Segregation, NAACP, Rosa Parks: how the death of Emmett Till created a "shock" in the United States?

INTERVIEW – In 1955, in Mississippi, Emmett Till, an African-American teenager, was lynched, after whistling a white woman.

His death will be a tipping point in the fight for civil rights in the United States.

To understand this, the historian Virginie Girod receives the journalist specializing in the United States Gilles Biassette.

At the time of Emmett Till's death, "we are still at the heart of the segregation that is raging in the southern United States", recalls Gilles Biassette, senior reporter for La Croix.

"In the aftermath of the Civil War the South lost, Southern states implemented what were called Jim Crow laws, which effectively made black people second-class citizens with different, lesser rights , living separately from white people. It's a form of apartheid",

sums up the journalist specializing in the Americas.

To fight against this racial discrimination, an organization is on the front line: the NAACP.

"It is truly the pioneer organization in the fight for civil rights in the United States. It was born at the beginning of the XXᵉ century and it was also born after a whole series of lynchings and anti-Black riots, including in the North," says Gilles Biassette.

And to add: "The first strategy of the NAACP was to lobby the government in Washington. But a central axis of its policy was also to attack in court this division which justified segregation. C was essentially a lawyer's job, with more or less famous cases".

Among them therefore: Emmett Till.

To fight against this racial discrimination, an organization is on the front line: the NAACP.

"It is truly the pioneer organization in the fight for civil rights in the United States. It was born at the beginning of the XXᵉ century and it was also born after a whole series of lynchings and anti-Black riots, including in the North," says Gilles Biassette.

And to add: "The first strategy of the NAACP was to lobby the government in Washington. But a central axis of its policy was also to attack in court this division which justified segregation. C was essentially a lawyer's job, with more or less famous cases".

Among them therefore: Emmett Till.

To fight against this racial discrimination, an organization is on the front line: the NAACP.

"It is truly the pioneer organization in the fight for civil rights in the United States. It was born at the beginning of the XXᵉ century and it was also born after a whole series of lynchings and anti-Black riots, including in the North," says Gilles Biassette.

And to add: "The first strategy of the NAACP was to lobby the government in Washington. But a central axis of its policy was also to attack in court this division which justified segregation. C was essentially a lawyer's job, with more or less famous cases".

Among them therefore: Emmett Till.

pioneering civil rights organization in the United States.

It was born at the beginning of the XXᵉ century and it was also born after a whole series of lynchings and anti-Black riots, including in the North", indicates Gilles Biassette. And to add: "The first strategy of the NAACP was to lobby the government in Washington.

But a central axis of his policy was also to attack before the courts this division which justified segregation.

It was essentially a lawyer's job, with more or less famous cases". Among them: Emmett Till.

pioneering civil rights organization in the United States.

It was born at the beginning of the XXᵉ century and it was also born after a whole series of lynchings and anti-Black riots, including in the North", indicates Gilles Biassette. And to add: "The first strategy of the NAACP was to lobby the government in Washington.

But a central axis of his policy was also to attack before the courts this division which justified segregation.

It was essentially a lawyer's job, with more or less famous cases". Among them: Emmett Till.

says Gilles Biassette.

And to add: "The first strategy of the NAACP was to lobby the government in Washington. But a central axis of its policy was also to attack in court this division which justified segregation. C was essentially a lawyer's job, with more or less famous cases".

Among them therefore: Emmett Till.

says Gilles Biassette.

And to add: "The first strategy of the NAACP was to lobby the government in Washington. But a central axis of its policy was also to attack in court this division which justified segregation. C was essentially a lawyer's job, with more or less famous cases".

Among them therefore: Emmett Till. 

This interview was produced on the occasion of the theatrical release on February 8, 2023 of the film "Emmett Till, the face of a revolution", directed by Chinonye Chukwu, with Danielle Deadwyler and Whoopi Goldberg.