Timothy B. Tyson Quote
Seeing that the lynching of Emmett Till was caused by the nature and history of America itself and by a social system that has changed over the decades, but not as much as we pretend. In Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. writes that his worst enemies are not the members of Citizens’ Councils or the Ku Klux Klan but the white moderate who claims to support the goals of the movement but deplores its methods of protest and deprecates its timetable for change: We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.10
Timothy B. Tyson
Seeing that the lynching of Emmett Till was caused by the nature and history of America itself and by a social system that has changed over the decades, but not as much as we pretend. In Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. writes that his worst enemies are not the members of Citizens’ Councils or the Ku Klux Klan but the white moderate who claims to support the goals of the movement but deplores its methods of protest and deprecates its timetable for change: We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.10
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About Timothy B. Tyson
Timothy B. Tyson (born 1959) is an American writer and historian who specializes in the issues of culture, religion, and race associated with the Civil Rights Movement. He is a senior research scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and an adjunct professor of American Studies at the University of North Carolina.
His books have won the Frederick Jackson Turner Award, the James A. Rawley Prize (OAH), the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion, and the Southern Book Award. In addition, two of his books, Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power (1998) and Blood Done Sign My Name (2004), have been adapted into films, and the latter was also adapted into a play.
In 2017, Tyson published The Blood of Emmett Till, which won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and was longlisted for the National Book Award, but which was later subject to controversy regarding a reported confession made by Till's accuser Carolyn Bryant to Tyson which could not be substantiated.
His books have won the Frederick Jackson Turner Award, the James A. Rawley Prize (OAH), the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion, and the Southern Book Award. In addition, two of his books, Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power (1998) and Blood Done Sign My Name (2004), have been adapted into films, and the latter was also adapted into a play.
In 2017, Tyson published The Blood of Emmett Till, which won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and was longlisted for the National Book Award, but which was later subject to controversy regarding a reported confession made by Till's accuser Carolyn Bryant to Tyson which could not be substantiated.