难

参考例句：

• His foolish behaviour may put his whole future in jeopardy.他愚蠢的行为可能毁了他一生的前程。
• It is precisely at this juncture that the boss finds himself in double jeopardy.恰恰在这个关键时刻，上司发现自己处于进退两难的境地。

13 jealousy   

n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌

参考例句：

• Some women have a disposition to jealousy.有些女人生性爱妒忌。
• I can't support your jealousy any longer.我再也无法忍受你的嫉妒了。

14 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

15 vexed   

adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论

参考例句：

• The conference spent days discussing the vexed question of border controls. 会议花了几天的时间讨论边境关卡这个难题。
• He was vexed at his failure. 他因失败而懊恼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》