Author of Emmett Till Book to Speak at Central Library on May 2

 

Birmingham, Ala. - Join author Dr. Robert Mayer at the Central Library on May 2, 2022, as he discusses his new book, "In the Name of Emmett Till: How the Children of the Mississippi Freedom Struggle Showed Us Tomorrow"

Dr. Mayer's book talk will take place from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. May 2 in the Arrington Auditorium, 2100 Park Place.    

In the Name of Emmett Till" was released on September 14, 2021, by NewSouth Books. It has received rave reviews, such as this one by Charles C. Bolton, professor of history, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro:

"In the Name of Emmett Till" vividly explains how the brutal killing in 1955 of a fourteen-year-old boy in the Mississippi Delta inspired a generation of young people to fight for Black freedom. Mayer’s narrative details how the courageous activism of scores of Mississippi youth in the decade after Till's murder played a decisive role in dismantling the state's system of racial apartheid. This book is a powerful reminder that young people are always at the forefront of positive social change. 

Dr. Mayer's talk about Emmett Till will take place a month after President Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law on March 29, making lynching a federal hate crime after more than a century of failed efforts in Congress to pass similar legislation.

The bill is named after Till, the Black teenager from Chicago who was abducted, tortured and shot in the head in 1955 after a white woman, Carolyn Bryant Donham, said he whistled at her and touched her in a Mississippi store. The Senate cleared the bill on March 7 by unanimous consent, indicating no opposition, after the House passed it on Feb. 28 in a 422-3 vote. 

At a White House Rose Garden signing ceremony on March 29, the President didn't hold back in describing the history of racial violence experienced by Black Americans and its continued impact.

"Lynching was pure terror to enforce the lie that not everyone ... belongs in America, not everyone is created equal," President Biden said. "Terror, to systematically undermine hard-fought civil rights. Terror, not just in the dark of the night but in broad daylight. Innocent men, women and children hung by nooses in trees, bodies burned and drowned and castrated." 

"Their crimes? Trying to vote. Trying to go to school. Trying to own a business or preach the gospel. False accusations of murder, arson and robbery. Simply being Black," he continued. 

Robert H. Mayer is an award-winning author who wrote When the Children Marched: The Birmingham Civil Rights Movement (Enslow Publishers, Inc., 2008) and edited The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Greenhaven Press, 2004). 

 Mayer grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has lived in Pennsylvania his entire adult life, as a social studies teacher in Lewisburg and then a professor of education at Moravian College in Bethlehem. 

 Along the way, he earned an M.A. in history from Xavier University in Cincinnati and a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction from the Pennsylvania State University in State College. 

Retiring after 41 years of teaching, Mayer now researches and writes most of the day, living in Bethlehem with his wife Jan and his cat Lucy. In truth, he does still teach a little.